Page 588 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Your servant, princes. Good my lord of Rome,
Call forth your soothsayer: as I slept, methought
Great Jupiter, upon his eagle back’d,
Appear’d to me, with other spritely shows

Of mine own kindred. When I wak’d, I found [430]
This label on my bosom; whose containing
Is so from sense in hardness, that I can
Make no collection of it. Let him show

His skill in the construction.

LUCIUS
Philarmonus!

SOOTHSAYER
Here, my good lord.

LUCIUS
Read, and declare the meaning. [435]

SOOTHSAYER
[reads]
When as a lion’s whelp shall, to himself unknown, without seeking find, and

be embrac’d by a piece of tender air: and when from a stately cedar shall be
lopp’d branches, which, being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed
to the old stock, and freshly grow, then shall Posthumus [440] end his
miseries, Britain be fortunate, and flourish in peace and plenty.

Thou, Leonatus, art the lion’s whelp,
The fit and apt construction of thy name,
Being Leo-natus, doth impart so much: [445]
[to Cymbeline]
The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter,

Which we call mollis aer; and mollis aer
We term it mulier; which mulier I divine
Is this most constant wife, who even now,

Answering the letter of the oracle, [450]
Unknown to you, unsought, were clipp’d about