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Britain. A Room in CYMBELINE’S Palace. | |
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Enter QUEEN, Ladies, and CORNELIUS. | |
| Queen. Whiles yet the dew’s on ground, gather those flowers: | |
| Make haste; who has the note of them? | |
| First Lady. I, madam. | 5 |
| Queen. Dispatch. [Exeunt Ladies. | |
| Now, Master doctor, have you brought those drugs? | |
| Cor. Pleaseth your highness, ay; here they are, madam: [Presenting a small box. | |
| But I beseech your Grace, without offence,— | |
| My conscience bids me ask,—wherefore you have | 10 |
| Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds, | |
| Which are the movers of a languishing death, | |
| But though slow, deadly? | |
| Queen. I wonder, doctor, | |
| Thou ask’st me such a question: have I not been | 15 |
| Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn’d me how | |
| To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so | |
| That our great king himself doth woo me oft | |
| For my confections? Having thus far proceeded,— | |
| Unless thou think’st me devilish,—is ’t not meet | 20 |
| That I did amplify my judgment in | |
| Other conclusions? I will try the forces | |
| Of these thy compounds on such creatures as | |
| We count not worth the hanging,—but none human,— | |
| To try the vigour of them and apply | 25 |
| Allayments to their act, and by them gather | |
| Their several virtues and effects. | |
| Cor. Your highness | |
| Shall from this practice but make hard your heart; | |
| Besides, the seeing these effects will be | 30 |
| Both noisome and infectious. | |
| Queen. O! content thee. | |
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Enter PISANIO. | |
| [Aside.] Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him | |
| Will I first work: he’s for his master, | 35 |
| And enemy to my son. How now, Pisanio! | |
| Doctor, your service for this time is ended; | |
| Take your own way. | |
| Cor. [Aside.] I do suspect you, madam; | |
| But you shall do no harm. | 40 |
| Queen. [To PISANIO.] Hark thee, a word. | |
| Cor. [Aside.] I do not like her. She doth think she has | |
| Strange lingering poisons; I do know her spirit, | |
| And will not trust one of her malice with | |
| A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has | 45 |
| Will stupify and dull the sense awhile; | |
| Which first, perchance, she’ll prove on cats and dogs, | |
| Then afterward up higher; but there is | |
| No danger in what show of death it makes, | |
| More than the locking-up the spirits a time, | 50 |
| To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool’d | |
| With a most false effect; and I the truer, | |
| So to be false with her. | |
| Queen. No further service, doctor, | |
| Until I send for thee. | 55 |
| Cor. I humbly take my leave. [Exit. | |
| Queen. Weeps she still, sayst thou? Dost thou think in time | |
| She will not quench, and let instructions enter | |
| Where folly now possesses? Do thou work: | |
| When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son, | 60 |
| I’ll tell thee on the instant thou art then | |
| As great as is thy master; greater, for | |
| His fortunes all lie speechless, and his name | |
| Is at last gasp; return he cannot, nor | |
| Continue where he is; to shift his being | 65 |
| Is to exchange one misery with another, | |
| And every day that comes comes to decay | |
| A day’s work in him. What shalt thou expect, | |
| To be depender on a thing that leans, | |
| Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends, | 70 |
| So much as but to prop him? [The QUEEN drops the box; PISANIO takes it up. | |
| Thou tak’st up | |
| Thou know’st not what; but take it for thy labour: | |
| It is a thing I made, which hath the king | |
| Five times redeem’d from death; I do not know | 75 |
| What is more cordial: nay, I prithee, take it; | |
| It is an earnest of a further good | |
| That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how | |
| The case stands with her; do ’t as from thyself. | |
| Think what a chance thou changest on, but think | 80 |
| Thou hast thy mistress still, to boot, my son, | |
| Who shall take notice of thee. I’ll move the king | |
| To any shape of thy preferment such | |
| As thou’lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly, | |
| That set thee on to this desert, am bound | 85 |
| To load thy merit richly. Call my women; | |
| Think on my words. [Exit PISANIO. | |
| A sly and constant knave, | |
| Not to be shak’d; the agent for his master, | |
| And the remembrancer of her to hold | 90 |
| The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that | |
| Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her | |
| Of leigers for her sweet, and which she after, | |
| Except she bend her humour, shall be assur’d | |
| To taste of too. | 95 |
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Re-enter PISANIO and Ladies. | |
| So, so;—well done, well done. | |
| The violets, cowslips, and the prime-roses | |
| Bear to my closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio: | |
| Think on my words. [Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies. | 100 |
| Pis. And shall do: | |
| But when to my good lord I prove untrue, | |
| I’ll choke myself; there’s all I’ll do for you. [Exit. | |
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