Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 5
Britain. A room in Cymbeline’s palace.
Queen : Whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather those flowers;
[p]Make haste:
who has the note of them?
First Lady : I, madam.
Queen : Dispatch.
[p][Exeunt Ladies]
[p]Now, master doctor, have you brought
those drugs?
Cornelius : Pleaseth your highness, ay: here they are, madam:
[p][Presenting a
small box]
[p]But I beseech your grace, without offence,--
[p]My
conscience bids me ask--wherefore you have
[p]Commanded of me those
most poisonous compounds,
[p]Which are the movers of a languishing
death;
[p]But though slow, deadly?
Queen : I wonder, doctor,
[p]Thou ask'st me such a question. Have I not
been
[p]Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn'd me how
[p]To make
perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so
[p]That our great king himself
doth woo me oft
[p]For my confections? Having thus far
proceeded,--
[p]Unless thou think'st me devilish--is't not
meet
[p]That I did amplify my judgment in
[p]Other conclusions? I will
try the forces
[p]Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
[p]We
count not worth the hanging, but none human,
[p]To try the vigour of
them and apply
[p]Allayments to their act, and by them gather
[p]Their
several virtues and effects.
Cornelius : Your highness
[p]Shall from this practise but make hard your
heart:
[p]Besides, the seeing these effects will be
[p]Both noisome
and infectious.
Queen : O, content thee.
[p][Enter PISANIO]
[p][Aside]
[p]Here comes a
flattering rascal; upon him
[p]Will I first work: he's for his
master,
[p]An enemy to my son. How now, Pisanio!
[p]Doctor, your
service for this time is ended;
[p]Take your own way.
Cornelius : [Aside] I do suspect you, madam;
[p]But you shall do no harm.
Queen : [To PISANIO] Hark thee, a word.
Cornelius : [Aside] I do not like her. She doth think she has
[p]Strange lingering
poisons: I do know her spirit,
[p]And will not trust one of her malice
with
[p]A drug of such damn'd nature. Those she has
[p]Will stupefy
and dull the sense awhile;
[p]Which first, perchance, she'll prove
on
[p]cats and dogs,
[p]Then afterward up higher: but there is
[p]No
danger in what show of death it makes,
[p]More than the locking-up the
spirits a time,
[p]To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool'd
[p]With a
most false effect; and I the truer,
[p]So to be false with her.
Queen : No further service, doctor,
[p]Until I send for thee.
Cornelius : I humbly take my leave.
Queen : Weeps she still, say'st thou? Dost thou think in time
[p]She will not
quench and let instructions enter
[p]Where folly now possesses? Do
thou work:
[p]When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son,
[p]I'll
tell thee on the instant thou art then
[p]As great as is thy master,
greater, for
[p]His fortunes all lie speechless and his name
[p]Is at
last gasp: return he cannot, nor
[p]Continue where he is: to shift his
being
[p]Is to exchange one misery with another,
[p]And every day that
comes comes to decay
[p]A day's work in him. What shalt thou
expect,
[p]To be depender on a thing that leans,
[p]Who cannot be new
built, nor has no friends,
[p]So much as but to prop him?
[p][The
QUEEN drops the box: PISANIO takes it up]
[p]Thou takest up
[p]Thou
know'st not what; but take it for thy labour:
[p]It is a thing I made,
which hath the king
[p]Five times redeem'd from death: I do not
know
[p]What is more cordial. Nay, I prethee, take it;
[p]It is an
earnest of a further good
[p]That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress
how
[p]The case stands with her; do't as from thyself.
[p]Think what a
chance thou changest on, but think
[p]Thou hast thy mistress still, to
boot, my son,
[p]Who shall take notice of thee: I'll move the
king
[p]To any shape of thy preferment such
[p]As thou'lt desire; and
then myself, I chiefly,
[p]That set thee on to this desert, am
bound
[p]To load thy merit richly. Call my women:
[p]Think on my
words.
[p][Exit PISANIO]
[p]A sly and constant knave,
[p]Not to be
shaked; the agent for his master
[p]And the remembrancer of her to
hold
[p]The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that
[p]Which, if
he take, shall quite unpeople her
[p]Of liegers for her sweet, and
which she after,
[p]Except she bend her humour, shall be assured
[p]To
taste of too.
[p][Re-enter PISANIO and Ladies]
[p]So, so: well done,
well done:
[p]The violets, cowslips, and the primroses,
[p]Bear to my
closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio;
[p]Think on my words.
Pisanio : And shall do:
[p]But when to my good lord I prove untrue,
[p]I'll
choke myself: there's all I'll do for you.
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Next: Act 1 - Scene 6
