University of Virginia Library

SCENE VI.

A Country on the Shore of the River Thames.
Enter Caius Lucius, Clodio, and other Roman Officers.
Lucius.
Neptune hath smooth'd our way; the gods of wind
And waters have conspired to make our passage
As speedy as propitious—Valiant Clodio,
While yet our legions disembark, appoint
Such train as may befit thy embassy
To Britain's neighbouring court—This pacquet bears
The will of Cæsar, and thy full instructions.

Clod.
A Briton, here, informs me, that the house
Of Cymbeline is all in wondrous ferment,
Raised by a son of fortune, who hath wived
The daughter of his King—one Leonatus.

Lucius.
How! Leonatus?

Clod.
Have you knowledge, then,
Of this adventurer?

Lucius.
Yes, a dear remembrance—
So hath the world's sole ruler, great Augustus,
With many of the noblest sons of Rome.
So fair an outside, and such worth within,
Endows no second man.

Clod.
You stretch him, sure,
Beyond his limits.

Lucius.
No—At Actium, Clodio—
But you, as I must think, were not at Actium—
There, this unbearded boy, unbearded then,
With wonders took the eye of Cæsar captive.
The battle done, he call'd, and question'd him
Touching his birth and country; when the youth,
Blushing, replied, that, as he knew no sire,
He was not worth a name—“Be henceforth, then,
“The son of Cæsar,” cried our emperor,
And named him Leonatus.

Clod.
Let him pass;
For, till this hour, to me he has been nameless.

Lucius.
The daughter of his king?—Now, on my soul,
If I did deem aright, he might have had
The daughter of our emperor, the first
In beauty, as in birth.

Clod.
O, Momus, hear!—
Julia prefer a savage, to the choice
Of Rome's unrival'd demigods?

Lucius.
Believe me,
I was not single in such thoughts. But then,
Drawn by some strong attachment back to Britain,
He quitted the warm shine of Cæsar's favour,
And left the emulators of his virtue
To wonder and to mourn—We since have learn'd,
The Scots, a wild and warlike race of men,
Sprung from an isle that constitutes the brink
Of our expanded world, beyond whose verge
Nature herself has nothing to behold,
Save air and ocean—those fierce men, I say,
Broke in on Britain. All, from end to end,
Was flight and panic; till this Leonatus
Alone made head, and drove those boisterous kerns
Back to their wattled hives. And well, I deem,
Well he may match the daughter of the man,
Whose crown he has redeem'd.

Soldier enters.
Sold.
A noble prisoner waits.

Lucius.
Conduct him to us.