For Imogens deere life, take mine, and though
'Tis not so deere, yet 'tis a life; you coyn'd it,
'Tweene man, and man, they waigh not euery stampe:
Though light, take Peeces for the figures sake,
(You rather) mine being yours: and so great Powres,
If you will take this Audit, take this life,
And cancell these cold Bonds. Oh Imogen,
Ile speake to thee in silence.
Solemne Musicke. Enter (as in an Apparation) Sicillius Leonatus,
Father
to Posthumus, an old man, attyred like a warriour, leading in his
hand an
ancient Matron (his wife, & Mother to Posthumus) with Musicke
before them.
Then after other Musicke, followes the two young Leonati
(Brothers to
Posthumus) with wounds as they died in the warrs. They circle
Posthumus
round as he lies sleeping.
Sicil. No more thou Thunder-Master
shew thy spight, on Mortall Flies:
With Mars fall out with Iuno chide, that thy Adulteries
Rates, and Reuenges.
Hath my poore Boy done ought but well,
whose face I neuer saw:
I dy'de whil'st in the Wombe he staide,
attending Natures Law.
Whose Father then (as men report,
thou Orphanes Father art)
Thou should'st haue bin, and sheelded him,
from this earth-vexing smart
Moth. Lucina lent not me her ayde,
but tooke me in my Throwes,
That from me was Posthumus ript,
came crying 'mong'st his Foes.
A thing of pitty
Sicil. Great Nature like his Ancestrie,
moulded the stuffe so faire:
That he deseru'd the praise o'th' World,
as great Sicilius heyre
1.
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