Wales. Mountainous Country; before the Cave of Belarius.
 Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS.

Belarius	A goodly day not to keep house with such
	Whose roof's as low as ours. Stoop, boys; this gate
	Instructs you how t' adore the heavens, and bows you
	To a morning's holy office. The gates of monarchs
	Are arched so high that giants may jet through
	And keep their impious turbans on without
	Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven!
	We house i'th' rock, yet use thee not so hardly
	As prouder livers do.

Guiderius								Hail, heaven!

Arviragus											Hail, heaven!

Belarius	Now for our mountain sport. Up to yond hill!
	Your legs are young; I'll tread these flats. Consider,
	When you above perceive me like a crow,
	That it is place which lessens and sets off;
	And you may then revolve what tales I have told you
	Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war.
	This service is not service, so being done,
	But being so allowed. To apprehend thus,
	Draws us a profit from all things we see;
	And often to our comfort shall we find
	The sharded beetle in a safer hold
	Than is the full-winged eagle. O, this life
	Is nobler than attending for a check,
	Richer than doing nothing for a robe,
	Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk.
	Such gain the cap of him that makes him fine,
	Yet keeps his book uncrossed. No life to ours!

Guiderius	Out of your proof you speak. We poor unfledged
	Have never winged from view o'th' nest, nor know not
	What air's from home. Haply this life is best,
	If quiet life be best, sweeter to you
	That have a sharper known, well corresponding
	With your stiff age; but unto us it is
	A cell of ignorance, travelling abed,
	A prison for a debtor that not dares
	To stride a limit.

Arviragus								What should we speak of
	When we are old as you? When we shall hear
	The rain and wind beat dark December, how
	In this our pinching cave shall we discourse
	The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing;
	We are beastly; subtle as the fox for prey,
	Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat.
	Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage
	We make a choir, as doth the prisoned bird,
	And sing our bondage freely.

Belarius											How you speak!
	Did you but know the city's usuries,
	And felt them knowingly: the art o'th' court,
	As hard to leave as keep, whose top to climb
	Is certain falling, or so slipp'ry that
	The fear's as bad as falling; the toil o'th' war,
	A pain that only seems to seek out danger
	I'th' name of fame and honour, which dies i'th' search,
	And hath as oft a sland'rous epitaph
	As record of fair act; nay, many times
	Doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse,
	Must curtsy at the censure. O, boys, this story
	The world may read in me. My body's marked
	With Roman swords, and my report was once
	First with the best of note. Cymbeline loved me,
	And when a soldier was the theme my name
	Was not far off. Then was I as a tree
	Whose boughs did bend with fruit; but in one night
	A storm, or robbery - call it what you will-
	Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,
	And left me bare to weather.

Guiderius											Uncertain favour!

Belarius	My fault being nothing - as I have told you oft-
	But that two villains, whose false oaths prevailed
	Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline
	I was confederate with the Romans. So
	Followed my banishment, and this twenty years
	This rock and these demesnes have been my world,
	Where I have lived at honest freedom, paid
	More pious debts to heaven than in all
	The fore-end of my time. But, up to th' mountains!
	This is not hunters' language. He that strikes
	The venison first shall be the lord o'th' feast,
	To him the other two shall minister,
	And we will fear no poison, which attends
	In place of greater state. I'll meet you in the valleys.
									  [Exeunt GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS.
	How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!
	These boys know little they are sons to th' king,
	Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
	They think they are mine; and though trained up thus meanly
	I'th' cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
	The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them
	In simple and low things to prince it much
	Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore-
	The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who
	The king his father called Guiderius - Jove!
	When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell
	The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out
	Into my story. Say 'Thus mine enemy fell,
	And thus I set my foot on's neck', even then
	The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats,
	Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture
	That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal,
	Once Arviragus, in as like a figure
	Strikes life into my speech, and shows much more
	His own conceiving.
													[Horns.
								Hark, the game is roused!
	O Cymbeline, heaven and my conscience knows
	Thou didst unjustly banish me; whereon,
	At three and two years old, I stole these babes,
	Thinking to bar thee of succession as
	Thou refts me of my lands. Euriphile,
	Thou wast their nurse, they took thee for their mother,
	And every day do honour to her grave.
	Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan called,
	They take for natural father. - The game is up.
													[Exit.
