PISANIO.
Hence, vile instrument!
Thou shalt not damn my hand.
IMOGEN.
Why, I must die;
And if I do not by thy hand, thou art
No servant of thy master’s. Against self-slaughter
There is a prohibition so divine
That cravens my weak hand. Come, here’s my heart:
Something’s afore’t. Soft, soft! we’ll no defence,
Obedient as the scabbard. What is here?
The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus
All turn’d to heresy? Away, away,
Corrupters of my faith, you shall no more
Be stomachers to my heart. Thus may poor fools
Believe false teachers; though those that are betray’d
Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
Stands in worse case of woe. And thou, Posthumus,
That didst set up my disobedience ’gainst the King
My father, and make me put into contempt the suits
Of princely fellows, shalt hereafter find
It is no act of common passage but
A strain of rareness; and I grieve myself
To think, when thou shalt be disedg’d by her
That now thou tirest on, how thy memory
Will then be pang’d by me. Prithee dispatch.
The lamb entreats the butcher. Where’s thy knife?
Thou art too slow to do thy master’s bidding,
When I desire it too.
PISANIO.
O gracious lady,
Since I receiv’d command to do this busines
I have not slept one wink.
IMOGEN.
Do’t, and to bed then.
PISANIO.
I’ll wake mine eyeballs first.
IMOGEN.
Wherefore then
Didst undertake it? Why hast thou abus’d
So many miles with a pretence? This place?
Mine action and thine own? our horses’ labour?
The time inviting thee? The perturb’d court,
For my being absent? whereunto I never
Purpose return. Why hast thou gone so far
To be unbent when thou hast ta’en thy stand,
Th’ elected deer before thee?
PISANIO.
But to win time
To lose so bad employment, in the which
I have consider’d of a course. Good lady,
Hear me with patience.
IMOGEN.
Talk thy tongue weary, speak.
I have heard I am a strumpet, and mine ear,
Therein false struck, can take no greater wound,
Nor tent to bottom that. But speak.
PISANIO.
Then, madam,
I thought you would not back again.
IMOGEN.
Most like,
Bringing me here to kill me.