Enter Cornelius and Ladies.
There’s business in these faces. Why so sadly
Greet you our victory? You look like Romans,
And not o’ th’ court of Britain.
CORNELIUS.
Hail, great King!
To sour your happiness I must report
The Queen is dead.
CYMBELINE.
Who worse than a physician
Would this report become? But I consider
By med’cine life may be prolong’d, yet death
Will seize the doctor too. How ended she?
CORNELIUS.
With horror, madly dying, like her life;
Which, being cruel to the world, concluded
Most cruel to herself. What she confess’d
I will report, so please you; these her women
Can trip me if I err, who with wet cheeks
Were present when she finish’d.
CYMBELINE.
Prithee say.
CORNELIUS.
First, she confess’d she never lov’d you; only
Affected greatness got by you, not you;
Married your royalty, was wife to your place;
Abhorr’d your person.
CYMBELINE.
She alone knew this;
And but she spoke it dying, I would not
Believe her lips in opening it. Proceed.
CORNELIUS.
Your daughter, whom she bore in hand to love
With such integrity, she did confess
Was as a scorpion to her sight; whose life,
But that her flight prevented it, she had
Ta’en off by poison.
CYMBELINE.
O most delicate fiend!
Who is’t can read a woman? Is there more?