Your lordship is the most patient man in loss, the most coldest that
ever turn’d up ace.
[FIRST LORD in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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It would make any man cold to lose.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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But not every man patient after the noble temper of your lordship. You
are most hot and furious when you win.
[FIRST LORD in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Winning will put any man into courage. If I could get this foolish
Imogen, I should have gold enough. It’s almost morning, is’t not?
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Day, my lord.
[FIRST LORD in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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I would this music would come. I am advised to give her music a
mornings; they say it will penetrate.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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So, get you gone. If this penetrate, I will consider your music the
better; if it do not, it is a vice in her ears which horsehairs and
calves’ guts, nor the voice of unpaved eunuch to boot, can never amend.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Here comes the King.
[SECOND LORD in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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I am glad I was up so late, for that’s the reason I was up so early. He
cannot choose but take this service I have done fatherly.—Good morrow
to your Majesty and to my gracious mother.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Attend you here the door of our stern daughter?
Will she not forth?
[CYMBELINE in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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I have assail’d her with musics, but she vouchsafes no notice.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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The waking song 'Hark, hark! The lark at heaven's gate sings' is one of Shakespeare's finest lyrics. It's been set to music by Schubert and dozens of others. Its imagery — the lark, Phoebus and his horses, the chalice-flowers, the marigolds opening — is genuinely beautiful. Shakespeare wrote it for a scene in which Cloten is trying to pressure a married woman into leaving her husband. The song's beauty is the trap: it's meant to soften Imogen by associating Cloten's pursuit with the loveliness of dawn. It doesn't work. She doesn't come out. The song is so good and the context so bad that the dissonance is itself significant — it's one of the play's most sustained demonstrations that beauty and goodness are not the same thing.
The exile of her minion is too new;
She hath not yet forgot him; some more time
Must wear the print of his remembrance on’t,
And then she’s yours.
[CYMBELINE in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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You are most bound to th’ King,
Who lets go by no vantages that may
Prefer you to his daughter. Frame yourself
To orderly solicits, and be friended
With aptness of the season; make denials
Increase your services; so seem as if
You were inspir’d to do those duties which
You tender to her; that you in all obey her,
Save when command to your dismission tends,
And therein you are senseless.
[QUEEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Senseless? Not so.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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So like you, sir, ambassadors from Rome;
The one is Caius Lucius.
[MESSENGER in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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A worthy fellow,
Albeit he comes on angry purpose now;
But that’s no fault of his. We must receive him
According to the honour of his sender;
And towards himself, his goodness forespent on us,
We must extend our notice. Our dear son,
When you have given good morning to your mistress,
Attend the Queen and us; we shall have need
T’ employ you towards this Roman. Come, our queen.
[CYMBELINE in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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If she be up, I’ll speak with her; if not,
Let her lie still and dream. By your leave, ho!
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Who’s there that knocks?
[LADY in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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A gentleman.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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No more?
[LADY in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Yes, and a gentlewoman’s son.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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That’s more
Than some whose tailors are as dear as yours
Can justly boast of. What’s your lordship’s pleasure?
[LADY in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Your lady’s person; is she ready?
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Ay,
To keep her chamber.
[LADY in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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There is gold for you; sell me your good report.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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How? My good name? or to report of you
What I shall think is good? The Princess!
[LADY in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Imogen's 'his meanest garment' insult is deliberately structured. She doesn't say Posthumus is better than Cloten — she says his worst piece of clothing is better than Cloten entirely. The gradation is important: she starts at the bottom of Posthumus (his worst garment) and compares it to the top of Cloten (himself, with all his supposed virtue). The insult demolishes by comparison at its weakest versus strongest point. And it sticks: Cloten repeats it obsessively for the rest of his stage time — 'his garment,' 'his meanest garment,' 'his mean'st garment' — like a man who can't stop pressing a bruise. It will drive him to steal Posthumus's actual clothes in Act 3 and wear them as a kind of grotesque answer to the insult. The image plants a seed that grows into murder.
Good morrow, fairest sister. Your sweet hand.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Good morrow, sir. You lay out too much pains
For purchasing but trouble. The thanks I give
Is telling you that I am poor of thanks,
And scarce can spare them.
[IMOGEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Still I swear I love you.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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If you but said so, ’twere as deep with me.
If you swear still, your recompense is still
That I regard it not.
[IMOGEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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This is no answer.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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But that you shall not say I yield, being silent,
I would not speak. I pray you spare me. Faith,
I shall unfold equal discourtesy
To your best kindness; one of your great knowing
Should learn, being taught, forbearance.
[IMOGEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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To leave you in your madness ’twere my sin;
I will not.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Fools are not mad folks.
[IMOGEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Do you call me fool?
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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As I am mad, I do;
If you’ll be patient, I’ll no more be mad;
That cures us both. I am much sorry, sir,
You put me to forget a lady’s manners
By being so verbal; and learn now, for all,
That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce,
By th’ very truth of it, I care not for you,
And am so near the lack of charity
To accuse myself I hate you; which I had rather
You felt than make’t my boast.
[IMOGEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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You sin against
Obedience, which you owe your father. For
The contract you pretend with that base wretch,
One bred of alms and foster’d with cold dishes,
With scraps o’ th’ court, it is no contract, none.
And though it be allowed in meaner parties
(Yet who than he more mean?) to knit their souls
(On whom there is no more dependency
But brats and beggary) in self-figur’d knot,
Yet you are curb’d from that enlargement by
The consequence o’ th’ crown, and must not foil
The precious note of it with a base slave,
A hilding for a livery, a squire’s cloth,
A pantler; not so eminent!
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Profane fellow!
Wert thou the son of Jupiter, and no more
But what thou art besides, thou wert too base
To be his groom. Thou wert dignified enough,
Even to the point of envy, if ’twere made
Comparative for your virtues to be styl’d
The under-hangman of his kingdom, and hated
For being preferr’d so well.
[IMOGEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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The south fog rot him!
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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He never can meet more mischance than come
To be but nam’d of thee. His mean’st garment
That ever hath but clipp’d his body, is dearer
In my respect, than all the hairs above thee,
Were they all made such men. How now, Pisanio!
[IMOGEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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‘His garment’! Now the devil—
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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To Dorothy my woman hie thee presently.
[IMOGEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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‘His garment’!
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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I am sprited with a fool;
Frighted, and ang’red worse. Go bid my woman
Search for a jewel that too casually
Hath left mine arm. It was thy master’s; shrew me,
If I would lose it for a revenue
Of any king’s in Europe! I do think
I saw’t this morning; confident I am
Last night ’twas on mine arm; I kiss’d it.
I hope it be not gone to tell my lord
That I kiss aught but he.
[IMOGEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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’Twill not be lost.
[PISANIO in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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I hope so. Go and search.
[IMOGEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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You have abus’d me.
‘His meanest garment’!
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Ay, I said so, sir.
If you will make ’t an action, call witness to ’t.
[IMOGEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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I will inform your father.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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Your mother too.
She’s my good lady and will conceive, I hope,
But the worst of me. So I leave you, sir,
To th’ worst of discontent.
[IMOGEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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I’ll be reveng’d.
‘His mean’st garment’! Well.
[CLOTEN in Act 2 Scene 3: Translation needed]
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The Reckoning
The waking song is genuinely beautiful — one of Shakespeare's finest lyrics — deployed in the service of one of the play's worst intentions. Cloten's harassment of Imogen is relentless, and she meets it with an increasing directness that reaches its climax in 'His meanest garment / That ever hath but clipped his body is dearer / In my respect than all the hairs above thee.' It's an extraordinary insult — not just that Posthumus is better than Cloten, but that Posthumus's laundry is better than Cloten. And then she repeats it. He cannot let it go. Shakespeare makes the grotesque comedy almost unbearable by showing how little recourse Imogen has.
If this happened today…
The boss's son is standing outside your office door with a hired string quartet playing Spotify's most romantic playlist. You can hear it through the wall. Your actual boss (the CEO, his father) comes by, nods approvingly, and gets called away on business. Now it's just you and the son. He tells you he loves you. You tell him you'd rather be anywhere else. He tells you that you owe him love because you're legally obligated to prefer him to the guy who was fired. You tell him, very clearly and to his face, that the fired guy's old gym bag is worth more to you than everything Cloten owns. He's still repeating it to himself as you walk away.