Early in the play Imogen expressed the wish that she were a neatherd's daughter, and Leonatus a shepherd's son. Later, when, clad in manly attire, she chances upon the lonely forest cave in which her brothers dwell, she feels completely at ease in their neighbourhood, and in the primitive life for which she has always longed—as Shakespeare longs for it now. The brothers are happy with her, and she with them. She says (Act iii. sc. 6):
"Pardon me, gods!
I'd change my sex to be companions with them,
Since Leonatus's false."
And later (Act iv. sc. 2):
"These are kind creatures. Gods! what lies I have heard!
Our courtiers say all's savage but at court."
Belarius exclaims in the same spirit (Act iii. sc. 3):
"Oh, this life
Is nobler than attending for a check,
Richer than doing nothing for a bauble,
Prouder than rustling in unpaid for silk."
The princes, in whom the royal soldierly blood asserts itself in a thirst for adventure, reply in a contrary strain:
"Guiderius. 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 call of ignorance, travelling a-bed;
A prison for a debtor, that not dares
To stride a limit."
And his brother adds:
"What should we speak of
When we are as old as you? When we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December.
. . . . We have seen nothing;
We are beastly."