BELARIUS.
Prithee, fair youth,
Think us no churls, nor measure our good minds
By this rude place we live in. Well encounter’d!
’Tis almost night; you shall have better cheer
Ere you depart, and thanks to stay and eat it.
Boys, bid him welcome.
GUIDERIUS.
Were you a woman, youth,
I should woo hard but be your groom. In honesty
I bid for you as I’d buy.
ARVIRAGUS.
I’ll make’t my comfort
He is a man. I’ll love him as my brother;
And such a welcome as I’d give to him
After long absence, such is yours. Most welcome!
Be sprightly, for you fall ’mongst friends.
IMOGEN.
’Mongst friends,
If brothers. [Aside.] Would it had been so that they
Had been my father’s sons! Then had my prize
Been less, and so more equal ballasting
To thee, Posthumus.
BELARIUS.
He wrings at some distress.
GUIDERIUS.
Would I could free’t!
ARVIRAGUS.
Or I, whate’er it be,
What pain it cost, what danger! Gods!
BELARIUS.
[Whispering.] Hark, boys.
IMOGEN.
[Aside.] Great men,
That had a court no bigger than this cave,
That did attend themselves, and had the virtue
Which their own conscience seal’d them, laying by
That nothing-gift of differing multitudes,
Could not out-peer these twain. Pardon me, gods!
I’d change my sex to be companion with them,
Since Leonatus false.
BELARIUS.
It shall be so.
Boys, we’ll go dress our hunt. Fair youth, come in.
Discourse is heavy, fasting; when we have supp’d,
We’ll mannerly demand thee of thy story,
So far as thou wilt speak it.