FIRST BROTHER.
Like hardiment Posthumus hath
To Cymbeline perform’d.
Then, Jupiter, thou king of gods,
Why hast thou thus adjourn’d
The graces for his merits due,
Being all to dolours turn’d?
SICILIUS.
Thy crystal window ope; look out;
No longer exercise
Upon a valiant race thy harsh
And potent injuries.
MOTHER.
Since, Jupiter, our son is good,
Take off his miseries.
SICILIUS.
Peep through thy marble mansion. Help!
Or we poor ghosts will cry
To th’ shining synod of the rest
Against thy deity.
BROTHERS.
Help, Jupiter! or we appeal,
And from thy justice fly.
Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle. He throws a thunderbolt. The Ghosts fall on their knees.
JUPITER.
No more, you petty spirits of region low,
Offend our hearing; hush! How dare you ghosts
Accuse the Thunderer whose bolt, you know,
Sky-planted, batters all rebelling coasts?
Poor shadows of Elysium, hence and rest
Upon your never-withering banks of flow’rs.
Be not with mortal accidents opprest:
No care of yours it is; you know ’tis ours.
Whom best I love I cross; to make my gift,
The more delay’d, delighted. Be content;
Your low-laid son our godhead will uplift;
His comforts thrive, his trials well are spent.
Our Jovial star reign’d at his birth, and in
Our temple was he married. Rise and fade!
He shall be lord of Lady Imogen,
And happier much by his affliction made.
This tablet lay upon his breast, wherein
Our pleasure his full fortune doth confine;
And so, away; no farther with your din
Express impatience, lest you stir up mine.
Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline.
[Ascends.]
SICILIUS.
He came in thunder; his celestial breath
Was sulphurous to smell; the holy eagle
Stoop’d as to foot us. His ascension is
More sweet than our blest fields. His royal bird
Prunes the immortal wing, and cloys his beak,
As when his god is pleas’d.
ALL.
Thanks, Jupiter!