SEARCH TEXTS  

Plays  +  Sonnets  +  Poems  +  Concordance  +  Advanced Search  +  About OSS

Speeches (Lines) for Queen
in "Cymbeline"

Total: 27

---
# Act, Scene, Line
(Click to see in context)
Speech text

1

I,1,84

(stage directions). [Enter the QUEEN, POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, and IMOGEN]

Queen. No, be assured you shall not find me, daughter,
After the slander of most stepmothers,
Evil-eyed unto you: you're my prisoner, but
Your gaoler shall deliver you the keys
That lock up your restraint. For you, Posthumus,
So soon as I can win the offended king,
I will be known your advocate: marry, yet
The fire of rage is in him, and 'twere good
You lean'd unto his sentence with what patience
Your wisdom may inform you.


2

I,1,96

Posthumus Leonatus. Please your highness,
I will from hence to-day.

Queen. You know the peril.
I'll fetch a turn about the garden, pitying
The pangs of barr'd affections, though the king
Hath charged you should not speak together.


3

I,1,122

(stage directions). [Re-enter QUEEN]

Queen. Be brief, I pray you:
If the king come, I shall incur I know not
How much of his displeasure.
[Aside]
Yet I'll move him
To walk this way: I never do him wrong,
But he does buy my injuries, to be friends;
Pays dear for my offences.


4

I,1,197

Cymbeline. Thou foolish thing!
[Re-enter QUEEN]
They were again together: you have done
Not after our command. Away with her,
And pen her up.

Queen. Beseech your patience. Peace,
Dear lady daughter, peace! Sweet sovereign,
Leave us to ourselves; and make yourself some comfort
Out of your best advice.


5

I,1,205

(stage directions). [Exeunt CYMBELINE and Lords]

Queen. Fie! you must give way.
[Enter PISANIO]
Here is your servant. How now, sir! What news?


6

I,1,209

Pisanio. My lord your son drew on my master.

Queen. Ha!
No harm, I trust, is done?


7

I,1,215

Pisanio. There might have been,
But that my master rather play'd than fought
And had no help of anger: they were parted
By gentlemen at hand.

Queen. I am very glad on't.


8

I,1,225

Pisanio. On his command: he would not suffer me
To bring him to the haven; left these notes
Of what commands I should be subject to,
When 't pleased you to employ me.

Queen. This hath been
Your faithful servant: I dare lay mine honour
He will remain so.


9

I,1,229

Pisanio. I humbly thank your highness.

Queen. Pray, walk awhile.


10

I,5,491

(stage directions). [Enter QUEEN, Ladies, and CORNELIUS]

Queen. Whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather those flowers;
Make haste: who has the note of them?


11

I,5,494

First Lady. I, madam.

Queen. Dispatch.
[Exeunt Ladies]
Now, master doctor, have you brought those drugs?


12

I,5,504

Cornelius. Pleaseth your highness, ay: here they are, madam:
[Presenting a small box]
But I beseech your grace, without offence,—
My conscience bids me ask—wherefore you have
Commanded of me those most poisonous compounds,
Which are the movers of a languishing death;
But though slow, deadly?

Queen. I wonder, doctor,
Thou ask'st me such a question. Have I not been
Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn'd me how
To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so
That our great king himself doth woo me oft
For my confections? Having thus far proceeded,—
Unless thou think'st me devilish—is't not meet
That I did amplify my judgment in
Other conclusions? I will try the forces
Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
We count not worth the hanging, but none human,
To try the vigour of them and apply
Allayments to their act, and by them gather
Their several virtues and effects.


13

I,5,522

Cornelius. Your highness
Shall from this practise but make hard your heart:
Besides, the seeing these effects will be
Both noisome and infectious.

Queen. O, content thee.
[Enter PISANIO]
[Aside]
Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him
Will I first work: he's for his master,
An enemy to my son. How now, Pisanio!
Doctor, your service for this time is ended;
Take your own way.


14

I,5,532

Cornelius. [Aside] I do suspect you, madam;
But you shall do no harm.

Queen. [To PISANIO] Hark thee, a word.


15

I,5,546

Cornelius. [Aside] I do not like her. She doth think she has
Strange lingering poisons: I do know her spirit,
And will not trust one of her malice with
A drug of such damn'd nature. Those she has
Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile;
Which first, perchance, she'll prove on
cats and dogs,
Then afterward up higher: but there is
No danger in what show of death it makes,
More than the locking-up the spirits a time,
To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool'd
With a most false effect; and I the truer,
So to be false with her.

Queen. No further service, doctor,
Until I send for thee.


16

I,5,550

(stage directions). [Exit]

Queen. Weeps she still, say'st thou? Dost thou think in time
She will not quench and let instructions enter
Where folly now possesses? Do thou work:
When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son,
I'll tell thee on the instant thou art then
As great as is thy master, greater, for
His fortunes all lie speechless and his name
Is at last gasp: return he cannot, nor
Continue where he is: to shift his being
Is to exchange one misery with another,
And every day that comes comes to decay
A day's work in him. What shalt thou expect,
To be depender on a thing that leans,
Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends,
So much as but to prop him?
[The QUEEN drops the box: PISANIO takes it up]
Thou takest up
Thou know'st not what; but take it for thy labour:
It is a thing I made, which hath the king
Five times redeem'd from death: I do not know
What is more cordial. Nay, I prethee, take it;
It is an earnest of a further good
That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how
The case stands with her; do't as from thyself.
Think what a chance thou changest on, but think
Thou hast thy mistress still, to boot, my son,
Who shall take notice of thee: I'll move the king
To any shape of thy preferment such
As thou'lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly,
That set thee on to this desert, am bound
To load thy merit richly. Call my women:
Think on my words.
[Exit PISANIO]
A sly and constant knave,
Not to be shaked; the agent for his master
And the remembrancer of her to hold
The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that
Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her
Of liegers for her sweet, and which she after,
Except she bend her humour, shall be assured
To taste of too.
[Re-enter PISANIO and Ladies]
So, so: well done, well done:
The violets, cowslips, and the primroses,
Bear to my closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio;
Think on my words.


17

II,3,1025

Cymbeline. The exile of her minion is too new;
She hath not yet forgot him: some more time
Must wear the print of his remembrance out,
And then she's yours.

Queen. You are most bound to the king,
Who lets go by no vantages that may
Prefer you to his daughter. Frame yourself
To orderly soliciting, and be friended
With aptness of the season; make denials
Increase your services; so seem as if
You were inspired 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.


18

III,1,1421

Caius Lucius. When Julius Caesar, whose remembrance yet
Lives in men's eyes and will to ears and tongues
Be theme and hearing ever, was in this Britain
And conquer'd it, Cassibelan, thine uncle,—
Famous in Caesar's praises, no whit less
Than in his feats deserving it—for him
And his succession granted Rome a tribute,
Yearly three thousand pounds, which by thee lately
Is left untender'd.

Queen. And, to kill the marvel,
Shall be so ever.


19

III,1,1427

Cloten. There be many Caesars,
Ere such another Julius. Britain is
A world by itself; and we will nothing pay
For wearing our own noses.

Queen. That opportunity
Which then they had to take from 's, to resume
We have again. Remember, sir, my liege,
The kings your ancestors, together with
The natural bravery of your isle, which stands
As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in
With rocks unscalable and roaring waters,
With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats,
But suck them up to the topmast. A kind of conquest
Caesar made here; but made not here his brag
Of 'Came' and 'saw' and 'overcame: ' with shame—
That first that ever touch'd him—he was carried
From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping—
Poor ignorant baubles!— upon our terrible seas,
Like egg-shells moved upon their surges, crack'd
As easily 'gainst our rocks: for joy whereof
The famed Cassibelan, who was once at point—
O giglot fortune!—to master Caesar's sword,Made Lud's town with rejoicing fires bright
And Britons strut with courage.


20

III,5,1956

Caius Lucius. So, sir: I desire of you
A conduct over-land to Milford-Haven.
Madam, all joy befal your grace!

Queen. And you!


21

III,5,1968

(stage directions). [Exeunt LUCIUS and Lords]

Queen. He goes hence frowning: but it honours us
That we have given him cause.


22

III,5,1978

Cymbeline. Lucius hath wrote already to the emperor
How it goes here. It fits us therefore ripely
Our chariots and our horsemen be in readiness:
The powers that he already hath in Gallia
Will soon be drawn to head, from whence he moves
His war for Britain.

Queen. 'Tis not sleepy business;
But must be look'd to speedily and strongly.


23

III,5,1989

(stage directions). [Exit an Attendant]

Queen. Royal sir,
Since the exile of Posthumus, most retired
Hath her life been; the cure whereof, my lord,
'Tis time must do. Beseech your majesty,
Forbear sharp speeches to her: she's a lady
So tender of rebukes that words are strokes
And strokes death to her.


24

III,5,2002

Attendant. Please you, sir,
Her chambers are all lock'd; and there's no answer
That will be given to the loudest noise we make.

Queen. My lord, when last I went to visit her,
She pray'd me to excuse her keeping close,
Whereto constrain'd by her infirmity,
She should that duty leave unpaid to you,
Which daily she was bound to proffer: this
She wish'd me to make known; but our great court
Made me to blame in memory.


25

III,5,2013

(stage directions). [Exit]

Queen. Son, I say, follow the king.


26

III,5,2016

Cloten. That man of hers, Pisanio, her old servant,
have not seen these two days.

Queen. Go, look after.
[Exit CLOTEN]
Pisanio, thou that stand'st so for Posthumus!
He hath a drug of mine; I pray his absence
Proceed by swallowing that, for he believes
It is a thing most precious. But for her,
Where is she gone? Haply, despair hath seized her,
Or, wing'd with fervor of her love, she's flown
To her desired Posthumus: gone she is
To death or to dishonour; and my end
Can make good use of either: she being down,
I have the placing of the British crown.
[Re-enter CLOTEN]
How now, my son!


27

III,5,2033

Cloten. 'Tis certain she is fled.
Go in and cheer the king: he rages; none
Dare come about him.

Queen. [Aside] All the better: may
This night forestall him of the coming day!


Return to the "Cymbeline" menu