IMOGEN
Who’s there? My woman Helen?
LADY
Please you, madam.
IMOGEN
What hour is it?
LADY
Almost midnight, madam.
IMOGEN
I have read three hours then. Mine eyes are weak;
Fold down the leaf where I have left. To bed.
Take not away the taper, leave it burning;
And if canst awake by four o’ th’ clock,
I call me. Sleep seiz’d me wholly.
IMOGEN
To your protection I commend me, gods.
From fairies and the tempters of the night
Guard me, beseech !
IACHIMO
The crickets sing, and man’s o’er-labour’d sense
Repairs itself by rest. Our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes he waken’d
The chastity he wounded. Cytherea,
How bravely becom’st bed! fresh lily,
And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!
But kiss; one kiss! Rubies unparagon’d,
How dearly they do’t! her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o’ th’ taper
Bows toward her and would under-peep her lids
To see th’ enclosed lights, now canopied
Under these windows white and azure, lac’d
With blue of heaven’s own tinct. But my design
To note the chamber. I will write all down:
Such and such pictures; there the window; such
Th’ adornment of her bed; the arras, figures,
Why, such and such; and the contents o’ th’ story.
Ah, but some natural notes about her body
Above ten thousand meaner movables
Would testify, t’ enrich mine inventory.
O sleep, ape of death, lie dull upon her!
And be her sense but as a monument,
Thus in a chapel lying! Come off, come off;
IACHIMO
As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard!
mine; and this will witness outwardly,
As strongly as the conscience does within,
To th’ madding of her lord. On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I’ th’ bottom of a cowslip. Here’s a voucher
Stronger than ever law could make; this secret
Will force him think I have pick’d the lock and ta’en
The treasure of her honour. No more. To what end?
Why should I write this down that’s riveted,
Screw’d to my memory? She been reading late
The tale of Tereus; here the leaf’s turn’d down
Where Philomel gave up. I have enough.
To th’ trunk again, and shut the spring of it.
Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning
May bare the raven’s eye! I lodge in fear;
Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.
IACHIMO
One, two, three. Time, time!