[Guiderius and Arviragus mourn Fidele. They do not realize that Fidele is actually Imogen, their long-lost sister, or that she is not actually dead.]

• Guiderius: Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun,
• Nor the furious winter’s rages.
• Thou thy worldly task hast done,
• Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages.
• Golden lads and girls all must,
• As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
• Arviragus: Fear no more the frown o’ th’ great,
• Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke.
• Care no more to clothe and eat,
• To thee the reed is as the oak.
• The scepter, learning, physic must
• All follow this, and come to dust.
• Guiderius: Fear no more the lightning flash,
• Arviragus: Nor th’all-dreaded thunder-stone.
• Guiderius: Fear not slander, censure rash.
• Arviragus: Thou hast finished joy and moan.
• Both: All lovers young, all lovers must
• Consign to thee and come to dust.
• Guiderius: No exorciser harm thee,
• Arviragus: Nor no witchcraft charm thee.
• Guiderius: Ghost unlaid forbear thee.
• Arviragus: Nothing ill come near thee.
• Both: Quiet consummation have,
• And renownèd be thy grave.

• In gardens sweet, each flower mark did I,
• How they did spring, bud, blow, wither, and die.
• With that, contemplating of man’s short stay,
• Saw man, like to those flowers, pass away.
• Yet build they houses, thick, and strong, and high,
• As if they should live to eternity;
• Hoard up a mass of wealth, yet cannot fill
• His empty mind. But covet he will still
• To gain, or keep such falsehood men do use,
• Wrong right and truth, no base ways will refuse.
• I would not blame them, could they death out keep,*
  *keep out
• Or ease their pains, or cause a quiet sleep,
• Or buy heaven’s mansions, so like gods become,
• And by it, rule the stars, the moon, and sun;
• Command the winds to blow, seas to obey,
• To level all their waves, to cause the winds to stay.
• But they no power have, unless to die,
• And care in life is a great misery.
• This care is for a word, an empty sound,
• Which neither soul nor substance in is found.
• Yet as their heir, they make it to inherit,
• And all they have, they leave unto this spirit.
• To get this child of fame, and this bare word,
• They fear no dangers, neither fire nor sword.
• All horrid pains and death they will endure,
• Or anything that can but fame procure.
• O Man, O Man, what high ambition grows
• Within your brain, and yet how low he goes!
• To be contented only in a sound,
• Where neither life nor body can be found.

• THE yellow bearded corn bows down each head,
• Like gluttons, when their stomach’s over-fed,
• Or like to those whose wealth make heavy cares,
• So doth the full-ripe corn bow down their ears.
• Thus plenty makes oppression, gives small ease;
• And superfluity is a disease.
• Yet all that nature makes, aspiring, runs
• Still forward for to get, ne’er backward turns,
• Until the sight of death doth lay them low
• Upon the earth, from whence at first they grow.
• Then who would hoard up wealth, and take such pains,
• Since nothing but the earth hath all the gains?
• No riches are, but what the mind doth keep,
• And they are poor, who from the earth do seek.
• For time, that feeds on life, makes all things fall,
• Is never satisfied, yet eats up all.
• Then let the minds of men in peace to rest,
• And count a moderation still the best.
• Nor grumble not, nor covet nature’s store,
• For those that are content, can ne’er be poor.
• And bless the gods, submit to their decree,
• Think all things best, what they are pleased shall be.
• For he that murmurs at what cannot mend,
• Is one that takes a thing at the wrong end.

• 1.
• How weak a star doth rule mankind,
• Which owes its ruin to the same
• Causes which nature had designed
• To cherish and preserve the frame!

• 2.
• As commonwealths may be secure,
• And no remote invasion dread,
• Yet may a sadder fall endure
• From traitors in their bosom bred.

• 3.
• So while we feel no violence,
• And on our active health do trust,
• A secret hand doth snatch us hence,
• And tumbles us into the dust.

• 4.
• Yet carelessly we run our race,
• As if we could death’s summons wave,
• And think not on the narrow space
• Between a table and a grave.

• 5.
• But since we cannot death reprieve,
• Our souls and fame we ought to mind,
• For they our bodies will survive:
• That goes beyond, this stays behind.

• 6.
• If I be sure my soul is safe,
• And that my actions will provide
• My tomb a nobler epitaph,
• Than that I only lived and died,

• 7.
• So that in various accidents
• I conscience may and honor keep;
• I with that ease and innocence
• Shall die, as infants go to sleep.

If the soul, as they say, be the very life, or have all life in itself, and the body but its instrument, then the body now hath no more life in it, than when it is reduced to the earth, but is as dead as a door-nail, and so at the resurrection cannot be raised from death. For that which never had life, cannot be raised from death; and the union of it to the soul at the resurrection they fabulate on [invent stories about], is but an addition of corpulency or gross matter to the soul, which in truth is no resurrection at all from the dead, no more than the restoration of flesh lost by famine, sickness, &c. For resurrection from the death, is not the addition of gross matter to life, but the restoration of life from death. So that the restitution of lost flesh now to the soul is in quality as much a resurrection from the dead, as the addition of the whole body to the soul at the last day; which is to say with the Sadducees [a Jewish sect], there is no resurrection from the dead. … for if the soul live separated from the body, the body cannot be raised from the dead, except the body had a life of its own, differing from that of the soul, and so a man must have two lives (as they say a cat hath nine)––the one mortal, the other immortal––and at the Resurrection have two immortalities. If the soul be of a distinct being from the body, and sinned as the body, and thereby incurred the condemnation of Hell, then must the soul have a particular redemption from thence, as the body from the grave, or else it must perish there forever.