POETRY AND IMAGINATION 



explorers made a delightful paradox; and he interrupts 

 Gonzalo's speech with a running fire of scornful comment 

 from the two men of sin. Yet he, too, came under 

 the spell of the Golden Age, and, for all we know, would 

 have been willing to say with Montaigne, *I am some- 

 times troubled that we were not sooner acquainted with 

 these people, and that they were not discovered in those 

 better times when there were men much more able to 

 judge of them than we are.' He had always coveted a 

 retreat from the struggles and clamour of the Court and 

 city; but the retreats pictured in his later plays have 

 a primitive simplicity which is lacking in the pleasure- 

 gardens of the King of Navarre and the masquerading 

 of the forest of Arden. Perdita, who, like Miranda, is 

 prompted in all her words and actions by a plain and 

 holy innocence, is something of a devotee of Nature. 

 She will have no flowers in her garden, not the fairest 

 of the season, if Art has had a share in their production ; 

 and she is deaf to the reproofs of experience. The The religion 

 religion in which Belarius, the upright banished courtier v^^^^^^- 

 in Cymbeline^ educates his adopted sons is a pure religion 

 of naturalism ; their brief ritual is performed as they 

 come out from the cave where they house : 



Belarius. * Stoop, boys : this gate 



Instructs you how to adore the heavens, and bows you 

 To Morning's holy office : the gates of monarchs 

 Are arch'd so high, that giants may jet through 

 And keep their impious turbans on, without 

 Good morrow to the Sun. Hail, thou fair Heaven ! 

 We house i' the rock, yet use thee not so hardly 

 As prouder livers do.' 



Guiderius. * Hail, Heaven !' 



Arviragus. * Hail, Heaven ! ' 



Belarius. * Now for our mountain sport.' 



