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If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia
on the like occasion whereon my services
are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great
difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.
55I think this coming summer the King of
Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which
he justly owes him.
Wherein our entertainment shall shame
us; we will be justified in our loves. For indeed—
1010Beseech you—
Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my
knowledge. We cannot with such magnificence—in
so rare—I know not what to say. We will give you
sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our
1515insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as
little accuse us.
You pay a great deal too dear for what’s given
freely.
Believe me, I speak as my understanding
2020instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to
utterance.
Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia.
They were trained together in their childhoods,
and there rooted betwixt them then such an
2525affection which cannot choose but branch now.
Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities
made separation of their society, their encounters,
though not personal, hath been royally
attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving
3030embassies, that they have seemed to be together
though absent, shook hands as over a vast, and
embraced as it were from the ends of opposed
winds. The heavens continue their loves.
I think there is not in the world either
3535malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable
comfort of your young Prince Mamillius. It is a
gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came
into my note.
I very well agree with you in the hopes of
4040him. It is a gallant child—one that indeed physics
the subject, makes old hearts fresh. They that went
on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to
see him a man.
Would they else be content to die?
4545Yes, if there were no other excuse why they
should desire to live.
If the King had no son, they would desire
to live on crutches till he had one.
Nine changes of the wat’ry star hath been
50The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne
Without a burden. Time as long again
Would be filled up, my brother, with our thanks,
5And yet we should for perpetuity
Go hence in debt. And therefore, like a cipher,
55Yet standing in rich place, I multiply
With one “We thank you” many thousands more
That go before it.
10Stay your thanks awhile,
And pay them when you part.
60Sir, that’s tomorrow.
I am questioned by my fears of what may chance
Or breed upon our absence, that may blow
15No sneaping winds at home to make us say
“This is put forth too truly.” Besides, I have stayed
65To tire your Royalty.
We are tougher, brother,
Than you can put us to ’t.
20No longer stay.
One sev’nnight longer.
70Very sooth, tomorrow.
We’ll part the time between ’s, then, and in that
I’ll no gainsaying.
25Press me not, beseech you, so.
There is no tongue that moves, none, none i’ th’
75world,
So soon as yours could win me. So it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
30’Twere needful I denied it. My affairs
Do even drag me homeward, which to hinder
80Were in your love a whip to me, my stay
To you a charge and trouble. To save both,
Farewell, our brother.
35Tongue-tied, our queen?
Speak you.
85I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until
You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,
Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure
40All in Bohemia’s well. This satisfaction
The bygone day proclaimed. Say this to him,
90He’s beat from his best ward.
Well said, Hermione.
To tell he longs to see his son were strong.
45But let him say so then, and let him go.
But let him swear so and he shall not stay;
95We’ll thwack him hence with distaffs.
To Polixenes. Yet of your royal presence I’ll
adventure
50The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
You take my lord, I’ll give him my commission
100To let him there a month behind the gest
Prefixed for ’s parting.—Yet, good deed, Leontes,
I love thee not a jar o’ th’ clock behind
55What lady she her lord.—You’ll stay?
No, madam.
105Nay, but you will?
I may not, verily.
Verily?
60You put me off with limber vows. But I,
Though you would seek t’ unsphere the stars with
110oaths,
Should yet say “Sir, no going.” Verily,
You shall not go. A lady’s “verily” is
65As potent as a lord’s. Will you go yet?
Force me to keep you as a prisoner,
115Not like a guest, so you shall pay your fees
When you depart and save your thanks. How say you?
My prisoner or my guest? By your dread “verily,”
70One of them you shall be.
Your guest, then, madam.
120To be your prisoner should import offending,
Which is for me less easy to commit
Than you to punish.
75Not your jailer, then,
But your kind hostess. Come, I’ll question you
125Of my lord’s tricks and yours when you were boys.
You were pretty lordings then?
We were, fair queen,
80Two lads that thought there was no more behind
But such a day tomorrow as today,
130And to be boy eternal.
Was not my lord
The verier wag o’ th’ two?
85We were as twinned lambs that did frisk i’ th’ sun
And bleat the one at th’ other. What we changed
135Was innocence for innocence. We knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed
That any did. Had we pursued that life,
90And our weak spirits ne’er been higher reared
With stronger blood, we should have answered
140heaven
Boldly “Not guilty,” the imposition cleared
Hereditary ours.
95By this we gather
You have tripped since.
145O my most sacred lady,
Temptations have since then been born to ’s, for
In those unfledged days was my wife a girl;
100Your precious self had then not crossed the eyes
Of my young playfellow.
150Grace to boot!
Of this make no conclusion, lest you say
Your queen and I are devils. Yet go on.
105Th’ offenses we have made you do we’ll answer,
If you first sinned with us, and that with us
155You did continue fault, and that you slipped not
With any but with us.
Is he won yet?
110He’ll stay, my lord.
At my request he would not.
160Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok’st
To better purpose.
Never?
115Never but once.
What, have I twice said well? When was ’t before?
165I prithee tell me. Cram ’s with praise, and make ’s
As fat as tame things. One good deed dying
tongueless
120Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.
Our praises are our wages. You may ride ’s
170With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere
With spur we heat an acre. But to th’ goal:
My last good deed was to entreat his stay.
125What was my first? It has an elder sister,
Or I mistake you. O, would her name were Grace!
175But once before I spoke to th’ purpose? When?
Nay, let me have ’t; I long.
Why, that was when
130Three crabbèd months had soured themselves to
death
180Ere I could make thee open thy white hand
And clap thyself my love; then didst thou utter
“I am yours forever.”
135’Tis grace indeed.
Why, lo you now, I have spoke to th’ purpose twice.
185The one forever earned a royal husband,
Th’ other for some while a friend.
Too hot, too hot!
140To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.
I have tremor cordis on me. My heart dances,
190But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment
May a free face put on, derive a liberty
From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,
145And well become the agent. ’T may, I grant.
But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,
195As now they are, and making practiced smiles
As in a looking glass, and then to sigh, as ’twere
The mort o’ th’ deer—O, that is entertainment
150My bosom likes not, nor my brows.—Mamillius,
Art thou my boy?
200Ay, my good lord.
I’ fecks!
Why, that’s my bawcock. What, hast smutched thy
155nose?
They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain,
205We must be neat—not neat, but cleanly, captain.
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf
Are all called neat.—Still virginalling
160Upon his palm?—How now, you wanton calf?
Art thou my calf?
210Yes, if you will, my lord.
Thou want’st a rough pash and the shoots that I
have
165To be full like me; yet they say we are
Almost as like as eggs. Women say so,
215That will say anything. But were they false
As o’erdyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false
As dice are to be wished by one that fixes
170No bourn ’twixt his and mine, yet were it true
To say this boy were like me. Come, sir page,
220Look on me with your welkin eye. Sweet villain,
Most dear’st, my collop! Can thy dam?—may ’t
be?—
175Affection, thy intention stabs the center.
Thou dost make possible things not so held,
225Communicat’st with dreams—how can this be?
With what’s unreal thou coactive art,
And fellow’st nothing. Then ’tis very credent
180Thou may’st co-join with something; and thou dost,
And that beyond commission, and I find it,
230And that to the infection of my brains
And hard’ning of my brows.
What means Sicilia?
185He something seems unsettled.
How, my lord?
235What cheer? How is ’t with you, best brother?
You look
As if you held a brow of much distraction.
190Are you moved, my lord?
No, in good earnest.
240How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines
195Of my boy’s face, methoughts I did recoil
Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreeched,
245In my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled
Lest it should bite its master and so prove,
As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.
200How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,
This squash, this gentleman.—Mine honest friend,
250Will you take eggs for money?
No, my lord, I’ll fight.
You will? Why, happy man be ’s dole!—My brother,
205Are you so fond of your young prince as we
Do seem to be of ours?
255If at home, sir,
He’s all my exercise, my mirth, my matter,
Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy,
210My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.
He makes a July’s day short as December,
260And with his varying childness cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.
So stands this
215squire
Officed with me. We two will walk, my lord,
265And leave you to your graver steps.—Hermione,
How thou lov’st us show in our brother’s welcome.
Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap.
220Next to thyself and my young rover, he’s
Apparent to my heart.
270If you would seek us,
We are yours i’ th’ garden. Shall ’s attend you there?
To your own bents dispose you. You’ll be found,
225Be you beneath the sky. Aside. I am angling now,
Though you perceive me not how I give line.
275Go to, go to!
How she holds up the neb, the bill to him,
And arms her with the boldness of a wife
230To her allowing husband!
Exit Hermione, Polixenes, and Attendants.
Gone already.
280Inch thick, knee-deep, o’er head and ears a forked
one!—
Go play, boy, play. Thy mother plays, and I
235Play too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue
Will hiss me to my grave. Contempt and clamor
285Will be my knell. Go play, boy, play.—There have
been,
Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now;
240And many a man there is, even at this present,
Now while I speak this, holds his wife by th’ arm,
290That little thinks she has been sluiced in ’s absence,
And his pond fished by his next neighbor, by
Sir Smile, his neighbor. Nay, there’s comfort in ’t
245Whiles other men have gates and those gates
opened,
295As mine, against their will. Should all despair
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hang themselves. Physic for ’t there’s none.
250It is a bawdy planet, that will strike
Where ’tis predominant; and ’tis powerful, think it,
300From east, west, north, and south. Be it concluded,
No barricado for a belly. Know ’t,
It will let in and out the enemy
255With bag and baggage. Many thousand on ’s
Have the disease and feel ’t not.—How now, boy?
305I am like you, they say.
Why, that’s some comfort.—
What, Camillo there?
260Ay, my good lord.
Go play, Mamillius. Thou ’rt an honest man.
Mamillius exits.
310Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.
You had much ado to make his anchor hold.
When you cast out, it still came home.
265Didst note it?
He would not stay at your petitions, made
315His business more material.
Didst perceive it?
Aside. They’re here with me already, whisp’ring,
270rounding:
“Sicilia is a so-forth.” ’Tis far gone
320When I shall gust it last.—How came ’t, Camillo,
That he did stay?
At the good queen’s entreaty.
275“At the queen’s” be ’t. “Good” should be pertinent,
But so it is, it is not. Was this taken
325By any understanding pate but thine?
For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in
More than the common blocks. Not noted, is ’t,
280But of the finer natures, by some severals
Of headpiece extraordinary? Lower messes
330Perchance are to this business purblind? Say.
Business, my lord? I think most understand
Bohemia stays here longer.
285Ha?
Stays here longer.
335Ay, but why?
To satisfy your Highness and the entreaties
Of our most gracious mistress.
290Satisfy?
Th’ entreaties of your mistress? Satisfy?
340Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,
With all the nearest things to my heart, as well
My chamber-counsels, wherein, priestlike, thou
295Hast cleansed my bosom; I from thee departed
Thy penitent reformed. But we have been
345Deceived in thy integrity, deceived
In that which seems so.
Be it forbid, my lord!
300To bide upon ’t: thou art not honest; or,
If thou inclin’st that way, thou art a coward,
350Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining
From course required; or else thou must be
counted
305A servant grafted in my serious trust
And therein negligent; or else a fool
355That seest a game played home, the rich stake
drawn,
And tak’st it all for jest.
310My gracious lord,
I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful.
360In every one of these no man is free,
But that his negligence, his folly, fear,
Among the infinite doings of the world,
315Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,
If ever I were willful-negligent,
365It was my folly; if industriously
I played the fool, it was my negligence,
Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful
320To do a thing where I the issue doubted,
Whereof the execution did cry out
370Against the non-performance, ’twas a fear
Which oft infects the wisest. These, my lord,
Are such allowed infirmities that honesty
325Is never free of. But, beseech your Grace,
Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass
375By its own visage. If I then deny it,
’Tis none of mine.
Ha’ not you seen, Camillo—
330But that’s past doubt; you have, or your eyeglass
Is thicker than a cuckold’s horn—or heard—
380For to a vision so apparent, rumor
Cannot be mute—or thought—for cogitation
Resides not in that man that does not think—
335My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess—
Or else be impudently negative
385To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought—then say
My wife’s a hobby-horse, deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench that puts to
340Before her troth-plight. Say ’t, and justify ’t.
I would not be a stander-by to hear
390My sovereign mistress clouded so without
My present vengeance taken. ’Shrew my heart,
You never spoke what did become you less
345Than this, which to reiterate were sin
As deep as that, though true.
395Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career
350Of laughter with a sigh?—a note infallible
Of breaking honesty. Horsing foot on foot?
400Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift?
Hours minutes? Noon midnight? And all eyes
Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
355That would unseen be wicked? Is this nothing?
Why, then the world and all that’s in ’t is nothing,
405The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing,
My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings,
If this be nothing.
360Good my lord, be cured
Of this diseased opinion, and betimes,
410For ’tis most dangerous.
Say it be, ’tis true.
No, no, my lord.
365It is. You lie, you lie.
I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee,
415Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,
Or else a hovering temporizer that
Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,
370Inclining to them both. Were my wife’s liver
Infected as her life, she would not live
420The running of one glass.
Who does infect her?
Why, he that wears her like her medal, hanging
375About his neck—Bohemia, who, if I
Had servants true about me, that bare eyes
425To see alike mine honor as their profits,
Their own particular thrifts, they would do that
Which should undo more doing. Ay, and thou,
380His cupbearer—whom I from meaner form
Have benched and reared to worship, who mayst see
430Plainly as heaven sees Earth and Earth sees heaven
How I am galled—mightst bespice a cup
To give mine enemy a lasting wink,
385Which draft to me were cordial.
Sir, my lord,
435I could do this, and that with no rash potion,
But with a ling’ring dram that should not work
Maliciously like poison. But I cannot
390Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress,
So sovereignly being honorable. I have loved thee—
440Make that thy question, and go rot!
Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled,
To appoint myself in this vexation, sully
395The purity and whiteness of my sheets—
Which to preserve is sleep, which being spotted
445Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps—
Give scandal to the blood o’ th’ Prince, my son,
Who I do think is mine and love as mine,
400Without ripe moving to ’t? Would I do this?
Could man so blench?
450I must believe you, sir.
I do, and will fetch off Bohemia for ’t—
Provided that, when he’s removed, your Highness
405Will take again your queen as yours at first,
Even for your son’s sake, and thereby for sealing
455The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms
Known and allied to yours.
Thou dost advise me
410Even so as I mine own course have set down.
I’ll give no blemish to her honor, none.
460My lord,
Go then, and with a countenance as clear
As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia
415And with your queen. I am his cupbearer.
If from me he have wholesome beverage,
465Account me not your servant.
This is all.
Do ’t and thou hast the one half of my heart;
420Do ’t not, thou splitt’st thine own.
I’ll do ’t, my lord.
470I will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me.
O miserable lady! But, for me,
What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner
425Of good Polixenes, and my ground to do ’t
Is the obedience to a master, one
475Who in rebellion with himself will have
All that are his so too. To do this deed,
Promotion follows. If I could find example
430Of thousands that had struck anointed kings
And flourished after, I’d not do ’t. But since
480Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment bears not one,
Let villainy itself forswear ’t. I must
Forsake the court. To do ’t or no is certain
435To me a breakneck. Happy star reign now!
Here comes Bohemia.
485This is strange. Methinks
My favor here begins to warp. Not speak?—
Good day, Camillo.
440Hail, most royal sir.
What is the news i’ th’ court?
490None rare, my lord.
The King hath on him such a countenance
As he had lost some province and a region
445Loved as he loves himself. Even now I met him
With customary compliment, when he,
495Wafting his eyes to th’ contrary and falling
A lip of much contempt, speeds from me, and
So leaves me to consider what is breeding
450That changes thus his manners.
I dare not know, my
500lord.
How, dare not? Do not? Do you know and dare not?
Be intelligent to me—’tis thereabouts;
455For to yourself what you do know, you must,
And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,
505Your changed complexions are to me a mirror
Which shows me mine changed too, for I must be
A party in this alteration, finding
460Myself thus altered with ’t.
There is a sickness
510Which puts some of us in distemper, but
I cannot name the disease, and it is caught
Of you that yet are well.
465How caught of me?
Make me not sighted like the basilisk.
515I have looked on thousands who have sped the
better
By my regard, but killed none so. Camillo,
470As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto
Clerklike experienced, which no less adorns
520Our gentry than our parents’ noble names,
In whose success we are gentle, I beseech you,
If you know aught which does behoove my
475knowledge
Thereof to be informed, imprison ’t not
525In ignorant concealment.
I may not answer.
A sickness caught of me, and yet I well?
480I must be answered. Dost thou hear, Camillo?
I conjure thee by all the parts of man
530Which honor does acknowledge, whereof the least
Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare
What incidency thou dost guess of harm
485Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near;
Which way to be prevented, if to be;
535If not, how best to bear it.
Sir, I will tell you,
Since I am charged in honor and by him
490That I think honorable. Therefore mark my counsel,
Which must be e’en as swiftly followed as
540I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me
Cry lost, and so goodnight.
On, good Camillo.
495I am appointed him to murder you.
By whom, Camillo?
545By the King.
For what?
He thinks, nay with all confidence he swears,
500As he had seen ’t or been an instrument
To vice you to ’t, that you have touched his queen
550Forbiddenly.
O, then my best blood turn
To an infected jelly, and my name
505Be yoked with his that did betray the Best!
Turn then my freshest reputation to
555A savor that may strike the dullest nostril
Where I arrive, and my approach be shunned,
Nay, hated too, worse than the great’st infection
510That e’er was heard or read.
Swear his thought over
560By each particular star in heaven and
By all their influences, you may as well
Forbid the sea for to obey the moon
515As or by oath remove or counsel shake
The fabric of his folly, whose foundation
565Is piled upon his faith and will continue
The standing of his body.
How should this grow?
520I know not. But I am sure ’tis safer to
Avoid what’s grown than question how ’tis born.
570If therefore you dare trust my honesty,
That lies enclosèd in this trunk which you
Shall bear along impawned, away tonight!
525Your followers I will whisper to the business,
And will by twos and threes at several posterns
575Clear them o’ th’ city. For myself, I’ll put
My fortunes to your service, which are here
By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain,
530For, by the honor of my parents, I
Have uttered truth—which if you seek to prove,
580I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer
Than one condemned by the King’s own mouth,
thereon
535His execution sworn.
I do believe thee.
585I saw his heart in ’s face. Give me thy hand.
Be pilot to me and thy places shall
Still neighbor mine. My ships are ready and
540My people did expect my hence departure
Two days ago. This jealousy
590Is for a precious creature. As she’s rare,
Must it be great; and as his person’s mighty,
Must it be violent; and as he does conceive
545He is dishonored by a man which ever
Professed to him, why, his revenges must
595In that be made more bitter. Fear o’ershades me.
Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing
550Of his ill-ta’en suspicion. Come, Camillo,
I will respect thee as a father if
600Thou bear’st my life off hence. Let us avoid.
It is in mine authority to command
The keys of all the posterns. Please your Highness
555To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.
Take the boy to you. He so troubles me
605’Tis past enduring.
Come, my gracious lord,
Shall I be your playfellow?
5No, I’ll none of you.
Why, my sweet lord?
610You’ll kiss me hard and speak to me as if
I were a baby still.—I love you better.
And why so, my lord?
10Not for because
Your brows are blacker—yet black brows, they say,
615Become some women best, so that there be not
Too much hair there, but in a semicircle,
Or a half-moon made with a pen.
15Who taught this?
I learned it out of women’s faces.—Pray now,
620What color are your eyebrows?
Blue, my lord.
Nay, that’s a mock. I have seen a lady’s nose
20That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.
Hark ye,
625The Queen your mother rounds apace. We shall
Present our services to a fine new prince
One of these days, and then you’d wanton with us
25If we would have you.
She is spread of late
630Into a goodly bulk. Good time encounter her!
What wisdom stirs amongst you?—Come, sir, now
I am for you again. Pray you sit by us,
30And tell ’s a tale.
Merry or sad shall ’t be?
635As merry as you will.
A sad tale’s best for winter. I have one
Of sprites and goblins.
35Let’s have that, good sir.
Come on, sit down. Come on, and do your best
640To fright me with your sprites. You’re powerful at it.
There was a man—
Nay, come sit down, then on.
40Dwelt by a churchyard. I will tell it softly,
Yond crickets shall not hear it.
645Come on then, and give ’t me in mine ear.
Was he met there? His train? Camillo with him?
Behind the tuft of pines I met them. Never
45Saw I men scour so on their way. I eyed them
Even to their ships.
650How blest am I
In my just censure, in my true opinion!
Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accursed
50In being so blest! There may be in the cup
A spider steeped, and one may drink, depart,
655And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge
Is not infected; but if one present
Th’ abhorred ingredient to his eye, make known
55How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider.
660Camillo was his help in this, his pander.
There is a plot against my life, my crown.
All’s true that is mistrusted. That false villain
60Whom I employed was pre-employed by him.
He has discovered my design, and I
665Remain a pinched thing, yea, a very trick
For them to play at will. How came the posterns
So easily open?
65By his great authority,
Which often hath no less prevailed than so
670On your command.
I know ’t too well.
To Hermione. Give me the boy. I am glad you did
70not nurse him.
Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you
675Have too much blood in him.
What is this? Sport?
Bear the boy hence. He shall not come about her.
75Away with him, and let her sport herself
With that she’s big with, (to Hermione) for ’tis
680Polixenes
Has made thee swell thus.
But I’d say he had not,
80And I’ll be sworn you would believe my saying,
Howe’er you lean to th’ nayward.
685You, my lords,
Look on her, mark her well. Be but about
To say “She is a goodly lady,” and
85The justice of your hearts will thereto add
“’Tis pity she’s not honest, honorable.”
690Praise her but for this her without-door form,
Which on my faith deserves high speech, and
straight
90The shrug, the “hum,” or “ha,” these petty brands
That calumny doth use—O, I am out,
695That mercy does, for calumny will sear
Virtue itself—these shrugs, these s and s,
When you have said she’s goodly, come between
95Ere you can say she’s honest. But be ’t known,
From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,
700She’s an adult’ress.
Should a villain say so,
The most replenished villain in the world,
100He were as much more villain. You, my lord,
Do but mistake.
705You have mistook, my lady,
Polixenes for Leontes. O thou thing,
Which I’ll not call a creature of thy place
105Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
Should a like language use to all degrees,
710And mannerly distinguishment leave out
Betwixt the prince and beggar.—I have said
She’s an adult’ress; I have said with whom.
110More, she’s a traitor, and Camillo is
A federary with her, and one that knows
715What she should shame to know herself
But with her most vile principal: that she’s
A bed-swerver, even as bad as those
115That vulgars give bold’st titles; ay, and privy
To this their late escape.
720No, by my life,
Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you,
When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
120You thus have published me! Gentle my lord,
You scarce can right me throughly then to say
725You did mistake.
No. If I mistake
In those foundations which I build upon,
125The center is not big enough to bear
A schoolboy’s top.—Away with her to prison.
730He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty
But that he speaks.
There’s some ill planet reigns.
130I must be patient till the heavens look
With an aspect more favorable. Good my lords,
735I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are, the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities. But I have
135That honorable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords,
740With thoughts so qualified as your charities
Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so
The King’s will be performed.
140Shall I be heard?
Who is ’t that goes with me? Beseech your Highness
745My women may be with me, for you see
My plight requires it.—Do not weep, good fools;
There is no cause. When you shall know your
145mistress
Has deserved prison, then abound in tears
750As I come out. This action I now go on
Is for my better grace.—Adieu, my lord.
I never wished to see you sorry; now
150I trust I shall.—My women, come; you have leave.
Go, do our bidding. Hence!
Hermione exits, under guard, with her Ladies.
755Beseech your Highness, call the Queen again.
Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice
Prove violence, in the which three great ones suffer:
155Yourself, your queen, your son.
For her, my lord,
760I dare my life lay down—and will do ’t, sir,
Please you t’ accept it—that the Queen is spotless
I’ th’ eyes of heaven, and to you—I mean
160In this which you accuse her.
If it prove
765She’s otherwise, I’ll keep my stables where
I lodge my wife. I’ll go in couples with her;
Than when I feel and see her, no farther trust her.
165For every inch of woman in the world,
Ay, every dram of woman’s flesh, is false,
770If she be.
Hold your peaces.
Good my lord—
170It is for you we speak, not for ourselves.
You are abused, and by some putter-on
775That will be damned for ’t. Would I knew the
villain!
I would land-damn him. Be she honor-flawed,
175I have three daughters—the eldest is eleven;
The second and the third, nine and some five;
780If this prove true, they’ll pay for ’t. By mine honor,
I’ll geld ’em all; fourteen they shall not see
To bring false generations. They are co-heirs,
180And I had rather glib myself than they
Should not produce fair issue.
785Cease. No more.
You smell this business with a sense as cold
As is a dead man’s nose. But I do see ’t and feel ’t,
185As you feel doing thus, and see withal
The instruments that feel.
790If it be so,
We need no grave to bury honesty.
There’s not a grain of it the face to sweeten
190Of the whole dungy Earth.
What? Lack I credit?
795I had rather you did lack than I, my lord,
Upon this ground. And more it would content me
To have her honor true than your suspicion,
195Be blamed for ’t how you might.
Why, what need we
800Commune with you of this, but rather follow
Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative
Calls not your counsels, but our natural goodness
200Imparts this, which if you—or stupefied
Or seeming so in skill—cannot or will not
805Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves
We need no more of your advice. The matter,
The loss, the gain, the ord’ring on ’t is all
205Properly ours.
And I wish, my liege,
810You had only in your silent judgment tried it,
Without more overture.
How could that be?
210Either thou art most ignorant by age,
Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo’s flight,
815Added to their familiarity—
Which was as gross as ever touched conjecture,
That lacked sight only, naught for approbation
215But only seeing, all other circumstances
Made up to th’ deed—doth push on this
820proceeding.
Yet, for a greater confirmation—
For in an act of this importance ’twere
220Most piteous to be wild—I have dispatched in post
To sacred Delphos, to Apollo’s temple,
825Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know
Of stuffed sufficiency. Now from the oracle
They will bring all, whose spiritual counsel had
225Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well?
Well done,
830my lord.
Though I am satisfied and need no more
Than what I know, yet shall the oracle
230Give rest to th’ minds of others, such as he
Whose ignorant credulity will not
835Come up to th’ truth. So have we thought it good
From our free person she should be confined,
Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence
235Be left her to perform. Come, follow us.
We are to speak in public, for this business
840Will raise us all.
To laughter, as I take it,
If the good truth were known.
The keeper of the prison, call to him.
Let him have knowledge who I am.
Gentleman exits.
845Good lady,
No court in Europe is too good for thee.
5What dost thou then in prison?
Enter Jailer, with the Gentleman.
Now, good sir,
You know me, do you not?
850For a worthy lady
And one who much I honor.
10Pray you then,
Conduct me to the Queen.
I may not, madam.
855To the contrary I have express commandment.
Here’s ado, to lock up honesty and honor from
15Th’ access of gentle visitors. Is ’t lawful, pray you,
To see her women? Any of them? Emilia?
So please you, madam,
860To put apart these your attendants, I
Shall bring Emilia forth.
20I pray now, call her.—
Withdraw yourselves.
And, madam, I must be present at your conference.
865Well, be ’t so, prithee.Jailer exits.
Here’s such ado to make no stain a stain
25As passes coloring.
Enter Emilia with Jailer.
Dear gentlewoman,
How fares our gracious lady?
870As well as one so great and so forlorn
May hold together. On her frights and griefs,
30Which never tender lady hath borne greater,
She is something before her time delivered.
A boy?
875A daughter, and a goodly babe,
Lusty and like to live. The Queen receives
35Much comfort in ’t, says “My poor prisoner,
I am innocent as you.”
I dare be sworn.
880These dangerous unsafe lunes i’ th’ King, beshrew
them!
40He must be told on ’t, and he shall. The office
Becomes a woman best. I’ll take ’t upon me.
If I prove honey-mouthed, let my tongue blister
885And never to my red-looked anger be
The trumpet anymore. Pray you, Emilia,
45Commend my best obedience to the Queen.
If she dares trust me with her little babe,
I’ll show ’t the King and undertake to be
890Her advocate to th’ loud’st We do not know
How he may soften at the sight o’ th’ child.
50The silence often of pure innocence
Persuades when speaking fails.
Most worthy madam,
895Your honor and your goodness is so evident
That your free undertaking cannot miss
55A thriving issue. There is no lady living
So meet for this great errand. Please your Ladyship
To visit the next room, I’ll presently
900Acquaint the Queen of your most noble offer,
Who but today hammered of this design,
60But durst not tempt a minister of honor
Lest she should be denied.
Tell her, Emilia,
905I’ll use that tongue I have. If wit flow from ’t
As boldness from my bosom, let ’t not be doubted
65I shall do good.
Now be you blest for it!
I’ll to the Queen. Please you come something
910nearer.
Madam, if ’t please the Queen to send the babe,
70I know not what I shall incur to pass it,
Having no warrant.
You need not fear it, sir.
915This child was prisoner to the womb, and is
By law and process of great nature thence
75Freed and enfranchised, not a party to
The anger of the King, nor guilty of,
If any be, the trespass of the Queen.
920I do believe it.
Do not you fear. Upon mine honor, I
80Will stand betwixt you and danger.
Nor night nor day no rest. It is but weakness
To bear the matter thus, mere weakness. If
925The cause were not in being—part o’ th’ cause,
She th’ adult’ress, for the harlot king
5Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank
And level of my brain, plot-proof. But she
I can hook to me. Say that she were gone,
930Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest
Might come to me again.—Who’s there?
10My lord.
How does the boy?
He took good rest tonight. ’Tis hoped
935His sickness is discharged.
To see his nobleness,
15Conceiving the dishonor of his mother.
He straight declined, drooped, took it deeply,
Fastened and fixed the shame on ’t in himself,
940Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,
And downright languished. Leave me solely. Go,
20See how he fares.Servant exits.
Fie, fie, no thought of him.
The very thought of my revenges that way
945Recoil upon me—in himself too mighty,
And in his parties, his alliance. Let him be
25Until a time may serve. For present vengeance,
Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes
Laugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow.
950They should not laugh if I could reach them, nor
Shall she within my power.
30You must not enter.
Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me.
Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,
955Than the Queen’s life? A gracious innocent soul,
More free than he is jealous.
35That’s enough.
Madam, he hath not slept tonight, commanded
None should come at him.
960Not so hot, good sir.
I come to bring him sleep. ’Tis such as you
40That creep like shadows by him and do sigh
At each his needless heavings, such as you
Nourish the cause of his awaking. I
965Do come with words as medicinal as true,
Honest as either, to purge him of that humor
45That presses him from sleep.
What noise there, ho?
No noise, my lord, but needful conference
970About some gossips for your Highness.
How?—
50Away with that audacious lady. Antigonus,
I charged thee that she should not come about me.
I knew she would.
975I told her so, my lord,
On your displeasure’s peril and on mine,
55She should not visit you.
What, canst not rule her?
From all dishonesty he can. In this,
980Unless he take the course that you have done—
Commit me for committing honor—trust it,
60He shall not rule me.
La you now, you hear.
When she will take the rein I let her run,
985But she’ll not stumble.
Good my liege, I come—
65And I beseech you hear me, who professes
Myself your loyal servant, your physician,
Your most obedient counselor, yet that dares
990Less appear so in comforting your evils
Than such as most seem yours—I say I come
70From your good queen.
Good queen?
Good queen, my lord, good queen, I say “good
995queen,”
And would by combat make her good, so were I
75A man, the worst about you.
Force her hence.
Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes
1000First hand me. On mine own accord I’ll off,
But first I’ll do my errand.—The good queen,
80For she is good, hath brought you forth a
daughter—
Here ’tis—commends it to your blessing.
1005Out!
A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o’ door.
85A most intelligencing bawd.
Not so.
I am as ignorant in that as you
1010In so entitling me, and no less honest
Than you are mad—which is enough, I’ll warrant,
90As this world goes, to pass for honest.
Traitors,
Will you not push her out? To Antigonus. Give her
1015the bastard,
Thou dotard; thou art woman-tired, unroosted
95By thy Dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard,
Take ’t up, I say. Give ’t to thy crone.
Forever
1020Unvenerable be thy hands if thou
Tak’st up the Princess by that forced baseness
100Which he has put upon ’t.
He dreads his wife.
So I would you did. Then ’twere past all doubt
1025You’d call your children yours.
A nest of traitors!
105I am none, by this good light.
Nor I, nor any
But one that’s here, and that’s himself. For he
1030The sacred honor of himself, his queen’s,
His hopeful son’s, his babe’s, betrays to slander,
110Whose sting is sharper than the sword’s; and will
not—
For, as the case now stands, it is a curse
1035He cannot be compelled to ’t—once remove
The root of his opinion, which is rotten
115As ever oak or stone was sound.
A callet
Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her
1040husband
And now baits me! This brat is none of mine.
120It is the issue of Polixenes.
Hence with it, and together with the dam
Commit them to the fire.
1045It is yours,
And, might we lay th’ old proverb to your charge,
125So like you ’tis the worse.—Behold, my lords,
Although the print be little, the whole matter
And copy of the father—eye, nose, lip,
1050The trick of ’s frown, his forehead, nay, the valley,
The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek, his
130smiles,
The very mold and frame of hand, nail, finger.
And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it
1055So like to him that got it, if thou hast
The ordering of the mind too, ’mongst all colors
135No yellow in ’t, lest she suspect, as he does,
Her children not her husband’s.
A gross hag!—
1060And, losel, thou art worthy to be hanged
That wilt not stay her tongue.
140Hang all the husbands
That cannot do that feat, you’ll leave yourself
Hardly one subject.
1065Once more, take her hence.
A most unworthy and unnatural lord
145Can do no more.
I’ll ha’ thee burnt.
I care not.
1070It is an heretic that makes the fire,
Not she which burns in ’t. I’ll not call you tyrant;
150But this most cruel usage of your queen,
Not able to produce more accusation
Than your own weak-hinged fancy, something
1075savors
Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you,
155Yea, scandalous to the world.
On your allegiance,
Out of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant,
1080Where were her life? She durst not call me so
If she did know me one. Away with her!
160I pray you do not push me; I’ll be gone.—
Look to your babe, my lord; ’tis yours. Jove send her
A better guiding spirit.—What needs these hands?
1085You that are thus so tender o’er his follies
Will never do him good, not one of you.
165So, so. Farewell, we are gone.
Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this.
My child? Away with ’t! Even thou, that hast
1090A heart so tender o’er it, take it hence,
And see it instantly consumed with fire.
170Even thou, and none but thou. Take it up straight.
Within this hour bring me word ’tis done,
And by good testimony, or I’ll seize thy life,
1095With what thou else call’st thine. If thou refuse
And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so.
175The bastard brains with these my proper hands
Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire,
For thou sett’st on thy wife.
1100I did not, sir.
These lords, my noble fellows, if they please,
180Can clear me in ’t.
We can, my royal liege.
He is not guilty of her coming hither.
1105You’re liars all.
Beseech your Highness, give us better credit.
185We have always truly served you, and beseech
So to esteem of us. And on our knees we beg,
As recompense of our dear services
1110Past and to come, that you do change this purpose,
Which being so horrible, so bloody, must
190Lead on to some foul issue. We all kneel.
I am a feather for each wind that blows.
Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel
1115And call me father? Better burn it now
Than curse it then. But be it; let it live.
195It shall not neither. To Antigonus. You, sir, come
you hither,
You that have been so tenderly officious
1120With Lady Margery, your midwife there,
To save this bastard’s life—for ’tis a bastard,
200So sure as this beard’s gray. What will you
adventure
To save this brat’s life?
1125Anything, my lord,
That my ability may undergo
205And nobleness impose. At least thus much:
I’ll pawn the little blood which I have left
To save the innocent. Anything possible.
1130It shall be possible. Swear by this sword
Thou wilt perform my bidding.
210I will, my lord.
Mark, and perform it, seest thou; for the fail
Of any point in ’t shall not only be
1135Death to thyself but to thy lewd-tongued wife,
Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,
215As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry
This female bastard hence, and that thou bear it
To some remote and desert place quite out
1140Of our dominions, and that there thou leave it,
Without more mercy, to it own protection
220And favor of the climate. As by strange fortune
It came to us, I do in justice charge thee,
On thy soul’s peril and thy body’s torture,
1145That thou commend it strangely to some place
Where chance may nurse or end it. Take it up.
225I swear to do this, though a present death
Had been more merciful.—Come on, poor babe.
He picks up the baby.
Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens
1150To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say,
Casting their savageness aside, have done
230Like offices of pity. To Leontes. Sir, be prosperous
In more than this deed does require.—And blessing
Against this cruelty fight on thy side,
1155Poor thing, condemned to loss.
No, I’ll not rear
235Another’s issue.
Please your Highness, posts
From those you sent to th’ oracle are come
1160An hour since. Cleomenes and Dion,
Being well arrived from Delphos, are both landed,
240Hasting to th’ court.
So please you, sir, their speed
Hath been beyond account.
1165Twenty-three days
They have been absent. ’Tis good speed, foretells
245The great Apollo suddenly will have
The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords.
Summon a session, that we may arraign
1170Our most disloyal lady; for, as she hath
Been publicly accused, so shall she have
250A just and open trial. While she lives,
My heart will be a burden to me. Leave me,
And think upon my bidding.
1175The climate’s delicate, the air most sweet,
Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing
The common praise it bears.
I shall report,
5For most it caught me, the celestial habits—
1180Methinks I so should term them—and the reverence
Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice,
How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly
It was i’ th’ off’ring!
10But of all, the burst
1185And the ear-deaf’ning voice o’ th’ oracle,
Kin to Jove’s thunder, so surprised my sense
That I was nothing.
If th’ event o’ th’ journey
15Prove as successful to the Queen—O, be ’t so!—
1190As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy,
The time is worth the use on ’t.
Great Apollo
Turn all to th’ best! These proclamations,
20So forcing faults upon Hermione,
1195I little like.
The violent carriage of it
Will clear or end the business when the oracle,
Thus by Apollo’s great divine sealed up,
25Shall the contents discover. Something rare
1200Even then will rush to knowledge. Go. Fresh horses;
And gracious be the issue.
This sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,
Even pushes ’gainst our heart: the party tried
The daughter of a king, our wife, and one
1205Of us too much beloved. Let us be cleared
5Of being tyrannous, since we so openly
Proceed in justice, which shall have due course
Even to the guilt or the purgation.
Produce the prisoner.
1210It is his Highness’ pleasure that the Queen
10Appear in person here in court.
Enter Hermione, as to her trial, Paulina, and Ladies.
Silence!
Read the indictment.
Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes,
1215King of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned
15of high treason, in committing adultery with Polixenes,
King of Bohemia, and conspiring with Camillo
to take away the life of our sovereign lord the King, thy
royal husband; the pretense whereof being by circumstances
1220partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to
20the faith and allegiance of a true subject, didst counsel
and aid them, for their better safety, to fly away by
night.
Since what I am to say must be but that
1225Which contradicts my accusation, and
25The testimony on my part no other
But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me
To say “Not guilty.” Mine integrity,
Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,
1230Be so received. But thus: if powers divine
30Behold our human actions, as they do,
I doubt not then but innocence shall make
False accusation blush and tyranny
Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know,
1235Whom least will seem to do so, my past life
35Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,
As I am now unhappy; which is more
Than history can pattern, though devised
And played to take spectators. For behold me,
1240A fellow of the royal bed, which owe
40A moiety of the throne, a great king’s daughter,
The mother to a hopeful prince, here standing
To prate and talk for life and honor fore
Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it
1245As I weigh grief, which I would spare. For honor,
45’Tis a derivative from me to mine,
And only that I stand for. I appeal
To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes
Came to your court, how I was in your grace,
1250How merited to be so; since he came,
50With what encounter so uncurrent I
Have strained t’ appear thus; if one jot beyond
The bound of honor, or in act or will
That way inclining, hardened be the hearts
1255Of all that hear me, and my near’st of kin
55Cry fie upon my grave.
I ne’er heard yet
That any of these bolder vices wanted
Less impudence to gainsay what they did
1260Than to perform it first.
60That’s true enough,
Though ’tis a saying, sir, not due to me.
You will not own it.
More than mistress of
1265Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not
65At all acknowledge. For Polixenes,
With whom I am accused, I do confess
I loved him as in honor he required,
With such a kind of love as might become
1270A lady like me, with a love even such,
70So and no other, as yourself commanded,
Which not to have done, I think, had been in me
Both disobedience and ingratitude
To you and toward your friend, whose love had
1275spoke,
75Even since it could speak, from an infant, freely
That it was yours. Now, for conspiracy,
I know not how it tastes, though it be dished
For me to try how. All I know of it
1280Is that Camillo was an honest man;
80And why he left your court, the gods themselves,
Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.
You knew of his departure, as you know
What you have underta’en to do in ’s absence.
1285Sir,
85You speak a language that I understand not.
My life stands in the level of your dreams,
Which I’ll lay down.
Your actions are my dreams.
1290You had a bastard by Polixenes,
90And I but dreamed it. As you were past all shame—
Those of your fact are so—so past all truth,
Which to deny concerns more than avails; for as
Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,
1295No father owning it—which is indeed
95More criminal in thee than it—so thou
Shalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage
Look for no less than death.
Sir, spare your threats.
1300The bug which you would fright me with I seek.
100To me can life be no commodity.
The crown and comfort of my life, your favor,
I do give lost, for I do feel it gone,
But know not how it went. My second joy
1305And first fruits of my body, from his presence
105I am barred like one infectious. My third comfort,
Starred most unluckily, is from my breast,
The innocent milk in it most innocent mouth,
Haled out to murder; myself on every post
1310Proclaimed a strumpet; with immodest hatred
110The childbed privilege denied, which longs
To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried
Here to this place, i’ th’ open air, before
I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,
1315Tell me what blessings I have here alive,
115That I should fear to die? Therefore proceed.
But yet hear this (mistake me not: no life,
I prize it not a straw, but for mine honor,
Which I would free), if I shall be condemned
1320Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
120But what your jealousies awake, I tell you
’Tis rigor, and not law. Your Honors all,
I do refer me to the oracle.
Apollo be my judge.
1325This your request
125Is altogether just. Therefore bring forth,
And in Apollo’s name, his oracle.
The Emperor of Russia was my father.
O, that he were alive and here beholding
1330His daughter’s trial, that he did but see
130The flatness of my misery, yet with eyes
Of pity, not revenge.
You here shall swear upon this sword of justice
That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have
1335Been both at Delphos, and from thence have
135brought
This sealed-up oracle, by the hand delivered
Of great Apollo’s priest, and that since then
You have not dared to break the holy seal
1340Nor read the secrets in ’t.
140All this we swear.
Break up the seals and read.
Hermione is chaste, Polixenes blameless,
Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant,
1345his innocent babe truly begotten; and the King shall
145live without an heir if that which is lost be not
found.
Now blessèd be the great Apollo!
Praised!
1350Hast thou read truth?
150Ay, my lord, even so as it is here set down.
There is no truth at all i’ th’ oracle.
The sessions shall proceed. This is mere falsehood.
My lord the King, the King!
1355What is the business?
155O sir, I shall be hated to report it.
The Prince your son, with mere conceit and fear
Of the Queen’s speed, is gone.
How? Gone?
1360Is dead.
160Apollo’s angry, and the heavens themselves
Do strike at my injustice.
Hermione falls.
How now there?
This news is mortal to the Queen. Look down
1365And see what death is doing.
165Take her hence.
Her heart is but o’ercharged. She will recover.
I have too much believed mine own suspicion.
Beseech you, tenderly apply to her
1370Some remedies for life.
Paulina exits with Officers carrying Hermione.
170Apollo, pardon
My great profaneness ’gainst thine oracle.
I’ll reconcile me to Polixenes,
New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo,
1375Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy;
175For, being transported by my jealousies
To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose
Camillo for the minister to poison
My friend Polixenes, which had been done
1380But that the good mind of Camillo tardied
180My swift command, though I with death and with
Reward did threaten and encourage him,
Not doing it and being done. He, most humane
And filled with honor, to my kingly guest
1385Unclasped my practice, quit his fortunes here,
185Which you knew great, and to the hazard
Of all incertainties himself commended,
No richer than his honor. How he glisters
Through my rust, and how his piety
1390Does my deeds make the blacker!
190Woe the while!
O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,
Break too!
What fit is this, good lady?
1395What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?
195What wheels, racks, fires? What flaying? Boiling
In leads or oils? What old or newer torture
Must I receive, whose every word deserves
To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny,
1400Together working with thy jealousies,
200Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle
For girls of nine, O, think what they have done,
And then run mad indeed, stark mad, for all
Thy bygone fooleries were but spices of it.
1405That thou betrayedst Polixenes, ’twas nothing;
205That did but show thee of a fool, inconstant
And damnable ingrateful. Nor was ’t much
Thou wouldst have poisoned good Camillo’s honor,
To have him kill a king: poor trespasses,
1410More monstrous standing by, whereof I reckon
210The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter
To be or none or little, though a devil
Would have shed water out of fire ere done ’t.
Nor is ’t directly laid to thee the death
1415Of the young prince, whose honorable thoughts,
215Thoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart
That could conceive a gross and foolish sire
Blemished his gracious dam. This is not, no,
Laid to thy answer. But the last—O lords,
1420When I have said, cry woe!—the Queen, the Queen,
220The sweet’st, dear’st creature’s dead, and vengeance
for ’t
Not dropped down yet.
The higher powers forbid!
1425I say she’s dead. I’ll swear ’t. If word nor oath
225Prevail not, go and see. If you can bring
Tincture or luster in her lip, her eye,
Heat outwardly or breath within, I’ll serve you
As I would do the gods.—But, O thou tyrant,
1430Do not repent these things, for they are heavier
230Than all thy woes can stir. Therefore betake thee
To nothing but despair. A thousand knees
Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,
Upon a barren mountain, and still winter
1435In storm perpetual, could not move the gods
235To look that way thou wert.
Go on, go on.
Thou canst not speak too much. I have deserved
All tongues to talk their bitt’rest.
1440Say no more.
240Howe’er the business goes, you have made fault
I’ th’ boldness of your speech.
I am sorry for ’t.
All faults I make, when I shall come to know them,
1445I do repent. Alas, I have showed too much
245The rashness of a woman. He is touched
To th’ noble heart.—What’s gone and what’s past
help
Should be past grief. Do not receive affliction
1450At my petition. I beseech you, rather
250Let me be punished, that have minded you
Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege,
Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman.
The love I bore your queen—lo, fool again!—
1455I’ll speak of her no more, nor of your children.
255I’ll not remember you of my own lord,
Who is lost too. Take your patience to you,
And I’ll say nothing.
Thou didst speak but well
1460When most the truth, which I receive much better
260Than to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me
To the dead bodies of my queen and son.
One grave shall be for both. Upon them shall
The causes of their death appear, unto
1465Our shame perpetual. Once a day I’ll visit
265The chapel where they lie, and tears shed there
Shall be my recreation. So long as nature
Will bear up with this exercise, so long
I daily vow to use it. Come, and lead me
1470To these sorrows.
Thou art perfect, then, our ship hath touched upon
The deserts of Bohemia?
Ay, my lord, and fear
We have landed in ill time. The skies look grimly
51475And threaten present blusters. In my conscience,
The heavens with that we have in hand are angry
And frown upon ’s.
Their sacred wills be done. Go, get aboard.
Look to thy bark. I’ll not be long before
101480I call upon thee.
Make your best haste, and go not
Too far i’ th’ land. ’Tis like to be loud weather.
Besides, this place is famous for the creatures
Of prey that keep upon ’t.
151485Go thou away.
I’ll follow instantly.
I am glad at heart
To be so rid o’ th’ business.
Come, poor babe.
201490I have heard, but not believed, the spirits o’ th’ dead
May walk again. If such thing be, thy mother
Appeared to me last night, for ne’er was dream
So like a waking. To me comes a creature,
Sometimes her head on one side, some another.
251495I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,
So filled and so becoming. In pure white robes,
Like very sanctity, she did approach
My cabin where I lay, thrice bowed before me,
And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes
301500Became two spouts. The fury spent, anon
Did this break from her: “Good Antigonus,
Since fate, against thy better disposition,
Hath made thy person for the thrower-out
Of my poor babe, according to thine oath,
351505Places remote enough are in Bohemia.
There weep, and leave it crying. And, for the babe
Is counted lost forever, Perdita
I prithee call ’t. For this ungentle business
Put on thee by my lord, thou ne’er shalt see
401510Thy wife Paulina more.” And so, with shrieks,
She melted into air. Affrighted much,
I did in time collect myself and thought
This was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys,
Yet for this once, yea, superstitiously,
451515I will be squared by this. I do believe
Hermione hath suffered death, and that
Apollo would, this being indeed the issue
Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid,
Either for life or death, upon the earth
501520Of its right father.—Blossom, speed thee well.
There lie, and there thy character; there these,
He lays down the baby, a bundle, and a box.
Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,
And still rest thine. Thunder. The storm begins.
Poor wretch,
551525That for thy mother’s fault art thus exposed
To loss and what may follow. Weep I cannot,
But my heart bleeds, and most accurst am I
To be by oath enjoined to this. Farewell.
The day frowns more and more. Thou ’rt like to have
601530A lullaby too rough. I never saw
The heavens so dim by day.
Thunder, and sounds of hunting.
A savage clamor!
Well may I get aboard! This is the chase.
I am gone forever!
651535I would there were no age between ten and
three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the
rest, for there is nothing in the between but getting
wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing,
fighting—Hark you now. Would any but these
701540boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt
this weather? They have scared away two of my best
sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than
the master. If anywhere I have them, ’tis by the
seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an ’t be thy will,
751545what have we here? Mercy on ’s, a bairn! A very
pretty bairn. A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty
one, a very pretty one. Sure some scape. Though I
am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman
in the scape. This has been some stair-work,
801550some trunk-work, some behind-door work. They
were warmer that got this than the poor thing is
here. I’ll take it up for pity. Yet I’ll tarry till my son
come. He halloed but even now.—Whoa-ho-ho!
Hilloa, loa!
851555What, art so near? If thou ’lt see a thing to
talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither.
What ail’st thou, man?
I have seen two such sights, by sea
and by land—but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is
901560now the sky; betwixt the firmament and it, you
cannot thrust a bodkin’s point.
Why, boy, how is it?
I would you did but see how it chafes,
how it rages, how it takes up the shore. But that’s
951565not to the point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor
souls! Sometimes to see ’em, and not to see ’em.
Now the ship boring the moon with her mainmast,
and anon swallowed with yeast and froth, as you’d
thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land
1001570service, to see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone,
how he cried to me for help, and said his
name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an
end of the ship: to see how the sea flap-dragoned it.
But, first, how the poor souls roared and the sea
1051575mocked them, and how the poor gentleman roared
and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than
the sea or weather.
Name of mercy, when was this, boy?
Now, now. I have not winked since I
1101580saw these sights. The men are not yet cold under
water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman.
He’s at it now.
Would I had been by to have helped the old
man.
1151585I would you had been by the ship side,
to have helped her. There your charity would have
lacked footing.
Heavy matters, heavy matters. But look
thee here, boy. Now bless thyself. Thou met’st with
1201590things dying, I with things newborn. Here’s a sight
for thee. Look thee, a bearing cloth for a squire’s
child. Look thee here. Take up, take up, boy. Open
’t. So, let’s see. It was told me I should be rich by
the fairies. This is some changeling. Open ’t. What’s
1251595within, boy?
You’re a made old
man. If the sins of your youth are forgiven you,
you’re well to live. Gold, all gold.
This is fairy gold, boy, and ’twill prove so.
1301600Up with ’t, keep it close. Home, home, the next way.
We are lucky, boy, and to be so still requires
nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go. Come, good
boy, the next way home.
Go you the next way with your
1351605findings. I’ll go see if the bear be gone from the
gentleman and how much he hath eaten. They are
never curst but when they are hungry. If there be
any of him left, I’ll bury it.
That’s a good deed. If thou mayest discern
1401610by that which is left of him what he is, fetch me to
th’ sight of him.
Marry, will I, and you shall help to
put him i’ th’ ground.
’Tis a lucky day, boy, and we’ll do good
1451615deeds on ’t.
I, that please some, try all—both joy and terror
Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error—
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
51620To me or my swift passage that I slide
O’er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap, since it is in my power
To o’erthrow law and in one self-born hour
To plant and o’erwhelm custom. Let me pass
101625The same I am ere ancient’st order was
Or what is now received. I witness to
The times that brought them in. So shall I do
To th’ freshest things now reigning, and make stale
The glistering of this present, as my tale
151630Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,
I turn my glass and give my scene such growing
As you had slept between. Leontes leaving,
Th’ effects of his fond jealousies so grieving
That he shuts up himself, imagine me,
201635Gentle spectators, that I now may be
In fair Bohemia. And remember well
I mentioned a son o’ th’ King’s, which Florizell
I now name to you, and with speed so pace
To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace
251640Equal with wond’ring. What of her ensues
I list not prophesy; but let Time’s news
Be known when ’tis brought forth. A shepherd’s
daughter
And what to her adheres, which follows after,
301645Is th’ argument of Time. Of this allow,
If ever you have spent time worse ere now.
If never, yet that Time himself doth say
He wishes earnestly you never may.
I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more
1650importunate. ’Tis a sickness denying thee anything,
a death to grant this.
It is fifteen years since I saw my country.
5Though I have for the most part been aired abroad,
I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent
1655king, my master, hath sent for me, to whose feeling
sorrows I might be some allay—or I o’erween to
think so—which is another spur to my departure.
10As thou lov’st me, Camillo, wipe not out the
rest of thy services by leaving me now. The need I
1660have of thee thine own goodness hath made. Better
not to have had thee than thus to want thee. Thou,
having made me businesses which none without
15thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to
execute them thyself or take away with thee the very
1665services thou hast done, which if I have not enough
considered, as too much I cannot, to be more
thankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit
20therein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country
Sicilia, prithee speak no more, whose very
1670naming punishes me with the remembrance of that
penitent, as thou call’st him, and reconciled king
my brother, whose loss of his most precious queen
25and children are even now to be afresh lamented.
Say to me, when sawst thou the Prince Florizell, my
1675son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not
being gracious, than they are in losing them when
they have approved their virtues.
30Sir, it is three days since I saw the Prince.
What his happier affairs may be are to me unknown,
1680but I have missingly noted he is of late
much retired from court and is less frequent to his
princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.
35I have considered so much, Camillo, and
with some care, so far that I have eyes under my
1685service which look upon his removedness, from
whom I have this intelligence: that he is seldom
from the house of a most homely shepherd, a man,
40they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the
imagination of his neighbors, is grown into an
1690unspeakable estate.
I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a
daughter of most rare note. The report of her is
45extended more than can be thought to begin from
such a cottage.
1695That’s likewise part of my intelligence, but,
I fear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou
shalt accompany us to the place, where we will, not
50appearing what we are, have some question with
the shepherd, from whose simplicity I think it not
1700uneasy to get the cause of my son’s resort thither.
Prithee be my present partner in this business, and
lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.
55I willingly obey your command.
My best Camillo. We must disguise
1705ourselves.
When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh, the doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year,
For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.
51710The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh, the sweet birds, O how they sing!
Doth set my pugging tooth an edge,
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.
The lark, that tirralirra chants,
101715With heigh, with heigh, the thrush and the jay,
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay.
I have served Prince Florizell and in my time wore
three-pile, but now I am out of service.
151720But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
The pale moon shines by night,
And when I wander here and there,
I then do most go right.
If tinkers may have leave to live,
201725And bear the sow-skin budget,
Then my account I well may give,
And in the stocks avouch it.
My traffic is sheets. When the kite builds, look to
lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus, who,
251730being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise
a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and
drab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is
the silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful
on the highway. Beating and hanging are terrors to
301735me. For the life to come, I sleep out the thought of
it. A prize, a prize!
Let me see, every ’leven wether tods,
every tod yields pound and odd shilling; fifteen
hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?
351740If the springe hold, the cock’s
mine.
I cannot do ’t without counters. Let
me see, what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing
feast? (He reads a paper.) Three pound of sugar,
401745five pound of currants, rice—what will this sister of
mine do with rice? But my father hath made her
mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath
made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers,
three-man song men all, and very good ones;
451750but they are most of them means and basses, but
one Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to
hornpipes. I must have saffron to color the warden
pies; mace; dates, none, that’s out of my note;
nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I
501755may beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of
raisins o’ th’ sun.
O, that ever I was
born!
I’ th’ name of me!
551760O, help me, help me! Pluck but off these
rags, and then death, death.
Alack, poor soul, thou hast need of
more rags to lay on thee rather than have these off.
O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends
601765me more than the stripes I have received, which are
mighty ones and millions.
Alas, poor man, a million of beating
may come to a great matter.
I am robbed, sir, and beaten, my money
651770and apparel ta’en from me, and these detestable
things put upon me.
What, by a horseman, or a footman?
A footman, sweet sir, a footman.
Indeed, he should be a footman by
701775the garments he has left with thee. If this be a
horseman’s coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend
me thy hand; I’ll help thee. Come, lend me thy
hand.
O, good sir, tenderly, O!
751780Alas, poor soul.
O, good sir, softly, good sir. I fear, sir, my
shoulder blade is out.
How now? Canst stand?
Softly,
801785dear sir, good sir, softly. You ha’ done me a charitable
office.
Dost lack any money? I have a little
money for thee.
No, good sweet sir, no, I beseech you, sir. I
851790have a kinsman not past three-quarters of a mile
hence, unto whom I was going. I shall there have
money or anything I want. Offer me no money, I
pray you; that kills my heart.
What manner of fellow was he that
901795robbed you?
A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about
with troll-my-dames. I knew him once a servant of
the Prince. I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his
virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of
951800the court.
His vices, you would say. There’s no
virtue whipped out of the court. They cherish it to
make it stay there, and yet it will no more but abide.
Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man
1001805well. He hath been since an ape-bearer, then a
process-server, a bailiff. Then he compassed a motion
of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker’s wife
within a mile where my land and living lies, and,
having flown over many knavish professions, he
1051810settled only in rogue. Some call him Autolycus.
Out upon him! Prig, for my life, prig!
He haunts wakes, fairs, and bearbaitings.
Very true, sir: he, sir, he. That’s the rogue
that put me into this apparel.
1101815Not a more cowardly rogue in all
Bohemia. If you had but looked big and spit at him,
he’d have run.
I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter. I
am false of heart that way, and that he knew, I
1151820warrant him.
How do you now?
Sweet sir, much better than I was. I can
stand and walk. I will even take my leave of you and
pace softly towards my kinsman’s.
1201825Shall I bring thee on the way?
No, good-faced sir, no, sweet sir.
Then fare thee well. I must go buy
spices for our sheep-shearing.
Prosper you, sweet sir.
Shepherd’s Son exits.
1251830Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your
spice. I’ll be with you at your sheep-shearing too. If
I make not this cheat bring out another, and the
shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my
name put in the book of virtue.
Sings.1301835Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile-a.
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
These your unusual weeds to each part of you
1840Does give a life—no shepherdess, but Flora
Peering in April’s front. This your sheep-shearing
Is as a meeting of the petty gods,
5And you the queen on ’t.
Sir, my gracious lord,
1845To chide at your extremes it not becomes me;
O, pardon that I name them! Your high self,
The gracious mark o’ th’ land, you have obscured
10With a swain’s wearing, and me, poor lowly maid,
Most goddesslike pranked up. But that our feasts
1850In every mess have folly, and the feeders
Digest it with a custom, I should blush
To see you so attired, swoon, I think,
15To show myself a glass.
I bless the time
1855When my good falcon made her flight across
Thy father’s ground.
Now Jove afford you cause.
20To me the difference forges dread. Your greatness
Hath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble
1860To think your father by some accident
Should pass this way as you did. O the Fates,
How would he look to see his work, so noble,
25Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how
Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts, behold
1865The sternness of his presence?
Apprehend
Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,
30Humbling their deities to love, have taken
The shapes of beasts upon them. Jupiter
1870Became a bull, and bellowed; the green Neptune
A ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god,
Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,
35As I seem now. Their transformations
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,
1875Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires
Run not before mine honor, nor my lusts
Burn hotter than my faith.
40O, but sir,
Your resolution cannot hold when ’tis
1880Opposed, as it must be, by th’ power of the King.
One of these two must be necessities,
Which then will speak: that you must change this
45purpose
Or I my life.
1885Thou dear’st Perdita,
With these forced thoughts I prithee darken not
The mirth o’ th’ feast. Or I’ll be thine, my fair,
50Or not my father’s. For I cannot be
Mine own, nor anything to any, if
1890I be not thine. To this I am most constant,
Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle.
Strangle such thoughts as these with anything
55That you behold the while. Your guests are coming.
Lift up your countenance as it were the day
1895Of celebration of that nuptial which
We two have sworn shall come.
O Lady Fortune,
60Stand you auspicious!
See, your guests approach.
1900Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,
And let’s be red with mirth.
Fie, daughter, when my old wife lived, upon
65This day she was both pantler, butler, cook,
Both dame and servant; welcomed all; served all;
1905Would sing her song and dance her turn, now here
At upper end o’ th’ table, now i’ th’ middle;
On his shoulder, and his; her face afire
70With labor, and the thing she took to quench it
She would to each one sip. You are retired
1910As if you were a feasted one and not
The hostess of the meeting. Pray you bid
These unknown friends to ’s welcome, for it is
75A way to make us better friends, more known.
Come, quench your blushes and present yourself
1915That which you are, mistress o’ th’ feast. Come on,
And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,
As your good flock shall prosper.
80Sir, welcome.
It is my father’s will I should take on me
1920The hostess-ship o’ th’ day. To Camillo. You’re
welcome, sir.—
Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.—Reverend
85sirs,
For you there’s rosemary and rue. These keep
1925Seeming and savor all the winter long.
Grace and remembrance be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing.
90Shepherdess—
A fair one are you—well you fit our ages
1930With flowers of winter.
Sir, the year growing ancient,
Not yet on summer’s death nor on the birth
95Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o’ th’ season
Are our carnations and streaked gillyvors,
1935Which some call nature’s bastards. Of that kind
Our rustic garden’s barren, and I care not
To get slips of them.
100Wherefore, gentle maiden,
Do you neglect them?
1940For I have heard it said
There is an art which in their piedness shares
With great creating nature.
105Say there be;
Yet nature is made better by no mean
1945But nature makes that mean. So, over that art
Which you say adds to nature is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
110A gentler scion to the wildest stock,
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
1950By bud of nobler race. This is an art
Which does mend nature, change it rather, but
The art itself is nature.
115So it is.
Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,
1955And do not call them bastards.
I’ll not put
The dibble in earth to set one slip of them,
120No more than, were I painted, I would wish
This youth should say ’twere well, and only
1960therefore
Desire to breed by me. Here’s flowers for you:
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,
125The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ th’ sun
And with him rises weeping. These are flowers
1965Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age. You’re very welcome.
I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,
130And only live by gazing.
Out, alas!
1970You’d be so lean that blasts of January
Would blow you through and through. (To
Florizell.) Now, my fair’st friend,
135I would I had some flowers o’ th’ spring, that might
Become your time of day, (to the Shepherdesses)
1975and yours, and yours,
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maidenheads growing. O Proserpina,
140For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let’st fall
From Dis’s wagon! Daffodils,
1980That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes
145Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried ere they can behold
1985Bright Phoebus in his strength—a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
150The flower-de-luce being one—O, these I lack
To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,
1990To strew him o’er and o’er.
What, like a corse?
No, like a bank for love to lie and play on,
155Not like a corse; or if, not to be buried,
But quick and in mine arms. Come, take your
1995flowers.
Methinks I play as I have seen them do
In Whitsun pastorals. Sure this robe of mine
160Does change my disposition.
What you do
2000Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I’d have you do it ever. When you sing,
I’d have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
165Pray so; and for the ord’ring your affairs,
To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you
2005A wave o’ th’ sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that, move still, still so,
And own no other function. Each your doing,
170So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
2010That all your acts are queens.
O Doricles,
Your praises are too large. But that your youth
175And the true blood which peeps fairly through ’t
Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd,
2015With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,
You wooed me the false way.
I think you have
180As little skill to fear as I have purpose
To put you to ’t. But come, our dance, I pray.
2020Your hand, my Perdita. So turtles pair
That never mean to part.
I’ll swear for ’em.
185This is the prettiest lowborn lass that ever
Ran on the greensward. Nothing she does or seems
2025But smacks of something greater than herself,
Too noble for this place.
He tells her something
190That makes her blood look out. Good sooth, she is
The queen of curds and cream.
2030Come on, strike up.
Mopsa must be your mistress? Marry, garlic
To mend her kissing with.
195Now, in good time!
Not a word, a word. We stand upon our manners.—
2035Come, strike up.
Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this
Which dances with your daughter?
200They call him Doricles, and boasts himself
To have a worthy feeding. But I have it
2040Upon his own report, and I believe it.
He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter.
I think so too, for never gazed the moon
205Upon the water as he’ll stand and read,
As ’twere, my daughter’s eyes. And, to be plain,
2045I think there is not half a kiss to choose
Who loves another best.
She dances featly.
210So she does anything, though I report it
That should be silent. If young Doricles
2050Do light upon her, she shall bring him that
Which he not dreams of.
O, master, if you did but hear the peddler at
215the door, you would never dance again after a tabor
and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you. He
2055sings several tunes faster than you’ll tell money. He
utters them as he had eaten ballads and all men’s
ears grew to his tunes.
220He could never come better. He shall
come in. I love a ballad but even too well if it be
2060doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant
thing indeed and sung lamentably.
He hath songs for man or woman, of all sizes.
225No milliner can so fit his customers with gloves. He
has the prettiest love songs for maids, so without
2065bawdry, which is strange, with such delicate burdens
of dildos and fadings, “Jump her and thump
her.” And where some stretch-mouthed rascal
230would, as it were, mean mischief and break a foul
gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer
2070“Whoop, do me no harm, good man”; puts him off,
slights him, with “Whoop, do me no harm, good
man.”
235This is a brave fellow.
Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable
2075conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided
wares?
He hath ribbons of all the colors i’ th’ rainbow;
240points more than all the lawyers in Bohemia
can learnedly handle, though they come to him by
2080th’ gross; inkles, caddises, cambrics, lawns—why,
he sings ’em over as they were gods or goddesses.
You would think a smock were a she-angel, he so
245chants to the sleeve-hand and the work about the
square on ’t.
2085Prithee bring him in, and let him
approach singing.
Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words
250in ’s tunes.
You have of these peddlers that have
2090more in them than you’d think, sister.
Ay, good brother, or go about to think.
Enter Autolycus, wearing a false beard, singing.
Lawn as white as driven snow,
255Cypress black as e’er was crow,
Gloves as sweet as damask roses,
2095Masks for faces and for noses,
Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,
Perfume for a lady’s chamber,
260Golden coifs and stomachers
For my lads to give their dears,
2100Pins and poking-sticks of steel,
What maids lack from head to heel,
Come buy of me, come. Come buy, come buy.
265Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry.
Come buy.
2105If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou
shouldst take no money of me; but being enthralled
as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain
270ribbons and gloves.
I was promised them against the feast, but they
2110come not too late now.
He hath promised you more than that, or there
be liars.
275He hath paid you all he promised you. Maybe
he has paid you more, which will shame you to give
2115him again.
Is there no manners left among
maids? Will they wear their plackets where they
280should bear their faces? Is there not milking time,
when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle
2120of these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling
before all our guests? ’Tis well they are whisp’ring.
Clamor your tongues, and not a word more.
285I have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry
lace and a pair of sweet gloves.
2125Have I not told thee how I was cozened
by the way and lost all my money?
And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad;
290therefore it behooves men to be wary.
Fear not thou, man. Thou shalt lose
2130nothing here.
I hope so, sir, for I have about me many
parcels of charge.
295What hast here? Ballads?
Pray now, buy some. I love a ballad in print
2135alife, for then we are sure they are true.
Here’s one to a very doleful tune, how a
usurer’s wife was brought to bed of twenty moneybags
300at a burden, and how she longed to eat adders’
heads and toads carbonadoed.
2140Is it true, think you?
Very true, and but a month old.
Bless me from marrying a usurer!
305Here’s the midwife’s name to ’t, one Mistress
Taleporter, and five or six honest wives that
2145were present. Why should I carry lies abroad?
Pray you now, buy it.
Come on, lay it by, and
310let’s first see more ballads. We’ll buy the other
things anon.
2150Here’s another ballad, of a fish that appeared
upon the coast on Wednesday the fourscore
of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and
315sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids. It
was thought she was a woman, and was turned into
2155a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh with
one that loved her. The ballad is very pitiful, and as
true.
320Is it true too, think you?
Five justices’ hands at it, and witnesses
2160more than my pack will hold.
Lay it by too. Another.
This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty
325one.
Let’s have some merry ones.
2165Why, this is a passing merry one and goes
to the tune of There’s
scarce a maid westward but she sings it. ’Tis in
330request, I can tell you.
We can both sing it. If thou ’lt bear a part, thou
2170shalt hear; ’tis in three parts.
We had the tune on ’t a month ago.
I can bear my part. You must know ’tis my
335occupation. Have at it with you.
Get you hence, for I must go
2175Where it fits not you to know.
Whither?
O, whither?
340Whither?
It becomes thy oath full well
2180Thou to me thy secrets tell.
Me too. Let me go thither.
Or thou goest to th’ grange or mill.
345If to either, thou dost ill.
Neither.
2185What, neither?
Neither.
Thou hast sworn my love to be.
350Thou hast sworn it more to me.
Then whither goest? Say whither.
2190We’ll have this song out anon by
ourselves. My father and the gentlemen are in sad
talk, and we’ll not trouble them. Come, bring away
355thy pack after me.—Wenches, I’ll buy for you
both.—Peddler, let’s have the first choice.—Follow
2195me, girls.
And you shall pay well for ’em.
Will you buy any tape,
360Or lace for your cape,
My dainty duck, my dear-a?
2200Any silk, any thread,
Any toys for your head,
Of the new’st and fin’st, fin’st wear-a?
365Come to the peddler.
Money’s a meddler
2205That doth utter all men’s ware-a.
Master, there is three carters,
three shepherds, three neatherds, three swineherds,
370that have made themselves all men of hair.
They call themselves saultiers, and they have a
2210dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of
gambols, because they are not in ’t, but they themselves
are o’ th’ mind, if it be not too rough for
375some that know little but bowling, it will please
plentifully.
2215Away! We’ll none on ’t. Here has been too
much homely foolery already.—I know, sir, we
weary you.
380You weary those that refresh us. Pray, let’s
see these four threes of herdsmen.
2220One three of them, by their own report, sir,
hath danced before the King, and not the worst of
the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by th’
385square.
Leave your prating. Since these good men
2225are pleased, let them come in—but quickly now.
Why, they stay at door, sir.
He admits the herdsmen.Here a Dance of twelve herdsmen, dressed as Satyrs.Herdsmen, Musicians, and Servants exit.
O father, you’ll know more of that hereafter.
390Aside to Camillo. Is it not too far gone? ’Tis time to
part them.
2230He’s simple, and tells much. To Florizell. How now,
fair shepherd?
Your heart is full of something that does take
395Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young
And handed love, as you do, I was wont
2235To load my she with knacks. I would have ransacked
The peddler’s silken treasury and have poured it
To her acceptance. You have let him go
400And nothing marted with him. If your lass
Interpretation should abuse and call this
2240Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited
For a reply, at least if you make a care
Of happy holding her.
405Old sir, I know
She prizes not such trifles as these are.
2245The gifts she looks from me are packed and locked
Up in my heart, which I have given already,
But not delivered. To Perdita. O, hear me breathe
410my life
Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem,
2250Hath sometime loved. I take thy hand, this hand
As soft as dove’s down and as white as it,
Or Ethiopian’s tooth, or the fanned snow that’s
415bolted
By th’ northern blasts twice o’er.
2255What follows this?—
How prettily th’ young swain seems to wash
The hand was fair before.—I have put you out.
420But to your protestation. Let me hear
What you profess.
2260Do, and be witness to ’t.
And this my neighbor too?
And he, and more
425Than he, and men—the Earth, the heavens, and
all—
2265That were I crowned the most imperial monarch,
Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth
That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge
430More than was ever man’s, I would not prize them
Without her love; for her employ them all,
2270Commend them and condemn them to her service
Or to their own perdition.
Fairly offered.
435This shows a sound affection.
But my daughter,
2275Say you the like to him?
I cannot speak
So well, nothing so well, no, nor mean better.
440By th’ pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out
The purity of his.
2280Take hands, a bargain.—
And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to ’t:
I give my daughter to him and will make
445Her portion equal his.
O, that must be
2285I’ th’ virtue of your daughter. One being dead,
I shall have more than you can dream of yet,
Enough then for your wonder. But come on,
450Contract us fore these witnesses.
Come, your hand—
2290And daughter, yours.
Soft, swain, awhile, beseech
you.
455Have you a father?
I have, but what of him?
2295Knows he of this?
He neither does nor shall.
Methinks a father
460Is at the nuptial of his son a guest
That best becomes the table. Pray you once more,
2300Is not your father grown incapable
Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid
With age and alt’ring rheums? Can he speak? Hear?
465Know man from man? Dispute his own estate?
Lies he not bedrid, and again does nothing
2305But what he did being childish?
No, good sir.
He has his health and ampler strength indeed
470Than most have of his age.
By my white beard,
2310You offer him, if this be so, a wrong
Something unfilial. Reason my son
Should choose himself a wife, but as good reason
475The father, all whose joy is nothing else
But fair posterity, should hold some counsel
2315In such a business.
I yield all this;
But for some other reasons, my grave sir,
480Which ’tis not fit you know, I not acquaint
My father of this business.
2320Let him know ’t.
He shall not.
Prithee let him.
485No, he must not.
Let him, my son. He shall not need to grieve
2325At knowing of thy choice.
Come, come, he must not.
Mark our contract.
490Mark your divorce,
young sir,
2330Whom son I dare not call. Thou art too base
To be acknowledged. Thou a scepter’s heir
That thus affects a sheep-hook!—Thou, old traitor,
495I am sorry that by hanging thee I can
But shorten thy life one week.—And thou, fresh
2335piece
Of excellent witchcraft, whom of force must know
The royal fool thou cop’st with—
500O, my heart!
I’ll have thy beauty scratched with briers and made
2340More homely than thy state.—For thee, fond boy,
If I may ever know thou dost but sigh
That thou no more shalt see this knack—as never
505I mean thou shalt—we’ll bar thee from succession,
Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,
2345Far’r than Deucalion off. Mark thou my words.
Follow us to the court. To Shepherd. Thou, churl,
for this time,
510Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee
From the dead blow of it.—And you, enchantment,
2350Worthy enough a herdsman—yea, him too,
That makes himself, but for our honor therein,
Unworthy thee—if ever henceforth thou
515These rural latches to his entrance open,
Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,
2355I will devise a death as cruel for thee
As thou art tender to ’t.
Even here undone.
520I was not much afeard, for once or twice
I was about to speak and tell him plainly
2360The selfsame sun that shines upon his court
Hides not his visage from our cottage but
Looks on alike. To Florizell. Will ’t please you, sir,
525be gone?
I told you what would come of this. Beseech you,
2365Of your own state take care. This dream of mine—
Being now awake, I’ll queen it no inch farther,
But milk my ewes and weep.
530Why, how now, father?
Speak ere thou diest.
2370I cannot speak, nor think,
Nor dare to know that which I know. To Florizell.
O sir,
535You have undone a man of fourscore three,
That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,
2375To die upon the bed my father died,
To lie close by his honest bones; but now
Some hangman must put on my shroud and lay me
540Where no priest shovels in dust. To Perdita. O
cursèd wretch,
2380That knew’st this was the Prince, and wouldst
adventure
To mingle faith with him!—Undone, undone!
545If I might die within this hour, I have lived
To die when I desire.
2385Why look you so upon me?
I am but sorry, not afeard; delayed,
But nothing altered. What I was, I am,
550More straining on for plucking back, not following
My leash unwillingly.
2390Gracious my lord,
You know your father’s temper. At this time
He will allow no speech, which I do guess
555You do not purpose to him; and as hardly
Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear.
2395Then, till the fury of his Highness settle,
Come not before him.
I not purpose it.
560I think Camillo?
Even he, my lord.
2400How often have I told you ’twould be thus?
How often said my dignity would last
But till ’twere known?
565It cannot fail but by
The violation of my faith; and then
2405Let nature crush the sides o’ th’ Earth together
And mar the seeds within. Lift up thy looks.
From my succession wipe me, father. I
570Am heir to my affection.
Be advised.
2410I am, and by my fancy. If my reason
Will thereto be obedient, I have reason.
If not, my senses, better pleased with madness,
575Do bid it welcome.
This is desperate, sir.
2415So call it; but it does fulfill my vow.
I needs must think it honesty. Camillo,
Not for Bohemia nor the pomp that may
580Be thereat gleaned, for all the sun sees or
The close earth wombs or the profound seas hides
2420In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath
To this my fair beloved. Therefore, I pray you,
As you have ever been my father’s honored friend,
585When he shall miss me, as in faith I mean not
To see him anymore, cast your good counsels
2425Upon his passion. Let myself and fortune
Tug for the time to come. This you may know
And so deliver: I am put to sea
590With her who here I cannot hold on shore.
And most opportune to our need I have
2430A vessel rides fast by, but not prepared
For this design. What course I mean to hold
Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor
595Concern me the reporting.
O my lord,
2435I would your spirit were easier for advice
Or stronger for your need.
Hark, Perdita.—
600I’ll hear you by and by.
He’s irremovable,
2440Resolved for flight. Now were I happy if
His going I could frame to serve my turn,
Save him from danger, do him love and honor,
605Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia
And that unhappy king, my master, whom
2445I so much thirst to see.
Now, good Camillo,
I am so fraught with curious business that
610I leave out ceremony.
Sir, I think
2450You have heard of my poor services i’ th’ love
That I have borne your father?
Very nobly
615Have you deserved. It is my father’s music
To speak your deeds, not little of his care
2455To have them recompensed as thought on.
Well, my
lord,
620If you may please to think I love the King
And, through him, what’s nearest to him, which is
2460Your gracious self, embrace but my direction,
If your more ponderous and settled project
May suffer alteration. On mine honor,
625I’ll point you where you shall have such receiving
As shall become your Highness, where you may
2465Enjoy your mistress—from the whom I see
There’s no disjunction to be made but by,
As heavens forfend, your ruin—marry her,
630And with my best endeavors in your absence,
Your discontenting father strive to qualify
2470And bring him up to liking.
How, Camillo,
May this, almost a miracle, be done,
635That I may call thee something more than man,
And after that trust to thee?
2475Have you thought on
A place whereto you’ll go?
Not any yet.
640But as th’ unthought-on accident is guilty
To what we wildly do, so we profess
2480Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies
Of every wind that blows.
Then list to me.
645This follows: if you will not change your purpose
But undergo this flight, make for Sicilia,
2485And there present yourself and your fair princess,
For so I see she must be, ’fore Leontes.
She shall be habited as it becomes
650The partner of your bed. Methinks I see
Leontes opening his free arms and weeping
2490His welcomes forth, asks thee, the son, forgiveness,
As ’twere i’ th’ father’s person; kisses the hands
Of your fresh princess; o’er and o’er divides him
655’Twixt his unkindness and his kindness. Th’ one
He chides to hell and bids the other grow
2495Faster than thought or time.
Worthy Camillo,
What color for my visitation shall I
660Hold up before him?
Sent by the King your father
2500To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,
The manner of your bearing towards him, with
What you, as from your father, shall deliver,
665Things known betwixt us three, I’ll write you down,
The which shall point you forth at every sitting
2505What you must say, that he shall not perceive
But that you have your father’s bosom there
And speak his very heart.
670I am bound to you.
There is some sap in this.
2510A course more promising
Than a wild dedication of yourselves
To unpathed waters, undreamed shores, most
675certain
To miseries enough; no hope to help you,
2515But as you shake off one to take another;
Nothing so certain as your anchors, who
Do their best office if they can but stay you
680Where you’ll be loath to be. Besides, you know
Prosperity’s the very bond of love,
2520Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together
Affliction alters.
One of these is true.
685I think affliction may subdue the cheek
But not take in the mind.
2525Yea, say you so?
There shall not at your father’s house these seven
years
690Be born another such.
My good Camillo,
2530She’s as forward of her breeding as she is
I’ th’ rear our birth.
I cannot say ’tis pity
695She lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress
To most that teach.
2535Your pardon, sir. For this
I’ll blush you thanks.
My prettiest Perdita.
700But O, the thorns we stand upon!—Camillo,
Preserver of my father, now of me,
2540The medicine of our house, how shall we do?
We are not furnished like Bohemia’s son,
Nor shall appear in Sicilia.
705My lord,
Fear none of this. I think you know my fortunes
2545Do all lie there. It shall be so my care
To have you royally appointed as if
The scene you play were mine. For instance, sir,
710That you may know you shall not want, one word.
Ha, ha, what a fool Honesty is! And Trust,
2550his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have
sold all my trumpery. Not a counterfeit stone, not a
ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table book, ballad,
715knife, tape, glove, shoe tie, bracelet, horn ring,
to keep my pack from fasting. They throng who
2555should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed
and brought a benediction to the buyer; by which
means I saw whose purse was best in picture, and
720what I saw, to my good use I remembered. My
clown, who wants but something to be a reasonable
2560man, grew so in love with the wenches’ song that he
would not stir his pettitoes till he had both tune and
words, which so drew the rest of the herd to me that
725all their other senses stuck in ears. You might have
pinched a placket, it was senseless; ’twas nothing to
2565geld a codpiece of a purse. I could have filed
keys off that hung in chains. No hearing, no feeling,
but my sir’s song and admiring the nothing of it. So
730that in this time of lethargy I picked and cut most of
their festival purses. And had not the old man come
2570in with a hubbub against his daughter and the
King’s son, and scared my choughs from the chaff, I
had not left a purse alive in the whole army.
735Nay, but my letters, by this means being there
So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.
2575And those that you’ll procure from King Leontes—
Shall satisfy your father.
Happy be you!
740All that you speak shows fair.
Who have we here?
2580We’ll make an instrument of this, omit
Nothing may give us aid.
If they have overheard me now, why, hanging.
745How now, good fellow? Why shak’st thou so?
Fear not, man. Here’s no harm intended to thee.
2585I am a poor fellow, sir.
Why, be so still. Here’s nobody will steal that
from thee. Yet for the outside of thy poverty we
750must make an exchange. Therefore discase thee
instantly—thou must think there’s a necessity in
2590’t—and change garments with this gentleman.
Though the pennyworth on his side be the worst,
yet hold thee, there’s some boot.
755I am a poor fellow, sir. Aside. I know you
well enough.
2595Nay, prithee, dispatch. The gentleman is half
flayed already.
Are you in earnest, sir? Aside. I smell the
760trick on ’t.
Dispatch, I prithee.
2600Indeed, I have had earnest, but I cannot
with conscience take it.
Unbuckle, unbuckle.
Florizell and Autolycus exchange garments.
765Fortunate mistress—let my prophecy
Come home to you!—you must retire yourself
2605Into some covert. Take your sweetheart’s hat
And pluck it o’er your brows, muffle your face,
Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken
770The truth of your own seeming, that you may—
For I do fear eyes over—to shipboard
2610Get undescried.
I see the play so lies
That I must bear a part.
775No remedy.—
Have you done there?
2615Should I now meet my father,
He would not call me son.
Nay, you shall have no hat.
He gives Florizell’s hat to Perdita.
780Come, lady, come.—Farewell, my friend.
Adieu, sir.
2620O Perdita, what have we twain forgot?
Pray you, a word.
What I do next shall be to tell the King
785Of this escape, and whither they are bound;
Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail
2625To force him after, in whose company
I shall re-view Sicilia, for whose sight
I have a woman’s longing.
790Fortune speed us!—
Thus we set on, Camillo, to th’ seaside.
2630The swifter speed the better.
Camillo, Florizell, and Perdita exit.
I understand the business; I hear it. To have
an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand is
795necessary for a cutpurse; a good nose is requisite
also, to smell out work for th’ other senses. I see this
2635is the time that the unjust man doth thrive. What an
exchange had this been without boot! What a boot
is here with this exchange! Sure the gods do this
800year connive at us, and we may do anything extempore.
The Prince himself is about a piece of iniquity,
2640stealing away from his father with his clog at his
heels. If I thought it were a piece of honesty to
acquaint the King withal, I would not do ’t. I hold it
805the more knavery to conceal it, and therein am I
constant to my profession.
Enter Shepherd’s Son and Shepherd, carrying the
bundle and the box.
2645Aside, aside! Here is more matter for a hot brain.
Every lane’s end, every shop, church, session, hanging,
yields a careful man work.
810See, see, what a man
you are now! There is no other way but to tell the
2650King she’s a changeling and none of your flesh and
blood.
Nay, but hear me.
815Nay, but hear me!
Go to, then.
2655She being none of your flesh and
blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the
King, and so your flesh and blood is not to be
820punished by him. Show those things you found
about her, those secret things, all but what she has
2660with her. This being done, let the law go whistle, I
warrant you.
I will tell the King all, every word, yea, and
825his son’s pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest
man, neither to his father nor to me, to go about to
2665make me the King’s brother-in-law.
Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest
off you could have been to him, and then your
830blood had been the dearer by I know how much an
ounce.
2670Very wisely, puppies.
Well, let us to the King. There is that in this
fardel will make him scratch his beard.
835I know not what impediment this
complaint may be to the flight of my master.
2675Pray heartily he be at’ palace.
Though I am not naturally honest,
I am so sometimes by chance. Let me pocket up my
840peddler’s excrement. (He removes his false beard.)
How now, rustics, whither are you bound?
2680To th’ palace, an it like your Worship.
Your affairs there? What, with whom, the
condition of that fardel, the place of your dwelling,
845your names, your ages, of what having, breeding,
and anything that is fitting to be known, discover!
2685We are but plain fellows, sir.
A lie; you are rough and hairy. Let me have
no lying. It becomes none but tradesmen, and they
850often give us soldiers the lie, but we pay them for it
with stamped coin, not stabbing steel; therefore
2690they do not give us the lie.
Your Worship had like to have given
us one, if you had not taken yourself with the
855manner.
Are you a courtier, an ’t like you, sir?
2695Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier.
Seest thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings?
Hath not my gait in it the measure of the
860court? Receives not thy nose court odor from me?
Reflect I not on thy baseness court contempt?
2700Think’st thou, for that I insinuate and toze from
thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am
courtier cap-a-pie; and one that will either push on
865or pluck back thy business there. Whereupon I
command thee to open thy affair.
2705My business, sir, is to the King.
What advocate hast thou to him?
I know not, an ’t like you.
870’s the
court word for a pheasant. Say you have none.
2710None, sir. I have no pheasant,
cock nor hen.
How blest are we that are not simple men!
875Yet Nature might have made me as these are.
Therefore I will not disdain.
2715This cannot be but a
great courtier.
His garments are rich, but he wears them
880not handsomely.
He seems to be the more noble in
2720being fantastical. A great man, I’ll warrant. I know
by the picking on ’s teeth.
The fardel there. What’s i’ th’ fardel?
885Wherefore that box?
Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and
2725box which none must know but the King, and
which he shall know within this hour if I may come
to th’ speech of him.
890Age, thou hast lost thy labor.
Why, sir?
2730The King is not at the palace. He is gone
aboard a new ship to purge melancholy and air
himself, for, if thou beest capable of things serious,
895thou must know the King is full of grief.
So ’tis said, sir—about his son, that should
2735have married a shepherd’s daughter.
If that shepherd be not in handfast, let him
fly. The curses he shall have, the tortures he shall
900feel, will break the back of man, the heart of
monster.
2740Think you so, sir?
Not he alone shall suffer what wit can
make heavy and vengeance bitter; but those that are
905germane to him, though removed fifty times, shall
all come under the hangman—which, though it be
2745great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling
rogue, a ram tender, to offer to have his daughter
come into grace! Some say he shall be stoned, but
910that death is too soft for him, say I. Draw our throne
into a sheepcote? All deaths are too few, the sharpest
2750too easy.
Has the old man e’er a son, sir, do you
hear, an ’t like you, sir?
915He has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then
’nointed over with honey, set on the head of a
2755wasps’-nest; then stand till he be three-quarters and
a dram dead, then recovered again with aqua vitae
or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is, and
920in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall
he be set against a brick wall, the sun looking with a
2760southward eye upon him, where he is to behold him
with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these
traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at,
925their offenses being so capital? Tell me—for you
seem to be honest plain men—what you have to the
2765King. Being something gently considered, I’ll bring
you where he is aboard, tender your persons to his
presence, whisper him in your behalfs; and if it be
930in man besides the King to effect your suits, here is
man shall do it.
2770He seems to be of
great authority. Close with him, give him gold; and
though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft
935led by the nose with gold. Show the inside of your
purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado.
2775Remember: “stoned,” and “flayed alive.”
An ’t please you, sir, to
undertake the business for us, here is that gold I
940have. I’ll make it as much more, and leave this
young man in pawn till I bring it you.
2780After I have done what I promised?
Ay, sir.
Well, give me the moiety. Shepherd hands
him money. 945Are you a party in this business?
In some sort, sir; but though my case
2785be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.
O, that’s the case of the shepherd’s son!
Hang him, he’ll be made an example.
950Comfort, good comfort.
We must to the King, and show our strange
2790sights. He must know ’tis none of your daughter nor
my sister. We are gone else.—Sir, I will give you as
much as this old man does when the business is
955performed, and remain, as he says, your pawn till it
be brought you.
2795I will trust you. Walk before toward the
seaside. Go on the right hand. I will but look upon
the hedge, and follow you.
960We are blessed in this
man, as I may say, even blessed.
2800Let’s before, as he bids us. He was provided
to do us good.
If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune
965would not suffer me. She drops booties in my
mouth. I am courted now with a double occasion:
2805gold, and a means to do the Prince my master good;
which who knows how that may turn back to my
advancement? I will bring these two moles, these
970blind ones, aboard him. If he think it fit to shore
them again and that the complaint they have to the
2810King concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue
for being so far officious, for I am proof against that
title and what shame else belongs to ’t. To him will I
975present them. There may be matter in it.
Sir, you have done enough, and have performed
2815A saintlike sorrow. No fault could you make
Which you have not redeemed—indeed, paid down
More penitence than done trespass. At the last,
5Do as the heavens have done: forget your evil;
With them forgive yourself.
2820Whilst I remember
Her and her virtues, I cannot forget
My blemishes in them, and so still think of
10The wrong I did myself, which was so much
That heirless it hath made my kingdom and
2825Destroyed the sweet’st companion that e’er man
Bred his hopes out of.
True, too true, my lord.
15If one by one you wedded all the world,
Or from the all that are took something good
2830To make a perfect woman, she you killed
Would be unparalleled.
I think so. Killed?
20She I killed? I did so, but thou strik’st me
Sorely to say I did. It is as bitter
2835Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,
Say so but seldom.
Not at all, good lady.
25You might have spoken a thousand things that
would
2840Have done the time more benefit and graced
Your kindness better.
You are one of those
30Would have him wed again.
If you would not so,
2845You pity not the state nor the remembrance
Of his most sovereign name, consider little
What dangers by his Highness’ fail of issue
35May drop upon his kingdom and devour
Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy
2850Than to rejoice the former queen is well?
What holier than, for royalty’s repair,
For present comfort, and for future good,
40To bless the bed of majesty again
With a sweet fellow to ’t?
2855There is none worthy,
Respecting her that’s gone. Besides, the gods
Will have fulfilled their secret purposes.
45For has not the divine Apollo said,
Is ’t not the tenor of his oracle,
2860That King Leontes shall not have an heir
Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall
Is all as monstrous to our human reason
50As my Antigonus to break his grave
And come again to me—who, on my life,
2865Did perish with the infant. ’Tis your counsel
My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
Oppose against their wills. Care not for issue.
55The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander
Left his to th’ worthiest; so his successor
2870Was like to be the best.
Good Paulina,
Who hast the memory of Hermione,
60I know, in honor, O, that ever I
Had squared me to thy counsel! Then even now
2875I might have looked upon my queen’s full eyes,
Have taken treasure from her lips—
And left them
65More rich for what they yielded.
Thou speak’st truth.
2880No more such wives, therefore no wife. One worse,
And better used, would make her sainted spirit
Again possess her corpse, and on this stage,
70Where we offenders now appear, soul-vexed,
And begin “Why to me?”
2885Had she such power,
She had just cause.
She had, and would incense me
75To murder her I married.
I should so.
2890Were I the ghost that walked, I’d bid you mark
Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in ’t
You chose her. Then I’d shriek, that even your ears
80Should rift to hear me, and the words that followed
Should be “Remember mine.”
2895Stars, stars,
And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;
I’ll have no wife, Paulina.
85Will you swear
Never to marry but by my free leave?
2900Never, Paulina, so be blest my spirit.
Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.
You tempt him over-much.
90Unless another
As like Hermione as is her picture
2905Affront his eye.
Good madam—
I have done.
95Yet if my lord will marry—if you will, sir,
No remedy but you will—give me the office
2910To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young
As was your former, but she shall be such
As, walked your first queen’s ghost, it should take
100joy
To see her in your arms.
2915My true Paulina,
We shall not marry till thou bid’st us.
That
105Shall be when your first queen’s again in breath,
Never till then.
2920One that gives out himself Prince Florizell,
Son of Polixenes, with his princess—she
The fairest I have yet beheld—desires access
110To your high presence.
What with him? He comes not
2925Like to his father’s greatness. His approach,
So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us
’Tis not a visitation framed, but forced
115By need and accident. What train?
But few,
2930And those but mean.
His princess, say you, with him?
Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,
120That e’er the sun shone bright on.
O Hermione,
2935As every present time doth boast itself
Above a better gone, so must thy grave
Give way to what’s seen now. To Servant. Sir, you
125yourself
Have said and writ so—but your writing now
2940Is colder than that theme—she had not been
Nor was not to be equalled. Thus your verse
Flowed with her beauty once. ’Tis shrewdly ebbed
130To say you have seen a better.
Pardon, madam.
2945The one I have almost forgot—your pardon;
The other, when she has obtained your eye,
Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,
135Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
Of all professors else, make proselytes
2950Of who she but bid follow.
How, not women?
Women will love her that she is a woman
140More worth than any man; men, that she is
The rarest of all women.
2955Go, Cleomenes.
Yourself, assisted with your honored friends,
Bring them to our embracement.
Cleomenes and others exit.
145Still, ’tis strange
He thus should steal upon us.
2960Had our prince,
Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had paired
Well with this lord. There was not full a month
150Between their births.
Prithee, no more; cease. Thou
2965know’st
He dies to me again when talked of. Sure,
When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
155Will bring me to consider that which may
Unfurnish me of reason. They are come.
Enter Florizell, Perdita, Cleomenes, and others.
2970Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince,
For she did print your royal father off,
Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,
160Your father’s image is so hit in you,
His very air, that I should call you brother,
2975As I did him, and speak of something wildly
By us performed before. Most dearly welcome,
And your fair princess—goddess! O, alas,
165I lost a couple that ’twixt heaven and Earth
Might thus have stood, begetting wonder, as
2980You, gracious couple, do. And then I lost—
All mine own folly—the society,
Amity too, of your brave father, whom,
170Though bearing misery, I desire my life
Once more to look on him.
2985By his command
Have I here touched Sicilia, and from him
Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,
175Can send his brother. And but infirmity,
Which waits upon worn times, hath something
2990seized
His wished ability, he had himself
The lands and waters ’twixt your throne and his
180Measured to look upon you, whom he loves—
He bade me say so—more than all the scepters
2995And those that bear them living.
O my brother,
Good gentleman, the wrongs I have done thee stir
185Afresh within me, and these thy offices,
So rarely kind, are as interpreters
3000Of my behindhand slackness. Welcome hither,
As is the spring to th’ earth. And hath he too
Exposed this paragon to th’ fearful usage,
190At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,
To greet a man not worth her pains, much less
3005Th’ adventure of her person?
Good my lord,
She came from Libya.
195Where the warlike Smalus,
That noble honored lord, is feared and loved?
3010Most royal sir, from thence, from him, whose
daughter
His tears proclaimed his, parting with her. Thence,
200A prosperous south wind friendly, we have crossed
To execute the charge my father gave me
3015For visiting your Highness. My best train
I have from your Sicilian shores dismissed,
Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
205Not only my success in Libya, sir,
But my arrival and my wife’s in safety
3020Here where we are.
The blessèd gods
Purge all infection from our air whilst you
210Do climate here! You have a holy father,
A graceful gentleman, against whose person,
3025So sacred as it is, I have done sin,
For which the heavens, taking angry note,
Have left me issueless. And your father’s blest,
215As he from heaven merits it, with you,
Worthy his goodness. What might I have been
3030Might I a son and daughter now have looked on,
Such goodly things as you?
Most noble sir,
220That which I shall report will bear no credit,
Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,
3035Bohemia greets you from himself by me,
Desires you to attach his son, who has—
His dignity and duty both cast off—
225Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with
A shepherd’s daughter.
3040Where’s Bohemia? Speak.
Here in your city. I now came from him.
I speak amazedly, and it becomes
230My marvel and my message. To your court
Whiles he was hast’ning—in the chase, it seems,
3045Of this fair couple—meets he on the way
The father of this seeming lady and
Her brother, having both their country quitted
235With this young prince.
Camillo has betrayed me,
3050Whose honor and whose honesty till now
Endured all weathers.
Lay ’t so to his charge.
240He’s with the King your father.
Who? Camillo?
3055Camillo, sir. I spake with him, who now
Has these poor men in question. Never saw I
Wretches so quake. They kneel, they kiss the earth,
245Forswear themselves as often as they speak.
Bohemia stops his ears and threatens them
3060With divers deaths in death.
O my poor father!
The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have
250Our contract celebrated.
You are married?
3065We are not, sir, nor are we like to be.
The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first.
The odds for high and low’s alike.
255My lord,
Is this the daughter of a king?
3070She is
When once she is my wife.
That “once,” I see, by your good father’s speed
260Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,
Most sorry, you have broken from his liking,
3075Where you were tied in duty, and as sorry
Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,
That you might well enjoy her.
265Dear, look up.
Though Fortune, visible an enemy,
3080Should chase us with my father, power no jot
Hath she to change our loves.—Beseech you, sir,
Remember since you owed no more to time
270Than I do now. With thought of such affections,
Step forth mine advocate. At your request,
3085My father will grant precious things as trifles.
Would he do so, I’d beg your precious mistress,
Which he counts but a trifle.
275Sir, my liege,
Your eye hath too much youth in ’t. Not a month
3090’Fore your queen died, she was more worth such
gazes
Than what you look on now.
280I thought of her
Even in these looks I made. To Florizell. But your
3095petition
Is yet unanswered. I will to your father.
Your honor not o’erthrown by your desires,
285I am friend to them and you. Upon which errand
I now go toward him. Therefore follow me,
3100And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord.
Beseech you, sir, were you present at this
relation?
I was by at the opening of the fardel,
heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he
53105found it, whereupon, after a little amazedness, we
were all commanded out of the chamber. Only this,
methought, I heard the shepherd say: he found the
child.
I would most gladly know the issue of it.
103110I make a broken delivery of the
business, but the changes I perceived in the King
and Camillo were very notes of admiration. They
seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear
the cases of their eyes. There was speech in their
153115dumbness, language in their very gesture. They
looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, or
one destroyed. A notable passion of wonder appeared
in them, but the wisest beholder that knew
no more but seeing could not say if th’ importance
203120were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one it
must needs be.
Enter another Gentleman.
Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more.—
The news, Rogero?
Nothing but bonfires. The oracle
253125is fulfilled: the King’s daughter is found! Such a
deal of wonder is broken out within this hour that
ballad makers cannot be able to express it.
Enter another Gentleman.
Here comes the Lady Paulina’s steward. He can
deliver you more.—How goes it now, sir? This news
303130which is called true is so like an old tale that the
verity of it is in strong suspicion. Has the King
found his heir?
Most true, if ever truth were pregnant
by circumstance. That which you hear you’ll
353135swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The
mantle of Queen Hermione’s, her jewel about the
neck of it, the letters of Antigonus found with it,
which they know to be his character, the majesty of
the creature in resemblance of the mother, the
403140affection of nobleness which nature shows above
her breeding, and many other evidences proclaim
her with all certainty to be the King’s daughter. Did
you see the meeting of the two kings?
No.
453145Then have you lost a sight which
was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might
you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in
such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take
leave of them, for their joy waded in tears. There
503150was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with
countenance of such distraction that they were to
be known by garment, not by favor. Our king, being
ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found
daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss,
553155cries “O, thy mother, thy mother!” then asks Bohemia
forgiveness, then embraces his son-in-law, then
again worries he his daughter with clipping her.
Now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by
like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings’ reigns.
603160I never heard of such another encounter, which
lames report to follow it and undoes description to
do it.
What, pray you, became of Antigonus,
that carried hence the child?
653165Like an old tale still, which will
have matter to rehearse though credit be asleep and
not an ear open: he was torn to pieces with a bear.
This avouches the shepherd’s son, who has not only
his innocence, which seems much, to justify him,
703170but a handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina
knows.
What became of his bark and his
followers?
Wracked the same instant of their
753175master’s death and in the view of the shepherd, so
that all the instruments which aided to expose the
child were even then lost when it was found. But O,
the noble combat that ’twixt joy and sorrow was
fought in Paulina. She had one eye declined for the
803180loss of her husband, another elevated that the
oracle was fulfilled. She lifted the Princess from the
earth, and so locks her in embracing as if she would
pin her to her heart that she might no more be in
danger of losing.
853185The dignity of this act was worth the
audience of kings and princes, for by such was it
acted.
One of the prettiest touches of all,
and that which angled for mine eyes—caught the
903190water, though not the fish—was when at the relation
of the Queen’s death—with the manner how
she came to ’t bravely confessed and lamented by
the King—how attentiveness wounded his daughter,
till, from one sign of dolor to another, she did,
953195with an “Alas,” I would fain say bleed tears, for I am
sure my heart wept blood. Who was most marble
there changed color; some swooned, all sorrowed.
If all the world could have seen ’t, the woe had been
universal.
1003200Are they returned to the court?
No. The Princess hearing of her
mother’s statue, which is in the keeping of
Paulina—a piece many years in doing and now
newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio
1053205Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could
put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of
her custom, so perfectly he is her ape; he so near to
Hermione hath done Hermione that they say one
would speak to her and stand in hope of answer.
1103210Thither with all greediness of affection are they
gone, and there they intend to sup.
I thought she had some great
matter there in hand, for she hath privately twice or
thrice a day, ever since the death of Hermione,
1153215visited that removed house. Shall we thither and
with our company piece the rejoicing?
Who would be thence that has the
benefit of access? Every wink of an eye some new
grace will be born. Our absence makes us unthrifty
1203220to our knowledge. Let’s along.
Now, had I not the dash of my former life
in me, would preferment drop on my head. I
brought the old man and his son aboard the Prince,
told him I heard them talk of a fardel and I know
1253225not what. But he at that time, overfond of the
shepherd’s daughter—so he then took her to be—
who began to be much seasick, and himself little
better, extremity of weather continuing, this mystery
remained undiscovered. But ’tis all one to
1303230me, for had I been the finder-out of this secret, it
would not have relished among my other
discredits.
Enter Shepherd and Shepherd’s Son,
both dressed in rich clothing.
Here come those I have done good to against my
will, and already appearing in the blossoms of their
1353235fortune.
Come, boy, I am past more children, but thy
sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born.
You are well met, sir.
You denied to fight with me this other day because I
1403240was no gentleman born. See you these clothes? Say
you see them not and think me still no gentleman
born. You were best say these robes are not gentlemen
born. Give me the lie, do, and try whether I am
not now a gentleman born.
1453245I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.
Ay, and have been so any time these
four hours.
And so have I, boy.
So you have—but I was a gentleman
1503250born before my father. For the King’s son took me
by the hand and called me brother, and then the
two kings called my father brother, and then the
Prince my brother and the Princess my sister called
my father father; and so we wept, and there was the
1553255first gentlemanlike tears that ever we shed.
We may live, son, to shed many more.
Ay, or else ’twere hard luck, being in
so preposterous estate as we are.
I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all
1603260the faults I have committed to your Worship and to
give me your good report to the Prince my master.
Prithee, son, do, for we must be gentle now
we are gentlemen.
Thou wilt amend thy
1653265life?
Ay, an it like your good Worship.
Give me thy hand. I will swear to the
Prince thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in
Bohemia.
1703270You may say it, but not swear it.
Not swear it, now I am a gentleman?
Let boors and franklins say it; I’ll swear it.
How if it be false, son?
If it be ne’er so false, a true gentleman
1753275may swear it in the behalf of his friend.—And
I’ll swear to the Prince thou art a tall fellow of thy
hands and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I know
thou art no tall fellow of thy hands and that thou
wilt be drunk. But I’ll swear it, and I would thou
1803280wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands.
I will prove so, sir, to my power.
Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow. If
I do not wonder how thou dar’st venture to be
drunk, not being a tall fellow, trust me not. Hark,
1853285the Kings and Princes, our kindred, are going to see
the Queen’s picture. Come, follow us. We’ll be thy
good masters.
O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort
That I have had of thee!
3290What, sovereign sir,
I did not well, I meant well. All my services
5You have paid home. But that you have vouchsafed,
With your crowned brother and these your contracted
Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,
3295It is a surplus of your grace which never
My life may last to answer.
10O Paulina,
We honor you with trouble. But we came
To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery
3300Have we passed through, not without much content
In many singularities; but we saw not
15That which my daughter came to look upon,
The statue of her mother.
As she lived peerless,
3305So her dead likeness, I do well believe,
Excels whatever yet you looked upon
20Or hand of man hath done. Therefore I keep it
Lonely, apart. But here it is. Prepare
To see the life as lively mocked as ever
3310Still sleep mocked death. Behold, and say ’tis well.
She draws a curtain
to reveal Hermione (like a statue).
I like your silence. It the more shows off
25Your wonder. But yet speak. First you, my liege.
Comes it not something near?
Her natural posture!—
3315Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed
Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she
30In thy not chiding, for she was as tender
As infancy and grace.—But yet, Paulina,
Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing
3320So agèd as this seems.
O, not by much!
35So much the more our carver’s excellence,
Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her
As she lived now.
3325As now she might have done,
So much to my good comfort as it is
40Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,
Even with such life of majesty—warm life,
As now it coldly stands—when first I wooed her.
3330I am ashamed. Does not the stone rebuke me
For being more stone than it?—O royal piece,
45There’s magic in thy majesty, which has
My evils conjured to remembrance and
From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,
3335Standing like stone with thee.
And give me leave,
50And do not say ’tis superstition, that
I kneel, and then implore her blessing.She kneels.
Lady,
3340Dear queen, that ended when I but began,
Give me that hand of yours to kiss.
55O, patience!
The statue is but newly fixed; the color’s
Not dry.
3345My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,
Which sixteen winters cannot blow away,
60So many summers dry. Scarce any joy
Did ever so long live; no sorrow
But killed itself much sooner.
3350Dear my brother,
Let him that was the cause of this have power
65To take off so much grief from you as he
Will piece up in himself.
Indeed, my lord,
3355If I had thought the sight of my poor image
Would thus have wrought you—for the stone is
70mine—
I’d not have showed it.
Do not draw the curtain.
3360No longer shall you gaze on ’t, lest your fancy
May think anon it moves.
75Let be, let be.
Would I were dead but that methinks already—
What was he that did make it?—See, my lord,
3365Would you not deem it breathed? And that those
veins
80Did verily bear blood?
Masterly done.
The very life seems warm upon her lip.
3370The fixture of her eye has motion in ’t,
As we are mocked with art.
85I’ll draw the curtain.
My lord’s almost so far transported that
He’ll think anon it lives.
3375O sweet Paulina,
Make me to think so twenty years together!
90No settled senses of the world can match
The pleasure of that madness. Let ’t alone.
I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirred you, but
3380I could afflict you farther.
Do, Paulina,
95For this affliction has a taste as sweet
As any cordial comfort. Still methinks
There is an air comes from her. What fine chisel
3385Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,
For I will kiss her.
100Good my lord, forbear.
The ruddiness upon her lip is wet.
You’ll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own
3390With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?
No, not these twenty years.
105So long could I
Stand by, a looker-on.
Either forbear,
3395Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you
For more amazement. If you can behold it,
110I’ll make the statue move indeed, descend
And take you by the hand. But then you’ll think—
Which I protest against—I am assisted
3400By wicked powers.
What you can make her do
115I am content to look on; what to speak,
I am content to hear, for ’tis as easy
To make her speak as move.
3405It is required
You do awake your faith. Then all stand still—
120Or those that think it is unlawful business
I am about, let them depart.
Proceed.
3410No foot shall stir.
Music, awake her! Strike!
Music sounds.
125’Tis time. Descend. Be stone no more. Approach.
Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come,
I’ll fill your grave up. Stir, nay, come away.
3415Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him
Dear life redeems you.—You perceive she stirs.
Hermione descends.
130Start not. Her actions shall be holy as
You hear my spell is lawful. Do not shun her
Until you see her die again, for then
3420You kill her double. Nay, present your hand.
When she was young, you wooed her; now in age
135Is she become the suitor?
O, she’s warm!
If this be magic, let it be an art
3425Lawful as eating.
She embraces him.
140She hangs about his neck.
If she pertain to life, let her speak too.
Ay, and make it manifest where she has lived,
3430Or how stol’n from the dead.
That she is living,
145Were it but told you, should be hooted at
Like an old tale, but it appears she lives,
Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.
3435To Perdita. Please you to interpose, fair madam.
Kneel
150And pray your mother’s blessing. To Hermione.
Turn, good lady.
Our Perdita is found.
3440You gods, look down,
And from your sacred vials pour your graces
155Upon my daughter’s head! Tell me, mine own,
Where hast thou been preserved? Where lived? How
found
3445Thy father’s court? For thou shalt hear that I,
Knowing by Paulina that the oracle
160Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserved
Myself to see the issue.
There’s time enough for that,
3450Lest they desire upon this push to trouble
Your joys with like relation. Go together,
165You precious winners all. Your exultation
Partake to everyone. I, an old turtle,
Will wing me to some withered bough and there
3455My mate, that’s never to be found again,
Lament till I am lost.
170O peace, Paulina.
Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,
As I by thine a wife. This is a match,
3460And made between ’s by vows. Thou hast found
mine—
175But how is to be questioned, for I saw her,
As I thought, dead, and have in vain said many
A prayer upon her grave. I’ll not seek far—
3465For him, I partly know his mind—to find thee
An honorable husband.—Come, Camillo,
180And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty
Is richly noted and here justified
By us, a pair of kings. Let’s from this place.
3470To Hermione. What, look upon my brother! Both
your pardons
185That e’er I put between your holy looks
My ill suspicion. This your son-in-law
And son unto the King, whom heavens directing,
3475Is troth-plight to your daughter.—Good Paulina,
Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely
190Each one demand and answer to his part
Performed in this wide gap of time since first
We were dissevered. Hastily lead away.