{"collection":"sks","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/sks/twt/twt.htm","path":"sks/twt/twt.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/sks/twt/twt.htm","text":"THE WINTER'S TALE\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\nLEONTES king of Sicilia.\nMAMILLIUS young prince of Sicilia.\nCAMILLO |\n|\nANTIGONUS |\n| Four Lords of Sicilia.\nCLEOMENES |\n|\nDION |\nPOLIXENES King of Bohemia.\nFLORIZEL Prince of Bohemia.\nARCHIDAMUS a Lord of Bohemia.\nOld Shepherd reputed father of Perdita. (Shepherd:)\nClown his son.\nAUTOLYCUS a rogue.\nA Mariner. (Mariner:)\nA Gaoler. (Gaoler:)\nHERMIONE queen to Leontes.\nPERDITA daughter to Leontes and Hermione.\nPAULINA wife to Antigonus.\nEMILIA a lady attending on Hermione,\nMOPSA |\n| Shepherdesses.\nDORCAS |\nOther Lords and Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers,\nand Servants, Shepherds, and Shepherdesses.\n(First Lord:)\n(Gentleman:)\n(First Gentleman:)\n(Second Gentleman:)\n(Third Gentleman:)\n(First Lady:)\n(Second Lady:)\n(Officer:)\n(Servant:)\n(First Servant:)\n(Second Servant:)\nTime as Chorus.\nSCENE Sicilia, and Bohemia.\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT I\nSCENE I Antechamber in LEONTES' palace.\n[Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS]\nARCHIDAMUS If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on\nthe like occasion whereon my services are now on\nfoot, you shall see, as I have said, great\ndifference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.\nCAMILLO I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia\nmeans to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.\nARCHIDAMUS Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be\njustified in our loves; for indeed--\nCAMILLO Beseech you,--\nARCHIDAMUS Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge:\nwe cannot with such magnificence--in so rare--I know\nnot what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks,\nthat your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience,\nmay, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse\nus.\nCAMILLO You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.\nARCHIDAMUS Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me\nand as mine honesty puts it to utterance.\nCAMILLO Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia.\nThey were trained together in their childhoods; and\nthere rooted betwixt them then such an affection,\nwhich cannot choose but branch now. Since their\nmore mature dignities and royal necessities made\nseparation of their society, their encounters,\nthough not personal, have been royally attorneyed\nwith interchange of gifts, letters, loving\nembassies; that they have seemed to be together,\nthough absent, shook hands, as over a vast, and\nembraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed\nwinds. The heavens continue their loves!\nARCHIDAMUS I think there is not in the world either malice or\nmatter to alter it. You have an unspeakable\ncomfort of your young prince Mamillius: it is a\ngentleman of the greatest promise that ever came\ninto my note.\nCAMILLO I very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it\nis a gallant child; one that indeed physics the\nsubject, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on\ncrutches ere he was born desire yet their life to\nsee him a man.\nARCHIDAMUS Would they else be content to die?\nCAMILLO Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should\ndesire to live.\nARCHIDAMUS If the king had no son, they would desire to live\non crutches till he had one.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT I\nSCENE II A room of state in the same.\n[Enter LEONTES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS,\nPOLIXENES, CAMILLO, and Attendants]\nPOLIXENES Nine changes of the watery star hath been\nThe shepherd's note since we have left our throne\nWithout a burthen: time as long again\nWould be find up, my brother, with our thanks;\nAnd yet we should, for perpetuity,\nGo hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher,\nYet standing in rich place, I multiply\nWith one 'We thank you' many thousands moe\nThat go before it.\nLEONTES Stay your thanks a while;\nAnd pay them when you part.\nPOLIXENES Sir, that's to-morrow.\nI am question'd by my fears, of what may chance\nOr breed upon our absence; that may blow\nNo sneaping winds at home, to make us say\n'This is put forth too truly:' besides, I have stay'd\nTo tire your royalty.\nLEONTES We are tougher, brother,\nThan you can put us to't.\nPOLIXENES No longer stay.\nLEONTES One seven-night longer.\nPOLIXENES Very sooth, to-morrow.\nLEONTES We'll part the time between's then; and in that\nI'll no gainsaying.\nPOLIXENES Press me not, beseech you, so.\nThere is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world,\nSo soon as yours could win me: so it should now,\nWere there necessity in your request, although\n'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs\nDo even drag me homeward: which to hinder\nWere in your love a whip to me; my stay\nTo you a charge and trouble: to save both,\nFarewell, our brother.\nLEONTES Tongue-tied, our queen?\nspeak you.\nHERMIONE I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until\nYou have drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,\nCharge him too coldly. Tell him, you are sure\nAll in Bohemia's well; this satisfaction\nThe by-gone day proclaim'd: say this to him,\nHe's beat from his best ward.\nLEONTES Well said, Hermione.\nHERMIONE To tell, he longs to see his son, were strong:\nBut let him say so then, and let him go;\nBut let him swear so, and he shall not stay,\nWe'll thwack him hence with distaffs.\nYet of your royal presence I'll adventure\nThe borrow of a week. When at Bohemia\nYou take my lord, I'll give him my commission\nTo let him there a month behind the gest\nPrefix'd for's parting: yet, good deed, Leontes,\nI love thee not a jar o' the clock behind\nWhat lady-she her lord. You'll stay?\nPOLIXENES No, madam.\nHERMIONE Nay, but you will?\nPOLIXENES I may not, verily.\nHERMIONE Verily!\nYou put me off with limber vows; but I,\nThough you would seek to unsphere the\nstars with oaths,\nShould yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily,\nYou shall not go: a lady's 'Verily' 's\nAs potent as a lord's. Will you go yet?\nForce me to keep you as a prisoner,\nNot like a guest; so you shall pay your fees\nWhen you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?\nMy prisoner? or my guest? by your dread 'Verily,'\nOne of them you shall be.\nPOLIXENES Your guest, then, madam:\nTo be your prisoner should import offending;\nWhich is for me less easy to commit\nThan you to punish.\nHERMIONE Not your gaoler, then,\nBut your kind hostess. Come, I'll question you\nOf my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys:\nYou were pretty lordings then?\nPOLIXENES We were, fair queen,\nTwo lads that thought there was no more behind\nBut such a day to-morrow as to-day,\nAnd to be boy eternal.\nHERMIONE Was not my lord\nThe verier wag o' the two?\nPOLIXENES We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun,\nAnd bleat the one at the other: what we changed\nWas innocence for innocence; we knew not\nThe doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd\nThat any did. Had we pursued that life,\nAnd our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd\nWith stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven\nBoldly 'not guilty;' the imposition clear'd\nHereditary ours.\nHERMIONE By this we gather\nYou have tripp'd since.\nPOLIXENES O my most sacred lady!\nTemptations have since then been born to's; for\nIn those unfledged days was my wife a girl;\nYour precious self had then not cross'd the eyes\nOf my young play-fellow.\nHERMIONE Grace to boot!\nOf this make no conclusion, lest you say\nYour queen and I are devils: yet go on;\nThe offences we have made you do we'll answer,\nIf you first sinn'd with us and that with us\nYou did continue fault and that you slipp'd not\nWith any but with us.\nLEONTES Is he won yet?\nHERMIONE He'll stay my lord.\nLEONTES At my request he would not.\nHermione, my dearest, thou never spokest\nTo better purpose.\nHERMIONE Never?\nLEONTES Never, but once.\nHERMIONE What! have I twice said well? when was't before?\nI prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's\nAs fat as tame things: one good deed dying tongueless\nSlaughters a thousand waiting upon that.\nOur praises are our wages: you may ride's\nWith one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere\nWith spur we beat an acre. But to the goal:\nMy last good deed was to entreat his stay:\nWhat was my first? it has an elder sister,\nOr I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace!\nBut once before I spoke to the purpose: when?\nNay, let me have't; I long.\nLEONTES Why, that was when\nThree crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death,\nEre I could make thee open thy white hand\nAnd clap thyself my love: then didst thou utter\n'I am yours for ever.'\nHERMIONE 'Tis grace indeed.\nWhy, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice:\nThe one for ever earn'd a royal husband;\nThe other for some while a friend.\nLEONTES [Aside] Too hot, too hot!\nTo mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.\nI have tremor cordis on me: my heart dances;\nBut not for joy; not joy. This entertainment\nMay a free face put on, derive a liberty\nFrom heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,\nAnd well become the agent; 't may, I grant;\nBut to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,\nAs now they are, and making practised smiles,\nAs in a looking-glass, and then to sigh, as 'twere\nThe mort o' the deer; O, that is entertainment\nMy bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius,\nArt thou my boy?\nMAMILLIUS Ay, my good lord.\nLEONTES I' fecks!\nWhy, that's my bawcock. What, hast\nsmutch'd thy nose?\nThey say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain,\nWe must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain:\nAnd yet the steer, the heifer and the calf\nAre all call'd neat.--Still virginalling\nUpon his palm!--How now, you wanton calf!\nArt thou my calf?\nMAMILLIUS Yes, if you will, my lord.\nLEONTES Thou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have,\nTo be full like me: yet they say we are\nAlmost as like as eggs; women say so,\nThat will say anything but were they false\nAs o'er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false\nAs dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes\nNo bourn 'twixt his and mine, yet were it true\nTo say this boy were like me. Come, sir page,\nLook on me with your welkin eye: sweet villain!\nMost dear'st! my collop! Can thy dam?--may't be?--\nAffection! thy intention stabs the centre:\nThou dost make possible things not so held,\nCommunicatest with dreams;--how can this be?--\nWith what's unreal thou coactive art,\nAnd fellow'st nothing: then 'tis very credent\nThou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost,\nAnd that beyond commission, and I find it,\nAnd that to the infection of my brains\nAnd hardening of my brows.\nPOLIXENES What means Sicilia?\nHERMIONE He something seems unsettled.\nPOLIXENES How, my lord!\nWhat cheer? how is't with you, best brother?\nHERMIONE You look as if you held a brow of much distraction\nAre you moved, my lord?\nLEONTES No, in good earnest.\nHow sometimes nature will betray its folly,\nIts tenderness, and make itself a pastime\nTo harder bosoms! Looking on the lines\nOf my boy's face, methoughts I did recoil\nTwenty-three years, and saw myself unbreech'd,\nIn my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled,\nLest it should bite its master, and so prove,\nAs ornaments oft do, too dangerous:\nHow like, methought, I then was to this kernel,\nThis squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend,\nWill you take eggs for money?\nMAMILLIUS No, my lord, I'll fight.\nLEONTES You will! why, happy man be's dole! My brother,\nAre you so fond of your young prince as we\nDo seem to be of ours?\nPOLIXENES If at home, sir,\nHe's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter,\nNow my sworn friend and then mine enemy,\nMy parasite, my soldier, statesman, all:\nHe makes a July's day short as December,\nAnd with his varying childness cures in me\nThoughts that would thick my blood.\nLEONTES So stands this squire\nOfficed with me: we two will walk, my lord,\nAnd leave you to your graver steps. Hermione,\nHow thou lovest us, show in our brother's welcome;\nLet what is dear in Sicily be cheap:\nNext to thyself and my young rover, he's\nApparent to my heart.\nHERMIONE If you would seek us,\nWe are yours i' the garden: shall's attend you there?\nLEONTES To your own bents dispose you: you'll be found,\nBe you beneath the sky.\n[Aside]\nI am angling now,\nThough you perceive me not how I give line.\nGo to, go to!\nHow she holds up the neb, the bill to him!\nAnd arms her with the boldness of a wife\nTo her allowing husband!\n[Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and Attendants]\nGone already!\nInch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and\nears a fork'd one!\nGo, play, boy, play: thy mother plays, and I\nPlay too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue\nWill hiss me to my grave: contempt and clamour\nWill be my knell. Go, play, boy, play.\nThere have been,\nOr I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now;\nAnd many a man there is, even at this present,\nNow while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm,\nThat little thinks she has been sluiced in's absence\nAnd his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by\nSir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in't\nWhiles other men have gates and those gates open'd,\nAs mine, against their will. Should all despair\nThat have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind\nWould hang themselves. Physic for't there is none;\nIt is a bawdy planet, that will strike\nWhere 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful, think it,\nFrom east, west, north and south: be it concluded,\nNo barricado for a belly; know't;\nIt will let in and out the enemy\nWith bag and baggage: many thousand on's\nHave the disease, and feel't not. How now, boy!\nMAMILLIUS I am like you, they say.\nLEONTES Why that's some comfort. What, Camillo there?\nCAMILLO Ay, my good lord.\nLEONTES Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man.\n[Exit MAMILLIUS]\nCamillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.\nCAMILLO You had much ado to make his anchor hold:\nWhen you cast out, it still came home.\nLEONTES Didst note it?\nCAMILLO He would not stay at your petitions: made\nHis business more material.\nLEONTES Didst perceive it?\n[Aside]\nThey're here with me already, whispering, rounding\n'Sicilia is a so-forth:' 'tis far gone,\nWhen I shall gust it last. How came't, Camillo,\nThat he did stay?\nCAMILLO At the good queen's entreaty.\nLEONTES At the queen's be't: 'good' should be pertinent\nBut, so it is, it is not. Was this taken\nBy any understanding pate but thine?\nFor thy conceit is soaking, will draw in\nMore than the common blocks: not noted, is't,\nBut of the finer natures? by some severals\nOf head-piece extraordinary? lower messes\nPerchance are to this business purblind? say.\nCAMILLO Business, my lord! I think most understand\nBohemia stays here longer.\nLEONTES Ha!\nCAMILLO Stays here longer.\nLEONTES Ay, but why?\nCAMILLO To satisfy your highness and the entreaties\nOf our most gracious mistress.\nLEONTES Satisfy!\nThe entreaties of your mistress! satisfy!\nLet that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,\nWith all the nearest things to my heart, as well\nMy chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou\nHast cleansed my bosom, I from thee departed\nThy penitent reform'd: but we have been\nDeceived in thy integrity, deceived\nIn that which seems so.\nCAMILLO Be it forbid, my lord!\nLEONTES To bide upon't, thou art not honest, or,\nIf thou inclinest that way, thou art a coward,\nWhich hoxes honesty behind, restraining\nFrom course required; or else thou must be counted\nA servant grafted in my serious trust\nAnd therein negligent; or else a fool\nThat seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn,\nAnd takest it all for jest.\nCAMILLO My gracious lord,\nI may be negligent, foolish and fearful;\nIn every one of these no man is free,\nBut that his negligence, his folly, fear,\nAmong the infinite doings of the world,\nSometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,\nIf ever I were wilful-negligent,\nIt was my folly; if industriously\nI play'd the fool, it was my negligence,\nNot weighing well the end; if ever fearful\nTo do a thing, where I the issue doubted,\nWhere of the execution did cry out\nAgainst the non-performance, 'twas a fear\nWhich oft infects the wisest: these, my lord,\nAre such allow'd infirmities that honesty\nIs never free of. But, beseech your grace,\nBe plainer with me; let me know my trespass\nBy its own visage: if I then deny it,\n'Tis none of mine.\nLEONTES Ha' not you seen, Camillo,--\nBut that's past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass\nIs thicker than a cuckold's horn,--or heard,--\nFor to a vision so apparent rumour\nCannot be mute,--or thought,--for cogitation\nResides not in that man that does not think,--\nMy wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess,\nOr else be impudently negative,\nTo have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say\nMy wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name\nAs rank as any flax-wench that puts to\nBefore her troth-plight: say't and justify't.\nCAMILLO I would not be a stander-by to hear\nMy sovereign mistress clouded so, without\nMy present vengeance taken: 'shrew my heart,\nYou never spoke what did become you less\nThan this; which to reiterate were sin\nAs deep as that, though true.\nLEONTES Is whispering nothing?\nIs leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?\nKissing with inside lip? stopping the career\nOf laughing with a sigh?--a note infallible\nOf breaking honesty--horsing foot on foot?\nSkulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?\nHours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes\nBlind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,\nThat would unseen be wicked? is this nothing?\nWhy, then the world and all that's in't is nothing;\nThe covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;\nMy wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,\nIf this be nothing.\nCAMILLO Good my lord, be cured\nOf this diseased opinion, and betimes;\nFor 'tis most dangerous.\nLEONTES Say it be, 'tis true.\nCAMILLO No, no, my lord.\nLEONTES It is; you lie, you lie:\nI say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee,\nPronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,\nOr else a hovering temporizer, that\nCanst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,\nInclining to them both: were my wife's liver\nInfected as her life, she would not live\nThe running of one glass.\nCAMILLO Who does infect her?\nLEONTES Why, he that wears her like a medal, hanging\nAbout his neck, Bohemia: who, if I\nHad servants true about me, that bare eyes\nTo see alike mine honour as their profits,\nTheir own particular thrifts, they would do that\nWhich should undo more doing: ay, and thou,\nHis cupbearer,--whom I from meaner form\nHave benched and reared to worship, who mayst see\nPlainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven,\nHow I am galled,--mightst bespice a cup,\nTo give mine enemy a lasting wink;\nWhich draught to me were cordial.\nCAMILLO Sir, my lord,\nI could do this, and that with no rash potion,\nBut with a lingering dram that should not work\nMaliciously like poison: but I cannot\nBelieve this crack to be in my dread mistress,\nSo sovereignly being honourable.\nI have loved thee,--\nLEONTES Make that thy question, and go rot!\nDost think I am so muddy, so unsettled,\nTo appoint myself in this vexation, sully\nThe purity and whiteness of my sheets,\nWhich to preserve is sleep, which being spotted\nIs goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps,\nGive scandal to the blood o' the prince my son,\nWho I do think is mine and love as mine,\nWithout ripe moving to't? Would I do this?\nCould man so blench?\nCAMILLO I must believe you, sir:\nI do; and will fetch off Bohemia for't;\nProvided that, when he's removed, your highness\nWill take again your queen as yours at first,\nEven for your son's sake; and thereby for sealing\nThe injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms\nKnown and allied to yours.\nLEONTES Thou dost advise me\nEven so as I mine own course have set down:\nI'll give no blemish to her honour, none.\nCAMILLO My lord,\nGo then; and with a countenance as clear\nAs friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia\nAnd with your queen. I am his cupbearer:\nIf from me he have wholesome beverage,\nAccount me not your servant.\nLEONTES This is all:\nDo't and thou hast the one half of my heart;\nDo't not, thou split'st thine own.\nCAMILLO I'll do't, my lord.\nLEONTES I will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me.\n[Exit]\nCAMILLO O miserable lady! But, for me,\nWhat case stand I in? I must be the poisoner\nOf good Polixenes; and my ground to do't\nIs the obedience to a master, one\nWho in rebellion with himself will have\nAll that are his so too. To do this deed,\nPromotion follows. If I could find example\nOf thousands that had struck anointed kings\nAnd flourish'd after, I'ld not do't; but since\nNor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not one,\nLet villany itself forswear't. I must\nForsake the court: to do't, or no, is certain\nTo me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now!\nHere comes Bohemia.\n[Re-enter POLIXENES]\nPOLIXENES This is strange: methinks\nMy favour here begins to warp. Not speak?\nGood day, Camillo.\nCAMILLO Hail, most royal sir!\nPOLIXENES What is the news i' the court?\nCAMILLO None rare, my lord.\nPOLIXENES The king hath on him such a countenance\nAs he had lost some province and a region\nLoved as he loves himself: even now I met him\nWith customary compliment; when he,\nWafting his eyes to the contrary and falling\nA lip of much contempt, speeds from me and\nSo leaves me to consider what is breeding\nThat changeth thus his manners.\nCAMILLO I dare not know, my lord.\nPOLIXENES How! dare not! do not. Do you know, and dare not?\nBe intelligent to me: 'tis thereabouts;\nFor, to yourself, what you do know, you must.\nAnd cannot say, you dare not. Good Camillo,\nYour changed complexions are to me a mirror\nWhich shows me mine changed too; for I must be\nA party in this alteration, finding\nMyself thus alter'd with 't.\nCAMILLO There is a sickness\nWhich puts some of us in distemper, but\nI cannot name the disease; and it is caught\nOf you that yet are well.\nPOLIXENES How! caught of me!\nMake me not sighted like the basilisk:\nI have look'd on thousands, who have sped the better\nBy my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo,--\nAs you are certainly a gentleman, thereto\nClerk-like experienced, which no less adorns\nOur gentry than our parents' noble names,\nIn whose success we are gentle,--I beseech you,\nIf you know aught which does behove my knowledge\nThereof to be inform'd, imprison't not\nIn ignorant concealment.\nCAMILLO I may not answer.\nPOLIXENES A sickness caught of me, and yet I well!\nI must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo,\nI conjure thee, by all the parts of man\nWhich honour does acknowledge, whereof the least\nIs not this suit of mine, that thou declare\nWhat incidency thou dost guess of harm\nIs creeping toward me; how far off, how near;\nWhich way to be prevented, if to be;\nIf not, how best to bear it.\nCAMILLO Sir, I will tell you;\nSince I am charged in honour and by him\nThat I think honourable: therefore mark my counsel,\nWhich must be even as swiftly follow'd as\nI mean to utter it, or both yourself and me\nCry lost, and so good night!\nPOLIXENES On, good Camillo.\nCAMILLO I am appointed him to murder you.\nPOLIXENES By whom, Camillo?\nCAMILLO By the king.\nPOLIXENES For what?\nCAMILLO He thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears,\nAs he had seen't or been an instrument\nTo vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen\nForbiddenly.\nPOLIXENES O, then my best blood turn\nTo an infected jelly and my name\nBe yoked with his that did betray the Best!\nTurn then my freshest reputation to\nA savour that may strike the dullest nostril\nWhere I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd,\nNay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection\nThat e'er was heard or read!\nCAMILLO Swear his thought over\nBy each particular star in heaven and\nBy all their influences, you may as well\nForbid the sea for to obey the moon\nAs or by oath remove or counsel shake\nThe fabric of his folly, whose foundation\nIs piled upon his faith and will continue\nThe standing of his body.\nPOLIXENES How should this grow?\nCAMILLO I know not: but I am sure 'tis safer to\nAvoid what's grown than question how 'tis born.\nIf therefore you dare trust my honesty,\nThat lies enclosed in this trunk which you\nShall bear along impawn'd, away to-night!\nYour followers I will whisper to the business,\nAnd will by twos and threes at several posterns\nClear them o' the city. For myself, I'll put\nMy fortunes to your service, which are here\nBy this discovery lost. Be not uncertain;\nFor, by the honour of my parents, I\nHave utter'd truth: which if you seek to prove,\nI dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer\nThan one condemn'd by the king's own mouth, thereon\nHis execution sworn.\nPOLIXENES I do believe thee:\nI saw his heart in 's face. Give me thy hand:\nBe pilot to me and thy places shall\nStill neighbour mine. My ships are ready and\nMy people did expect my hence departure\nTwo days ago. This jealousy\nIs for a precious creature: as she's rare,\nMust it be great, and as his person's mighty,\nMust it be violent, and as he does conceive\nHe is dishonour'd by a man which ever\nProfess'd to him, why, his revenges must\nIn that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me:\nGood expedition be my friend, and comfort\nThe gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing\nOf his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo;\nI will respect thee as a father if\nThou bear'st my life off hence: let us avoid.\nCAMILLO It is in mine authority to command\nThe keys of all the posterns: please your highness\nTo take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT II\nSCENE I A room in LEONTES' palace.\n[Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and Ladies]\nHERMIONE Take the boy to you: he so troubles me,\n'Tis past enduring.\nFirst Lady Come, my gracious lord,\nShall I be your playfellow?\nMAMILLIUS No, I'll none of you.\nFirst Lady Why, my sweet lord?\nMAMILLIUS You'll kiss me hard and speak to me as if\nI were a baby still. I love you better.\nSecond Lady And why so, my lord?\nMAMILLIUS Not for because\nYour brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,\nBecome some women best, so that there be not\nToo much hair there, but in a semicircle\nOr a half-moon made with a pen.\nSecond Lady Who taught you this?\nMAMILLIUS I learnt it out of women's faces. Pray now\nWhat colour are your eyebrows?\nFirst Lady Blue, my lord.\nMAMILLIUS Nay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's nose\nThat has been blue, but not her eyebrows.\nFirst Lady Hark ye;\nThe queen your mother rounds apace: we shall\nPresent our services to a fine new prince\nOne of these days; and then you'ld wanton with us,\nIf we would have you.\nSecond Lady She is spread of late\nInto a goodly bulk: good time encounter her!\nHERMIONE What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now\nI am for you again: pray you, sit by us,\nAnd tell 's a tale.\nMAMILLIUS Merry or sad shall't be?\nHERMIONE As merry as you will.\nMAMILLIUS A sad tale's best for winter: I have one\nOf sprites and goblins.\nHERMIONE Let's have that, good sir.\nCome on, sit down: come on, and do your best\nTo fright me with your sprites; you're powerful at it.\nMAMILLIUS There was a man--\nHERMIONE Nay, come, sit down; then on.\nMAMILLIUS Dwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly;\nYond crickets shall not hear it.\nHERMIONE Come on, then,\nAnd give't me in mine ear.\n[Enter LEONTES, with ANTIGONUS, Lords and others]\nLEONTES Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him?\nFirst Lord Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never\nSaw I men scour so on their way: I eyed them\nEven to their ships.\nLEONTES How blest am I\nIn my just censure, in my true opinion!\nAlack, for lesser knowledge! how accursed\nIn being so blest! There may be in the cup\nA spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,\nAnd yet partake no venom, for his knowledge\nIs not infected: but if one present\nThe abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known\nHow he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,\nWith violent hefts. I have drunk,\nand seen the spider.\nCamillo was his help in this, his pander:\nThere is a plot against my life, my crown;\nAll's true that is mistrusted: that false villain\nWhom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him:\nHe has discover'd my design, and I\nRemain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick\nFor them to play at will. How came the posterns\nSo easily open?\nFirst Lord By his great authority;\nWhich often hath no less prevail'd than so\nOn your command.\nLEONTES I know't too well.\nGive me the boy: I am glad you did not nurse him:\nThough he does bear some signs of me, yet you\nHave too much blood in him.\nHERMIONE What is this? sport?\nLEONTES Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her;\nAway with him! and let her sport herself\nWith that she's big with; for 'tis Polixenes\nHas made thee swell thus.\nHERMIONE But I'ld say he had not,\nAnd I'll be sworn you would believe my saying,\nHowe'er you lean to the nayward.\nLEONTES You, my lords,\nLook on her, mark her well; be but about\nTo say 'she is a goodly lady,' and\nThe justice of your bearts will thereto add\n'Tis pity she's not honest, honourable:'\nPraise her but for this her without-door form,\nWhich on my faith deserves high speech, and straight\nThe shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands\nThat calumny doth use--O, I am out--\nThat mercy does, for calumny will sear\nVirtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha's,\nWhen you have said 'she's goodly,' come between\nEre you can say 'she's honest:' but be 't known,\nFrom him that has most cause to grieve it should be,\nShe's an adulteress.\nHERMIONE Should a villain say so,\nThe most replenish'd villain in the world,\nHe were as much more villain: you, my lord,\nDo but mistake.\nLEONTES You have mistook, my lady,\nPolixenes for Leontes: O thou thing!\nWhich I'll not call a creature of thy place,\nLest barbarism, making me the precedent,\nShould a like language use to all degrees\nAnd mannerly distinguishment leave out\nBetwixt the prince and beggar: I have said\nShe's an adulteress; I have said with whom:\nMore, she's a traitor and Camillo is\nA federary with her, and one that knows\nWhat she should shame to know herself\nBut with her most vile principal, that she's\nA bed-swerver, even as bad as those\nThat vulgars give bold'st titles, ay, and privy\nTo this their late escape.\nHERMIONE No, by my life.\nPrivy to none of this. How will this grieve you,\nWhen you shall come to clearer knowledge, that\nYou thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord,\nYou scarce can right me throughly then to say\nYou did mistake.\nLEONTES No; if I mistake\nIn those foundations which I build upon,\nThe centre is not big enough to bear\nA school-boy's top. Away with her! to prison!\nHe who shall speak for her is afar off guilty\nBut that he speaks.\nHERMIONE There's some ill planet reigns:\nI must be patient till the heavens look\nWith an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,\nI am not prone to weeping, as our sex\nCommonly are; the want of which vain dew\nPerchance shall dry your pities: but I have\nThat honourable grief lodged here which burns\nWorse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords,\nWith thoughts so qualified as your charities\nShall best instruct you, measure me; and so\nThe king's will be perform'd!\nLEONTES Shall I be heard?\nHERMIONE Who is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness,\nMy women may be with me; for you see\nMy plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools;\nThere is no cause: when you shall know your mistress\nHas deserved prison, then abound in tears\nAs I come out: this action I now go on\nIs for my better grace. Adieu, my lord:\nI never wish'd to see you sorry; now\nI trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave.\nLEONTES Go, do our bidding; hence!\n[Exit HERMIONE, guarded; with Ladies]\nFirst Lord Beseech your highness, call the queen again.\nANTIGONUS Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice\nProve violence; in the which three great ones suffer,\nYourself, your queen, your son.\nFirst Lord For her, my lord,\nI dare my life lay down and will do't, sir,\nPlease you to accept it, that the queen is spotless\nI' the eyes of heaven and to you; I mean,\nIn this which you accuse her.\nANTIGONUS If it prove\nShe's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where\nI lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;\nThan when I feel and see her no farther trust her;\nFor every inch of woman in the world,\nAy, every dram of woman's flesh is false, If she be.\nLEONTES Hold your peaces.\nFirst Lord Good my lord,--\nANTIGONUS It is for you we speak, not for ourselves:\nYou are abused and by some putter-on\nThat will be damn'd for't; would I knew the villain,\nI would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd,\nI have three daughters; the eldest is eleven\nThe second and the third, nine, and some five;\nIf this prove true, they'll pay for't:\nby mine honour,\nI'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see,\nTo bring false generations: they are co-heirs;\nAnd I had rather glib myself than they\nShould not produce fair issue.\nLEONTES Cease; no more.\nYou smell this business with a sense as cold\nAs is a dead man's nose: but I do see't and feel't\nAs you feel doing thus; and see withal\nThe instruments that feel.\nANTIGONUS If it be so,\nWe need no grave to bury honesty:\nThere's not a grain of it the face to sweeten\nOf the whole dungy earth.\nLEONTES What! lack I credit?\nFirst Lord I had rather you did lack than I, my lord,\nUpon this ground; and more it would content me\nTo have her honour true than your suspicion,\nBe blamed for't how you might.\nLEONTES Why, what need we\nCommune with you of this, but rather follow\nOur forceful instigation? Our prerogative\nCalls not your counsels, but our natural goodness\nImparts this; which if you, or stupefied\nOr seeming so in skill, cannot or will not\nRelish a truth like us, inform yourselves\nWe need no more of your advice: the matter,\nThe loss, the gain, the ordering on't, is all\nProperly ours.\nANTIGONUS And I wish, my liege,\nYou had only in your silent judgment tried it,\nWithout more overture.\nLEONTES How could that be?\nEither thou art most ignorant by age,\nOr thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight,\nAdded to their familiarity,\nWhich was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture,\nThat lack'd sight only, nought for approbation\nBut only seeing, all other circumstances\nMade up to the deed, doth push on this proceeding:\nYet, for a greater confirmation,\nFor in an act of this importance 'twere\nMost piteous to be wild, I have dispatch'd in post\nTo sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple,\nCleomenes and Dion, whom you know\nOf stuff'd sufficiency: now from the oracle\nThey will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had,\nShall stop or spur me. Have I done well?\nFirst Lord Well done, my lord.\nLEONTES Though I am satisfied and need no more\nThan what I know, yet shall the oracle\nGive rest to the minds of others, such as he\nWhose ignorant credulity will not\nCome up to the truth. So have we thought it good\nFrom our free person she should be confined,\nLest that the treachery of the two fled hence\nBe left her to perform. Come, follow us;\nWe are to speak in public; for this business\nWill raise us all.\nANTIGONUS [Aside]\nTo laughter, as I take it,\nIf the good truth were known.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT II\nSCENE II A prison.\n[Enter PAULINA, a Gentleman, and Attendants]\nPAULINA The keeper of the prison, call to him;\nlet him have knowledge who I am.\n[Exit Gentleman]\nGood lady,\nNo court in Europe is too good for thee;\nWhat dost thou then in prison?\n[Re-enter Gentleman, with the Gaoler]\nNow, good sir,\nYou know me, do you not?\nGaoler For a worthy lady\nAnd one whom much I honour.\nPAULINA Pray you then,\nConduct me to the queen.\nGaoler I may not, madam:\nTo the contrary I have express commandment.\nPAULINA Here's ado,\nTo lock up honesty and honour from\nThe access of gentle visitors!\nIs't lawful, pray you,\nTo see her women? any of them? Emilia?\nGaoler So please you, madam,\nTo put apart these your attendants, I\nShall bring Emilia forth.\nPAULINA I pray now, call her.\nWithdraw yourselves.\n[Exeunt Gentleman and Attendants]\nGaoler And, madam,\nI must be present at your conference.\nPAULINA Well, be't so, prithee.\n[Exit Gaoler]\nHere's such ado to make no stain a stain\nAs passes colouring.\n[Re-enter Gaoler, with EMILIA]\nDear gentlewoman,\nHow fares our gracious lady?\nEMILIA As well as one so great and so forlorn\nMay hold together: on her frights and griefs,\nWhich never tender lady hath born greater,\nShe is something before her time deliver'd.\nPAULINA A boy?\nEMILIA A daughter, and a goodly babe,\nLusty and like to live: the queen receives\nMuch comfort in't; says 'My poor prisoner,\nI am innocent as you.'\nPAULINA I dare be sworn\nThese dangerous unsafe lunes i' the king,\nbeshrew them!\nHe must be told on't, and he shall: the office\nBecomes a woman best; I'll take't upon me:\nIf I prove honey-mouth'd let my tongue blister\nAnd never to my red-look'd anger be\nThe trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia,\nCommend my best obedience to the queen:\nIf she dares trust me with her little babe,\nI'll show't the king and undertake to be\nHer advocate to the loud'st. We do not know\nHow he may soften at the sight o' the child:\nThe silence often of pure innocence\nPersuades when speaking fails.\nEMILIA Most worthy madam,\nYour honour and your goodness is so evident\nThat your free undertaking cannot miss\nA thriving issue: there is no lady living\nSo meet for this great errand. Please your ladyship\nTo visit the next room, I'll presently\nAcquaint the queen of your most noble offer;\nWho but to-day hammer'd of this design,\nBut durst not tempt a minister of honour,\nLest she should be denied.\nPAULINA Tell her, Emilia.\nI'll use that tongue I have: if wit flow from't\nAs boldness from my bosom, let 't not be doubted\nI shall do good.\nEMILIA Now be you blest for it!\nI'll to the queen: please you,\ncome something nearer.\nGaoler Madam, if't please the queen to send the babe,\nI know not what I shall incur to pass it,\nHaving no warrant.\nPAULINA You need not fear it, sir:\nThis child was prisoner to the womb and is\nBy law and process of great nature thence\nFreed and enfranchised, not a party to\nThe anger of the king nor guilty of,\nIf any be, the trespass of the queen.\nGaoler I do believe it.\nPAULINA Do not you fear: upon mine honour,\nI will stand betwixt you and danger.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT II\nSCENE III A room in LEONTES' palace.\n[Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, Lords, and Servants]\nLEONTES Nor night nor day no rest: it is but weakness\nTo bear the matter thus; mere weakness. If\nThe cause were not in being,--part o' the cause,\nShe the adulteress; for the harlot king\nIs quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank\nAnd level of my brain, plot-proof; but she\nI can hook to me: say that she were gone,\nGiven to the fire, a moiety of my rest\nMight come to me again. Who's there?\nFirst Servant My lord?\nLEONTES How does the boy?\nFirst Servant He took good rest to-night;\n'Tis hoped his sickness is discharged.\nLEONTES To see his nobleness!\nConceiving the dishonour of his mother,\nHe straight declined, droop'd, took it deeply,\nFasten'd and fix'd the shame on't in himself,\nThrew off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,\nAnd downright languish'd. Leave me solely: go,\nSee how he fares.\n[Exit Servant]\nFie, fie! no thought of him:\nThe thought of my revenges that way\nRecoil upon me: in himself too mighty,\nAnd in his parties, his alliance; let him be\nUntil a time may serve: for present vengeance,\nTake it on her. Camillo and Polixenes\nLaugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow:\nThey should not laugh if I could reach them, nor\nShall she within my power.\n[Enter PAULINA, with a child]\nFirst Lord You must not enter.\nPAULINA Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me:\nFear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,\nThan the queen's life? a gracious innocent soul,\nMore free than he is jealous.\nANTIGONUS That's enough.\nSecond Servant Madam, he hath not slept tonight; commanded\nNone should come at him.\nPAULINA Not so hot, good sir:\nI come to bring him sleep. 'Tis such as you,\nThat creep like shadows by him and do sigh\nAt each his needless heavings, such as you\nNourish the cause of his awaking: I\nDo come with words as medicinal as true,\nHonest as either, to purge him of that humour\nThat presses him from sleep.\nLEONTES What noise there, ho?\nPAULINA No noise, my lord; but needful conference\nAbout some gossips for your highness.\nLEONTES How!\nAway with that audacious lady! Antigonus,\nI charged thee that she should not come about me:\nI knew she would.\nANTIGONUS I told her so, my lord,\nOn your displeasure's peril and on mine,\nShe should not visit you.\nLEONTES What, canst not rule her?\nPAULINA From all dishonesty he can: in this,\nUnless he take the course that you have done,\nCommit me for committing honour, trust it,\nHe shall not rule me.\nANTIGONUS La you now, you hear:\nWhen she will take the rein I let her run;\nBut she'll not stumble.\nPAULINA Good my liege, I come;\nAnd, I beseech you, hear me, who profess\nMyself your loyal servant, your physician,\nYour most obedient counsellor, yet that dare\nLess appear so in comforting your evils,\nThan such as most seem yours: I say, I come\nFrom your good queen.\nLEONTES Good queen!\nPAULINA Good queen, my lord,\nGood queen; I say good queen;\nAnd would by combat make her good, so were I\nA man, the worst about you.\nLEONTES Force her hence.\nPAULINA Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes\nFirst hand me: on mine own accord I'll off;\nBut first I'll do my errand. The good queen,\nFor she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter;\nHere 'tis; commends it to your blessing.\n[Laying down the child]\nLEONTES Out!\nA mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door:\nA most intelligencing bawd!\nPAULINA Not so:\nI am as ignorant in that as you\nIn so entitling me, and no less honest\nThan you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant,\nAs this world goes, to pass for honest.\nLEONTES Traitors!\nWill you not push her out? Give her the bastard.\nThou dotard! thou art woman-tired, unroosted\nBy thy dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard;\nTake't up, I say; give't to thy crone.\nPAULINA For ever\nUnvenerable be thy hands, if thou\nTakest up the princess by that forced baseness\nWhich he has put upon't!\nLEONTES He dreads his wife.\nPAULINA So I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt\nYou'ld call your children yours.\nLEONTES A nest of traitors!\nANTIGONUS I am none, by this good light.\nPAULINA Nor I, nor any\nBut one that's here, and that's himself, for he\nThe sacred honour of himself, his queen's,\nHis hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander,\nWhose sting is sharper than the sword's;\nand will not--\nFor, as the case now stands, it is a curse\nHe cannot be compell'd to't--once remove\nThe root of his opinion, which is rotten\nAs ever oak or stone was sound.\nLEONTES A callat\nOf boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband\nAnd now baits me! This brat is none of mine;\nIt is the issue of Polixenes:\nHence with it, and together with the dam\nCommit them to the fire!\nPAULINA It is yours;\nAnd, might we lay the old proverb to your charge,\nSo like you, 'tis the worse. Behold, my lords,\nAlthough the print be little, the whole matter\nAnd copy of the father, eye, nose, lip,\nThe trick of's frown, his forehead, nay, the valley,\nThe pretty dimples of his chin and cheek,\nHis smiles,\nThe very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger:\nAnd thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it\nSo like to him that got it, if thou hast\nThe ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours\nNo yellow in't, lest she suspect, as he does,\nHer children not her husband's!\nLEONTES A gross hag\nAnd, lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd,\nThat wilt not stay her tongue.\nANTIGONUS Hang all the husbands\nThat cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself\nHardly one subject.\nLEONTES Once more, take her hence.\nPAULINA A most unworthy and unnatural lord\nCan do no more.\nLEONTES I'll ha' thee burnt.\nPAULINA I care not:\nIt is an heretic that makes the fire,\nNot she which burns in't. I'll not call you tyrant;\nBut this most cruel usage of your queen,\nNot able to produce more accusation\nThan your own weak-hinged fancy, something savours\nOf tyranny and will ignoble make you,\nYea, scandalous to the world.\nLEONTES On your allegiance,\nOut of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant,\nWhere were her life? she durst not call me so,\nIf she did know me one. Away with her!\nPAULINA I pray you, do not push me; I'll be gone.\nLook to your babe, my lord; 'tis yours:\nJove send her\nA better guiding spirit! What needs these hands?\nYou, that are thus so tender o'er his follies,\nWill never do him good, not one of you.\nSo, so: farewell; we are gone.\n[Exit]\nLEONTES Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this.\nMy child? away with't! Even thou, that hast\nA heart so tender o'er it, take it hence\nAnd see it instantly consumed with fire;\nEven thou and none but thou. Take it up straight:\nWithin this hour bring me word 'tis done,\nAnd by good testimony, or I'll seize thy life,\nWith what thou else call'st thine. If thou refuse\nAnd wilt encounter with my wrath, say so;\nThe bastard brains with these my proper hands\nShall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire;\nFor thou set'st on thy wife.\nANTIGONUS I did not, sir:\nThese lords, my noble fellows, if they please,\nCan clear me in't.\nLords We can: my royal liege,\nHe is not guilty of her coming hither.\nLEONTES You're liars all.\nFirst Lord Beseech your highness, give us better credit:\nWe have always truly served you, and beseech you\nSo to esteem of us, and on our knees we beg,\nAs recompense of our dear services\nPast and to come, that you do change this purpose,\nWhich being so horrible, so bloody, must\nLead on to some foul issue: we all kneel.\nLEONTES I am a feather for each wind that blows:\nShall I live on to see this bastard kneel\nAnd call me father? better burn it now\nThan curse it then. But be it; let it live.\nIt shall not neither. You, sir, come you hither;\nYou that have been so tenderly officious\nWith Lady Margery, your midwife there,\nTo save this bastard's life,--for 'tis a bastard,\nSo sure as this beard's grey,\n--what will you adventure\nTo save this brat's life?\nANTIGONUS Any thing, my lord,\nThat my ability may undergo\nAnd nobleness impose: at least thus much:\nI'll pawn the little blood which I have left\nTo save the innocent: any thing possible.\nLEONTES It shall be possible. Swear by this sword\nThou wilt perform my bidding.\nANTIGONUS I will, my lord.\nLEONTES Mark and perform it, see'st thou! for the fail\nOf any point in't shall not only be\nDeath to thyself but to thy lewd-tongued wife,\nWhom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,\nAs thou art liege-man to us, that thou carry\nThis female bastard hence and that thou bear it\nTo some remote and desert place quite out\nOf our dominions, and that there thou leave it,\nWithout more mercy, to its own protection\nAnd favour of the climate. As by strange fortune\nIt came to us, I do in justice charge thee,\nOn thy soul's peril and thy body's torture,\nThat thou commend it strangely to some place\nWhere chance may nurse or end it. Take it up.\nANTIGONUS I swear to do this, though a present death\nHad been more merciful. Come on, poor babe:\nSome powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens\nTo be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say\nCasting their savageness aside have done\nLike offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous\nIn more than this deed does require! And blessing\nAgainst this cruelty fight on thy side,\nPoor thing, condemn'd to loss!\n[Exit with the child]\nLEONTES No, I'll not rear\nAnother's issue.\n[Enter a Servant]\nServant Please your highness, posts\nFrom those you sent to the oracle are come\nAn hour since: Cleomenes and Dion,\nBeing well arrived from Delphos, are both landed,\nHasting to the court.\nFirst Lord So please you, sir, their speed\nHath been beyond account.\nLEONTES Twenty-three days\nThey have been absent: 'tis good speed; foretells\nThe great Apollo suddenly will have\nThe truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords;\nSummon a session, that we may arraign\nOur most disloyal lady, for, as she hath\nBeen publicly accused, so shall she have\nA just and open trial. While she lives\nMy heart will be a burthen to me. Leave me,\nAnd think upon my bidding.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT III\nSCENE I A sea-port in Sicilia.\n[Enter CLEOMENES and DION]\nCLEOMENES The climate's delicate, the air most sweet,\nFertile the isle, the temple much surpassing\nThe common praise it bears.\nDION I shall report,\nFor most it caught me, the celestial habits,\nMethinks I so should term them, and the reverence\nOf the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice!\nHow ceremonious, solemn and unearthly\nIt was i' the offering!\nCLEOMENES But of all, the burst\nAnd the ear-deafening voice o' the oracle,\nKin to Jove's thunder, so surprised my sense.\nThat I was nothing.\nDION If the event o' the journey\nProve as successful to the queen,--O be't so!--\nAs it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy,\nThe time is worth the use on't.\nCLEOMENES Great Apollo\nTurn all to the best! These proclamations,\nSo forcing faults upon Hermione,\nI little like.\nDION The violent carriage of it\nWill clear or end the business: when the oracle,\nThus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up,\nShall the contents discover, something rare\nEven then will rush to knowledge. Go: fresh horses!\nAnd gracious be the issue!\n[Exeunt]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT III\nSCENE II A court of Justice.\n[Enter LEONTES, Lords, and Officers]\nLEONTES This sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,\nEven pushes 'gainst our heart: the party tried\nThe daughter of a king, our wife, and one\nOf us too much beloved. Let us be clear'd\nOf being tyrannous, since we so openly\nProceed in justice, which shall have due course,\nEven to the guilt or the purgation.\nProduce the prisoner.\nOfficer It is his highness' pleasure that the queen\nAppear in person here in court. Silence!\n[Enter HERMIONE guarded;\nPAULINA and Ladies attending]\nLEONTES Read the indictment.\nOfficer [Reads] Hermione, queen to the worthy\nLeontes, king of Sicilia, thou art here accused and\narraigned of high treason, in committing adultery\nwith Polixenes, king of Bohemia, and conspiring\nwith Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign\nlord the king, thy royal husband: the pretence\nwhereof being by circumstances partly laid open,\nthou, Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance\nof a true subject, didst counsel and aid them, for\ntheir better safety, to fly away by night.\nHERMIONE Since what I am to say must be but that\nWhich contradicts my accusation and\nThe testimony on my part no other\nBut what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me\nTo say 'not guilty:' mine integrity\nBeing counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,\nBe so received. But thus: if powers divine\nBehold our human actions, as they do,\nI doubt not then but innocence shall make\nFalse accusation blush and tyranny\nTremble at patience. You, my lord, best know,\nWho least will seem to do so, my past life\nHath been as continent, as chaste, as true,\nAs I am now unhappy; which is more\nThan history can pattern, though devised\nAnd play'd to take spectators. For behold me\nA fellow of the royal bed, which owe\nA moiety of the throne a great king's daughter,\nThe mother to a hopeful prince, here standing\nTo prate and talk for life and honour 'fore\nWho please to come and hear. For life, I prize it\nAs I weigh grief, which I would spare: for honour,\n'Tis a derivative from me to mine,\nAnd only that I stand for. I appeal\nTo your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes\nCame to your court, how I was in your grace,\nHow merited to be so; since he came,\nWith what encounter so uncurrent I\nHave strain'd to appear thus: if one jot beyond\nThe bound of honour, or in act or will\nThat way inclining, harden'd be the hearts\nOf all that hear me, and my near'st of kin\nCry fie upon my grave!\nLEONTES I ne'er heard yet\nThat any of these bolder vices wanted\nLess impudence to gainsay what they did\nThan to perform it first.\nHERMIONE That's true enough;\nThrough 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.\nLEONTES You will not own it.\nHERMIONE More than mistress of\nWhich comes to me in name of fault, I must not\nAt all acknowledge. For Polixenes,\nWith whom I am accused, I do confess\nI loved him as in honour he required,\nWith such a kind of love as might become\nA lady like me, with a love even such,\nSo and no other, as yourself commanded:\nWhich not to have done I think had been in me\nBoth disobedience and ingratitude\nTo you and toward your friend, whose love had spoke,\nEven since it could speak, from an infant, freely\nThat it was yours. Now, for conspiracy,\nI know not how it tastes; though it be dish'd\nFor me to try how: all I know of it\nIs that Camillo was an honest man;\nAnd why he left your court, the gods themselves,\nWotting no more than I, are ignorant.\nLEONTES You knew of his departure, as you know\nWhat you have underta'en to do in's absence.\nHERMIONE Sir,\nYou speak a language that I understand not:\nMy life stands in the level of your dreams,\nWhich I'll lay down.\nLEONTES Your actions are my dreams;\nYou had a bastard by Polixenes,\nAnd I but dream'd it. As you were past all shame,--\nThose of your fact are so--so past all truth:\nWhich to deny concerns more than avails; for as\nThy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,\nNo father owning it,--which is, indeed,\nMore criminal in thee than it,--so thou\nShalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage\nLook for no less than death.\nHERMIONE Sir, spare your threats:\nThe bug which you would fright me with I seek.\nTo me can life be no commodity:\nThe crown and comfort of my life, your favour,\nI do give lost; for I do feel it gone,\nBut know not how it went. My second joy\nAnd first-fruits of my body, from his presence\nI am barr'd, like one infectious. My third comfort\nStarr'd most unluckily, is from my breast,\nThe innocent milk in its most innocent mouth,\nHaled out to murder: myself on every post\nProclaimed a strumpet: with immodest hatred\nThe child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs\nTo women of all fashion; lastly, hurried\nHere to this place, i' the open air, before\nI have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,\nTell me what blessings I have here alive,\nThat I should fear to die? Therefore proceed.\nBut yet hear this: mistake me not; no life,\nI prize it not a straw, but for mine honour,\nWhich I would free, if I shall be condemn'd\nUpon surmises, all proofs sleeping else\nBut what your jealousies awake, I tell you\n'Tis rigor and not law. Your honours all,\nI do refer me to the oracle:\nApollo be my judge!\nFirst Lord This your request\nIs altogether just: therefore bring forth,\nAnd in Apollos name, his oracle.\n[Exeunt certain Officers]\nHERMIONE The Emperor of Russia was my father:\nO that he were alive, and here beholding\nHis daughter's trial! that he did but see\nThe flatness of my misery, yet with eyes\nOf pity, not revenge!\n[Re-enter Officers, with CLEOMENES and DION]\nOfficer You here shall swear upon this sword of justice,\nThat you, Cleomenes and Dion, have\nBeen both at Delphos, and from thence have brought\nThe seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd\nOf great Apollo's priest; and that, since then,\nYou have not dared to break the holy seal\nNor read the secrets in't.\nCLEOMENES |\n| All this we swear.\nDION |\nLEONTES Break up the seals and read.\nOfficer [Reads] Hermione is chaste;\nPolixenes blameless; Camillo a true subject; Leontes\na jealous tyrant; his innocent babe truly begotten;\nand the king shall live without an heir, if that\nwhich is lost be not found.\nLords Now blessed be the great Apollo!\nHERMIONE Praised!\nLEONTES Hast thou read truth?\nOfficer Ay, my lord; even so\nAs it is here set down.\nLEONTES There is no truth at all i' the oracle:\nThe sessions shall proceed: this is mere falsehood.\n[Enter Servant]\nServant My lord the king, the king!\nLEONTES What is the business?\nServant O sir, I shall be hated to report it!\nThe prince your son, with mere conceit and fear\nOf the queen's speed, is gone.\nLEONTES How! gone!\nServant Is dead.\nLEONTES Apollo's angry; and the heavens themselves\nDo strike at my injustice.\n[HERMIONE swoons]\nHow now there!\nPAULINA This news is mortal to the queen: look down\nAnd see what death is doing.\nLEONTES Take her hence:\nHer heart is but o'ercharged; she will recover:\nI have too much believed mine own suspicion:\nBeseech you, tenderly apply to her\nSome remedies for life.\n[Exeunt PAULINA and Ladies, with HERMIONE]\nApollo, pardon\nMy great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle!\nI'll reconcile me to Polixenes,\nNew woo my queen, recall the good Camillo,\nWhom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy;\nFor, being transported by my jealousies\nTo bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose\nCamillo for the minister to poison\nMy friend Polixenes: which had been done,\nBut that the good mind of Camillo tardied\nMy swift command, though I with death and with\nReward did threaten and encourage him,\nNot doing 't and being done: he, most humane\nAnd fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest\nUnclasp'd my practise, quit his fortunes here,\nWhich you knew great, and to the hazard\nOf all encertainties himself commended,\nNo richer than his honour: how he glisters\nThorough my rust! and how his pity\nDoes my deeds make the blacker!\n[Re-enter PAULINA]\nPAULINA Woe the while!\nO, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,\nBreak too.\nFirst Lord What fit is this, good lady?\nPAULINA What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?\nWhat wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling?\nIn leads or oils? what old or newer torture\nMust I receive, whose every word deserves\nTo taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny\nTogether working with thy jealousies,\nFancies too weak for boys, too green and idle\nFor girls of nine, O, think what they have done\nAnd then run mad indeed, stark mad! for all\nThy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.\nThat thou betray'dst Polixenes,'twas nothing;\nThat did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant\nAnd damnable ingrateful: nor was't much,\nThou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour,\nTo have him kill a king: poor trespasses,\nMore monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon\nThe casting forth to crows thy baby-daughter\nTo be or none or little; though a devil\nWould have shed water out of fire ere done't:\nNor is't directly laid to thee, the death\nOf the young prince, whose honourable thoughts,\nThoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart\nThat could conceive a gross and foolish sire\nBlemish'd his gracious dam: this is not, no,\nLaid to thy answer: but the last,--O lords,\nWhen I have said, cry 'woe!' the queen, the queen,\nThe sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead,\nand vengeance for't\nNot dropp'd down yet.\nFirst Lord The higher powers forbid!\nPAULINA I say she's dead; I'll swear't. If word nor oath\nPrevail not, go and see: if you can bring\nTincture or lustre in her lip, her eye,\nHeat outwardly or breath within, I'll serve you\nAs I would do the gods. But, O thou tyrant!\nDo not repent these things, for they are heavier\nThan all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee\nTo nothing but despair. A thousand knees\nTen thousand years together, naked, fasting,\nUpon a barren mountain and still winter\nIn storm perpetual, could not move the gods\nTo look that way thou wert.\nLEONTES Go on, go on\nThou canst not speak too much; I have deserved\nAll tongues to talk their bitterest.\nFirst Lord Say no more:\nHowe'er the business goes, you have made fault\nI' the boldness of your speech.\nPAULINA I am sorry for't:\nAll faults I make, when I shall come to know them,\nI do repent. Alas! I have show'd too much\nThe rashness of a woman: he is touch'd\nTo the noble heart. What's gone and what's past help\nShould be past grief: do not receive affliction\nAt my petition; I beseech you, rather\nLet me be punish'd, that have minded you\nOf what you should forget. Now, good my liege\nSir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman:\nThe love I bore your queen--lo, fool again!--\nI'll speak of her no more, nor of your children;\nI'll not remember you of my own lord,\nWho is lost too: take your patience to you,\nAnd I'll say nothing.\nLEONTES Thou didst speak but well\nWhen most the truth; which I receive much better\nThan to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me\nTo the dead bodies of my queen and son:\nOne grave shall be for both: upon them shall\nThe causes of their death appear, unto\nOur shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit\nThe chapel where they lie, and tears shed there\nShall be my recreation: so long as nature\nWill bear up with this exercise, so long\nI daily vow to use it. Come and lead me\nUnto these sorrows.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT III\nSCENE III Bohemia. A desert country near the sea.\n[Enter ANTIGONUS with a Child, and a Mariner]\nANTIGONUS Thou art perfect then, our ship hath touch'd upon\nThe deserts of Bohemia?\nMariner Ay, my lord: and fear\nWe have landed in ill time: the skies look grimly\nAnd threaten present blusters. In my conscience,\nThe heavens with that we have in hand are angry\nAnd frown upon 's.\nANTIGONUS Their sacred wills be done! Go, get aboard;\nLook to thy bark: I'll not be long before\nI call upon thee.\nMariner Make your best haste, and go not\nToo far i' the land: 'tis like to be loud weather;\nBesides, this place is famous for the creatures\nOf prey that keep upon't.\nANTIGONUS Go thou away:\nI'll follow instantly.\nMariner I am glad at heart\nTo be so rid o' the business.\n[Exit]\nANTIGONUS Come, poor babe:\nI have heard, but not believed,\nthe spirits o' the dead\nMay walk again: if such thing be, thy mother\nAppear'd to me last night, for ne'er was dream\nSo like a waking. To me comes a creature,\nSometimes her head on one side, some another;\nI never saw a vessel of like sorrow,\nSo fill'd and so becoming: in pure white robes,\nLike very sanctity, she did approach\nMy cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me,\nAnd gasping to begin some speech, her eyes\nBecame two spouts: the fury spent, anon\nDid this break-from her: 'Good Antigonus,\nSince fate, against thy better disposition,\nHath made thy person for the thrower-out\nOf my poor babe, according to thine oath,\nPlaces remote enough are in Bohemia,\nThere weep and leave it crying; and, for the babe\nIs counted lost for ever, Perdita,\nI prithee, call't. For this ungentle business\nPut on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see\nThy wife Paulina more.' And so, with shrieks\nShe melted into air. Affrighted much,\nI did in time collect myself and thought\nThis was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys:\nYet for this once, yea, superstitiously,\nI will be squared by this. I do believe\nHermione hath suffer'd death, and that\nApollo would, this being indeed the issue\nOf King Polixenes, it should here be laid,\nEither for life or death, upon the earth\nOf its right father. Blossom, speed thee well!\nThere lie, and there thy character: there these;\nWhich may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,\nAnd still rest thine. The storm begins; poor wretch,\nThat for thy mother's fault art thus exposed\nTo loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot,\nBut my heart bleeds; and most accursed am I\nTo be by oath enjoin'd to this. Farewell!\nThe day frowns more and more: thou'rt like to have\nA lullaby too rough: I never saw\nThe heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour!\nWell may I get aboard! This is the chase:\nI am gone for ever.\n[Exit, pursued by a bear]\n[Enter a Shepherd]\nShepherd I would there were no age between sixteen and\nthree-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the\nrest; for there is nothing in the between but\ngetting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry,\nstealing, fighting--Hark you now! Would any but\nthese boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty\nhunt this weather? They have scared away two of my\nbest sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find\nthan the master: if any where I have them, 'tis by\nthe seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an't be thy\nwill what have we here! Mercy on 's, a barne a very\npretty barne! A boy or a child, I wonder? A\npretty one; a very pretty one: sure, some 'scape:\nthough I am not bookish, yet I can read\nwaiting-gentlewoman in the 'scape. This has been\nsome stair-work, some trunk-work, some\nbehind-door-work: they were warmer that got this\nthan the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for\npity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he hallooed\nbut even now. Whoa, ho, hoa!\n[Enter Clown]\nClown Hilloa, loa!\nShepherd What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk\non when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What\nailest thou, man?\nClown I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land!\nbut I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the\nsky: betwixt the firmament and it you cannot thrust\na bodkin's point.\nShepherd Why, boy, how is it?\nClown I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages,\nhow it takes up the shore! but that's not the\npoint. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls!\nsometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em; now the\nship boring the moon with her main-mast, and anon\nswallowed with yest and froth, as you'ld thrust a\ncork into a hogshead. And then for the\nland-service, to see how the bear tore out his\nshoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help and said\nhis name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an\nend of the ship, to see how the sea flap-dragoned\nit: but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the\nsea mocked them; and how the poor gentleman roared\nand the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than\nthe sea or weather.\nShepherd Name of mercy, when was this, boy?\nClown Now, now: I have not winked since I saw these\nsights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor\nthe bear half dined on the gentleman: he's at it\nnow.\nShepherd Would I had been by, to have helped the old man!\nClown I would you had been by the ship side, to have\nhelped her: there your charity would have lacked footing.\nShepherd Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here,\nboy. Now bless thyself: thou mettest with things\ndying, I with things newborn. Here's a sight for\nthee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's\nchild! look thee here; take up, take up, boy;\nopen't. So, let's see: it was told me I should be\nrich by the fairies. This is some changeling:\nopen't. What's within, boy?\nClown You're a made old man: if the sins of your youth\nare forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!\nShepherd This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up\nwith't, keep it close: home, home, the next way.\nWe are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires\nnothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go: come, good\nboy, the next way home.\nClown Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see\nif the bear be gone from the gentleman and how much\nhe hath eaten: they are never curst but when they\nare hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury\nit.\nShepherd That's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that\nwhich is left of him what he is, fetch me to the\nsight of him.\nClown Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground.\nShepherd 'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds on't.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT IV\nSCENE I:\n[Enter Time, the Chorus]\nTime I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror\nOf good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,\nNow take upon me, in the name of Time,\nTo use my wings. Impute it not a crime\nTo me or my swift passage, that I slide\nO'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried\nOf that wide gap, since it is in my power\nTo o'erthrow law and in one self-born hour\nTo plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass\nThe same I am, ere ancient'st order was\nOr what is now received: I witness to\nThe times that brought them in; so shall I do\nTo the freshest things now reigning and make stale\nThe glistering of this present, as my tale\nNow seems to it. Your patience this allowing,\nI turn my glass and give my scene such growing\nAs you had slept between: Leontes leaving,\nThe effects of his fond jealousies so grieving\nThat he shuts up himself, imagine me,\nGentle spectators, that I now may be\nIn fair Bohemia, and remember well,\nI mentioned a son o' the king's, which Florizel\nI now name to you; and with speed so pace\nTo speak of Perdita, now grown in grace\nEqual with wondering: what of her ensues\nI list not prophecy; but let Time's news\nBe known when 'tis brought forth.\nA shepherd's daughter,\nAnd what to her adheres, which follows after,\nIs the argument of Time. Of this allow,\nIf ever you have spent time worse ere now;\nIf never, yet that Time himself doth say\nHe wishes earnestly you never may.\n[Exit]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT IV\nSCENE II Bohemia. The palace of POLIXENES.\n[Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO]\nPOLIXENES I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate:\n'tis a sickness denying thee any thing; a death to\ngrant this.\nCAMILLO It is fifteen years since I saw my country: though\nI have for the most part been aired abroad, I\ndesire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent\nking, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling\nsorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to\nthink so, which is another spur to my departure.\nPOLIXENES As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of\nthy services by leaving me now: the need I have of\nthee thine own goodness hath made; better not to\nhave had thee than thus to want thee: thou, having\nmade me businesses which none without thee can\nsufficiently manage, must either stay to execute\nthem thyself or take away with thee the very\nservices thou hast done; which if I have not enough\nconsidered, as too much I cannot, to be more\nthankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit\ntherein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal\ncountry, Sicilia, prithee speak no more; whose very\nnaming punishes me with the remembrance of that\npenitent, as thou callest him, and reconciled king,\nmy brother; whose loss of his most precious queen\nand children are even now to be afresh lamented.\nSay to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my\nson? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not\nbeing gracious, than they are in losing them when\nthey have approved their virtues.\nCAMILLO Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What\nhis happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I\nhave missingly noted, he is of late much retired\nfrom court and is less frequent to his princely\nexercises than formerly he hath appeared.\nPOLIXENES I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some\ncare; so far that I have eyes under my service which\nlook upon his removedness; from whom I have this\nintelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a\nmost homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from\nvery nothing, and beyond the imagination of his\nneighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.\nCAMILLO I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a\ndaughter of most rare note: the report of her is\nextended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage.\nPOLIXENES That's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I\nfear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou\nshalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not\nappearing what we are, have some question with the\nshepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not\nuneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither.\nPrithee, be my present partner in this business, and\nlay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.\nCAMILLO I willingly obey your command.\nPOLIXENES My best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT IV\nSCENE III A road near the Shepherd's cottage.\n[Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing]\nAUTOLYCUS When daffodils begin to peer,\nWith heigh! the doxy over the dale,\nWhy, then comes in the sweet o' the year;\nFor the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.\nThe white sheet bleaching on the hedge,\nWith heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!\nDoth set my pugging tooth on edge;\nFor a quart of ale is a dish for a king.\nThe lark, that tirra-lyra chants,\nWith heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,\nAre summer songs for me and my aunts,\nWhile we lie tumbling in the hay.\nI have served Prince Florizel and in my time\nwore three-pile; but now I am out of service:\nBut shall I go mourn for that, my dear?\nThe pale moon shines by night:\nAnd when I wander here and there,\nI then do most go right.\nIf tinkers may have leave to live,\nAnd bear the sow-skin budget,\nThen my account I well may, give,\nAnd in the stocks avouch it.\nMy traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to\nlesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who\nbeing, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise\na snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and\ndrab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is\nthe silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful\non the highway: beating and hanging are terrors to\nme: for the life to come, I sleep out the thought\nof it. A prize! a prize!\n[Enter Clown]\nClown Let me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod\nyields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred\nshorn. what comes the wool to?\nAUTOLYCUS [Aside]\nIf the springe hold, the cock's mine.\nClown I cannot do't without counters. Let me see; what am\nI to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound\nof sugar, five pound of currants, rice,--what will\nthis sister of mine do with rice? But my father\nhath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it\non. She hath made me four and twenty nose-gays for\nthe shearers, three-man-song-men all, and very good\nones; but they are most of them means and bases; but\none puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to\nhorn-pipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden\npies; mace; dates?--none, that's out of my note;\nnutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I\nmay beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of\nraisins o' the sun.\nAUTOLYCUS O that ever I was born!\n[Grovelling on the ground]\nClown I' the name of me--\nAUTOLYCUS O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and\nthen, death, death!\nClown Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay\non thee, rather than have these off.\nAUTOLYCUS O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more\nthan the stripes I have received, which are mighty\nones and millions.\nClown Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a\ngreat matter.\nAUTOLYCUS I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel\nta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon\nme.\nClown What, by a horseman, or a footman?\nAUTOLYCUS A footman, sweet sir, a footman.\nClown Indeed, he should be a footman by the garments he\nhas left with thee: if this be a horseman's coat,\nit hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand,\nI'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.\nAUTOLYCUS O, good sir, tenderly, O!\nClown Alas, poor soul!\nAUTOLYCUS O, good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my\nshoulder-blade is out.\nClown How now! canst stand?\nAUTOLYCUS [Picking his pocket]\nSoftly, dear sir; good sir, softly. You ha' done me\na charitable office.\nClown Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.\nAUTOLYCUS No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have\na kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence,\nunto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or\nany thing I want: offer me no money, I pray you;\nthat kills my heart.\nClown What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?\nAUTOLYCUS A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with\ntroll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the\nprince: I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his\nvirtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.\nClown His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped\nout of the court: they cherish it to make it stay\nthere; and yet it will no more but abide.\nAUTOLYCUS Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he\nhath been since an ape-bearer; then a\nprocess-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a\nmotion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's\nwife within a mile where my land and living lies;\nand, having flown over many knavish professions, he\nsettled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus.\nClown Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts\nwakes, fairs and bear-baitings.\nAUTOLYCUS Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that\nput me into this apparel.\nClown Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia: if you had\nbut looked big and spit at him, he'ld have run.\nAUTOLYCUS I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am\nfalse of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant\nhim.\nClown How do you now?\nAUTOLYCUS Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and\nwalk: I will even take my leave of you, and pace\nsoftly towards my kinsman's.\nClown Shall I bring thee on the way?\nAUTOLYCUS No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir.\nClown Then fare thee well: I must go buy spices for our\nsheep-shearing.\nAUTOLYCUS Prosper you, sweet sir!\n[Exit Clown]\nYour purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice.\nI'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too: if I\nmake not this cheat bring out another and the\nshearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my name\nput in the book of virtue!\n[Sings]\nJog on, jog on, the foot-path way,\nAnd merrily hent the stile-a:\nA merry heart goes all the day,\nYour sad tires in a mile-a.\n[Exit]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT IV\nSCENE IV The Shepherd's cottage.\n[Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA]\nFLORIZEL These your unusual weeds to each part of you\nDo give a life: no shepherdess, but Flora\nPeering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing\nIs as a meeting of the petty gods,\nAnd you the queen on't.\nPERDITA Sir, my gracious lord,\nTo chide at your extremes it not becomes me:\nO, pardon, that I name them! Your high self,\nThe gracious mark o' the land, you have obscured\nWith a swain's wearing, and me, poor lowly maid,\nMost goddess-like prank'd up: but that our feasts\nIn every mess have folly and the feeders\nDigest it with a custom, I should blush\nTo see you so attired, sworn, I think,\nTo show myself a glass.\nFLORIZEL I bless the time\nWhen my good falcon made her flight across\nThy father's ground.\nPERDITA Now Jove afford you cause!\nTo me the difference forges dread; your greatness\nHath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble\nTo think your father, by some accident,\nShould pass this way as you did: O, the Fates!\nHow would he look, to see his work so noble\nVilely bound up? What would he say? Or how\nShould I, in these my borrow'd flaunts, behold\nThe sternness of his presence?\nFLORIZEL Apprehend\nNothing but jollity. The gods themselves,\nHumbling their deities to love, have taken\nThe shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter\nBecame a bull, and bellow'd; the green Neptune\nA ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god,\nGolden Apollo, a poor humble swain,\nAs I seem now. Their transformations\nWere never for a piece of beauty rarer,\nNor in a way so chaste, since my desires\nRun not before mine honour, nor my lusts\nBurn hotter than my faith.\nPERDITA O, but, sir,\nYour resolution cannot hold, when 'tis\nOpposed, as it must be, by the power of the king:\nOne of these two must be necessities,\nWhich then will speak, that you must\nchange this purpose,\nOr I my life.\nFLORIZEL Thou dearest Perdita,\nWith these forced thoughts, I prithee, darken not\nThe mirth o' the feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,\nOr not my father's. For I cannot be\nMine own, nor any thing to any, if\nI be not thine. To this I am most constant,\nThough destiny say no. Be merry, gentle;\nStrangle such thoughts as these with any thing\nThat you behold the while. Your guests are coming:\nLift up your countenance, as it were the day\nOf celebration of that nuptial which\nWe two have sworn shall come.\nPERDITA O lady Fortune,\nStand you auspicious!\nFLORIZEL See, your guests approach:\nAddress yourself to entertain them sprightly,\nAnd let's be red with mirth.\n[Enter Shepherd, Clown, MOPSA, DORCAS, and\nothers, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO disguised]\nShepherd Fie, daughter! when my old wife lived, upon\nThis day she was both pantler, butler, cook,\nBoth dame and servant; welcomed all, served all;\nWould sing her song and dance her turn; now here,\nAt upper end o' the table, now i' the middle;\nOn his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire\nWith labour and the thing she took to quench it,\nShe would to each one sip. You are retired,\nAs if you were a feasted one and not\nThe hostess of the meeting: pray you, bid\nThese unknown friends to's welcome; for it is\nA way to make us better friends, more known.\nCome, quench your blushes and present yourself\nThat which you are, mistress o' the feast: come on,\nAnd bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,\nAs your good flock shall prosper.\nPERDITA [To POLIXENES] Sir, welcome:\nIt is my father's will I should take on me\nThe hostess-ship o' the day.\n[To CAMILLO]\nYou're welcome, sir.\nGive me those flowers there, Dorcas. Reverend sirs,\nFor you there's rosemary and rue; these keep\nSeeming and savour all the winter long:\nGrace and remembrance be to you both,\nAnd welcome to our shearing!\nPOLIXENES Shepherdess,\nA fair one are you--well you fit our ages\nWith flowers of winter.\nPERDITA Sir, the year growing ancient,\nNot yet on summer's death, nor on the birth\nOf trembling winter, the fairest\nflowers o' the season\nAre our carnations and streak'd gillyvors,\nWhich some call nature's bastards: of that kind\nOur rustic garden's barren; and I care not\nTo get slips of them.\nPOLIXENES Wherefore, gentle maiden,\nDo you neglect them?\nPERDITA For I have heard it said\nThere is an art which in their piedness shares\nWith great creating nature.\nPOLIXENES Say there be;\nYet nature is made better by no mean\nBut nature makes that mean: so, over that art\nWhich you say adds to nature, is an art\nThat nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry\nA gentler scion to the wildest stock,\nAnd make conceive a bark of baser kind\nBy bud of nobler race: this is an art\nWhich does mend nature, change it rather, but\nThe art itself is nature.\nPERDITA So it is.\nPOLIXENES Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,\nAnd do not call them bastards.\nPERDITA I'll not put\nThe dibble in earth to set one slip of them;\nNo more than were I painted I would wish\nThis youth should say 'twere well and only therefore\nDesire to breed by me. Here's flowers for you;\nHot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram;\nThe marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun\nAnd with him rises weeping: these are flowers\nOf middle summer, and I think they are given\nTo men of middle age. You're very welcome.\nCAMILLO I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,\nAnd only live by gazing.\nPERDITA Out, alas!\nYou'd be so lean, that blasts of January\nWould blow you through and through.\nNow, my fair'st friend,\nI would I had some flowers o' the spring that might\nBecome your time of day; and yours, and yours,\nThat wear upon your virgin branches yet\nYour maidenheads growing: O Proserpina,\nFor the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall\nFrom Dis's waggon! daffodils,\nThat come before the swallow dares, and take\nThe winds of March with beauty; violets dim,\nBut sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes\nOr Cytherea's breath; pale primroses\nThat die unmarried, ere they can behold\nBight Phoebus in his strength--a malady\nMost incident to maids; bold oxlips and\nThe crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,\nThe flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack,\nTo make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,\nTo strew him o'er and o'er!\nFLORIZEL What, like a corse?\nPERDITA No, like a bank for love to lie and play on;\nNot like a corse; or if, not to be buried,\nBut quick and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers:\nMethinks I play as I have seen them do\nIn Whitsun pastorals: sure this robe of mine\nDoes change my disposition.\nFLORIZEL What you do\nStill betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.\nI'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,\nI'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,\nPray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,\nTo sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you\nA wave o' the sea, that you might ever do\nNothing but that; move still, still so,\nAnd own no other function: each your doing,\nSo singular in each particular,\nCrowns what you are doing in the present deed,\nThat all your acts are queens.\nPERDITA O Doricles,\nYour praises are too large: but that your youth,\nAnd the true blood which peepeth fairly through't,\nDo plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd,\nWith wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,\nYou woo'd me the false way.\nFLORIZEL I think you have\nAs little skill to fear as I have purpose\nTo put you to't. But come; our dance, I pray:\nYour hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair,\nThat never mean to part.\nPERDITA I'll swear for 'em.\nPOLIXENES This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever\nRan on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems\nBut smacks of something greater than herself,\nToo noble for this place.\nCAMILLO He tells her something\nThat makes her blood look out: good sooth, she is\nThe queen of curds and cream.\nClown Come on, strike up!\nDORCAS Mopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic,\nTo mend her kissing with!\nMOPSA Now, in good time!\nClown Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.\nCome, strike up!\n[Music. Here a dance of Shepherds and\nShepherdesses]\nPOLIXENES Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this\nWhich dances with your daughter?\nShepherd They call him Doricles; and boasts himself\nTo have a worthy feeding: but I have it\nUpon his own report and I believe it;\nHe looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter:\nI think so too; for never gazed the moon\nUpon the water as he'll stand and read\nAs 'twere my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain.\nI think there is not half a kiss to choose\nWho loves another best.\nPOLIXENES She dances featly.\nShepherd So she does any thing; though I report it,\nThat should be silent: if young Doricles\nDo light upon her, she shall bring him that\nWhich he not dreams of.\n[Enter Servant]\nServant O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the\ndoor, you would never dance again after a tabour and\npipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings\nseveral tunes faster than you'll tell money; he\nutters them as he had eaten ballads and all men's\nears grew to his tunes.\nClown He could never come better; he shall come in. I\nlove a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful\nmatter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing\nindeed and sung lamentably.\nServant He hath songs for man or woman, of all sizes; no\nmilliner can so fit his customers with gloves: he\nhas the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without\nbawdry, which is strange; with such delicate\nburthens of dildos and fadings, 'jump her and thump\nher;' and where some stretch-mouthed rascal would,\nas it were, mean mischief and break a foul gap into\nthe matter, he makes the maid to answer 'Whoop, do me\nno harm, good man;' puts him off, slights him, with\n'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'\nPOLIXENES This is a brave fellow.\nClown Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited\nfellow. Has he any unbraided wares?\nServant He hath ribbons of an the colours i' the rainbow;\npoints more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can\nlearnedly handle, though they come to him by the\ngross: inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns: why, he\nsings 'em over as they were gods or goddesses; you\nwould think a smock were a she-angel, he so chants\nto the sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't.\nClown Prithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.\nPERDITA Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in 's tunes.\n[Exit Servant]\nClown You have of these pedlars, that have more in them\nthan you'ld think, sister.\nPERDITA Ay, good brother, or go about to think.\n[Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing]\nAUTOLYCUS Lawn as white as driven snow;\nCyprus black as e'er was crow;\nGloves as sweet as damask roses;\nMasks for faces and for noses;\nBugle bracelet, necklace amber,\nPerfume for a lady's chamber;\nGolden quoifs and stomachers,\nFor my lads to give their dears:\nPins and poking-sticks of steel,\nWhat maids lack from head to heel:\nCome buy of me, come; come buy, come buy;\nBuy lads, or else your lasses cry: Come buy.\nClown If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take\nno money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it\nwill also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.\nMOPSA I was promised them against the feast; but they come\nnot too late now.\nDORCAS He hath promised you more than that, or there be liars.\nMOPSA He hath paid you all he promised you; may be, he has\npaid you more, which will shame you to give him again.\nClown Is there no manners left among maids? will they\nwear their plackets where they should bear their\nfaces? Is there not milking-time, when you are\ngoing to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off these\nsecrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all\nour guests? 'tis well they are whispering: clamour\nyour tongues, and not a word more.\nMOPSA I have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry-lace\nand a pair of sweet gloves.\nClown Have I not told thee how I was cozened by the way\nand lost all my money?\nAUTOLYCUS And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad;\ntherefore it behoves men to be wary.\nClown Fear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here.\nAUTOLYCUS I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge.\nClown What hast here? ballads?\nMOPSA Pray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print o'\nlife, for then we are sure they are true.\nAUTOLYCUS Here's one to a very doleful tune, how a usurer's\nwife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a\nburthen and how she longed to eat adders' heads and\ntoads carbonadoed.\nMOPSA Is it true, think you?\nAUTOLYCUS Very true, and but a month old.\nDORCAS Bless me from marrying a usurer!\nAUTOLYCUS Here's the midwife's name to't, one Mistress\nTale-porter, and five or six honest wives that were\npresent. Why should I carry lies abroad?\nMOPSA Pray you now, buy it.\nClown Come on, lay it by: and let's first see moe\nballads; we'll buy the other things anon.\nAUTOLYCUS Here's another ballad of a fish, that appeared upon\nthe coast on Wednesday the four-score of April,\nforty thousand fathom above water, and sung this\nballad against the hard hearts of maids: it was\nthought she was a woman and was turned into a cold\nfish for she would not exchange flesh with one that\nloved her: the ballad is very pitiful and as true.\nDORCAS Is it true too, think you?\nAUTOLYCUS Five justices' hands at it, and witnesses more than\nmy pack will hold.\nClown Lay it by too: another.\nAUTOLYCUS This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.\nMOPSA Let's have some merry ones.\nAUTOLYCUS Why, this is a passing merry one and goes to\nthe tune of 'Two maids wooing a man:' there's\nscarce a maid westward but she sings it; 'tis in\nrequest, I can tell you.\nMOPSA We can both sing it: if thou'lt bear a part, thou\nshalt hear; 'tis in three parts.\nDORCAS We had the tune on't a month ago.\nAUTOLYCUS I can bear my part; you must know 'tis my\noccupation; have at it with you.\n[SONG]\nAUTOLYCUS Get you hence, for I must go\nWhere it fits not you to know.\nDORCAS Whither?\nMOPSA O, whither?\nDORCAS Whither?\nMOPSA It becomes thy oath full well,\nThou to me thy secrets tell.\nDORCAS Me too, let me go thither.\nMOPSA Or thou goest to the orange or mill.\nDORCAS If to either, thou dost ill.\nAUTOLYCUS Neither.\nDORCAS What, neither?\nAUTOLYCUS Neither.\nDORCAS Thou hast sworn my love to be.\nMOPSA Thou hast sworn it more to me:\nThen whither goest? say, whither?\nClown We'll have this song out anon by ourselves: my\nfather and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll\nnot trouble them. Come, bring away thy pack after\nme. Wenches, I'll buy for you both. Pedlar, let's\nhave the first choice. Follow me, girls.\n[Exit with DORCAS and MOPSA]\nAUTOLYCUS And you shall pay well for 'em.\n[Follows singing]\nWill you buy any tape,\nOr lace for your cape,\nMy dainty duck, my dear-a?\nAny silk, any thread,\nAny toys for your head,\nOf the new'st and finest, finest wear-a?\nCome to the pedlar;\nMoney's a medler.\nThat doth utter all men's ware-a.\n[Exit]\n[Re-enter Servant]\nServant Master, there is three carters, three shepherds,\nthree neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made\nthemselves all men of hair, they call themselves\nSaltiers, and they have a dance which the wenches\nsay is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are\nnot in't; but they themselves are o' the mind, if it\nbe not too rough for some that know little but\nbowling, it will please plentifully.\nShepherd Away! we'll none on 't: here has been too much\nhomely foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.\nPOLIXENES You weary those that refresh us: pray, let's see\nthese four threes of herdsmen.\nServant One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath\ndanced before the king; and not the worst of the\nthree but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squier.\nShepherd Leave your prating: since these good men are\npleased, let them come in; but quickly now.\nServant Why, they stay at door, sir.\n[Exit]\n[Here a dance of twelve Satyrs]\nPOLIXENES O, father, you'll know more of that hereafter.\n[To CAMILLO]\nIs it not too far gone? 'Tis time to part them.\nHe's simple and tells much.\n[To FLORIZEL]\nHow now, fair shepherd!\nYour heart is full of something that does take\nYour mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young\nAnd handed love as you do, I was wont\nTo load my she with knacks: I would have ransack'd\nThe pedlar's silken treasury and have pour'd it\nTo her acceptance; you have let him go\nAnd nothing marted with him. If your lass\nInterpretation should abuse and call this\nYour lack of love or bounty, you were straited\nFor a reply, at least if you make a care\nOf happy holding her.\nFLORIZEL Old sir, I know\nShe prizes not such trifles as these are:\nThe gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd\nUp in my heart; which I have given already,\nBut not deliver'd. O, hear me breathe my life\nBefore this ancient sir, who, it should seem,\nHath sometime loved! I take thy hand, this hand,\nAs soft as dove's down and as white as it,\nOr Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd\nsnow that's bolted\nBy the northern blasts twice o'er.\nPOLIXENES What follows this?\nHow prettily the young swain seems to wash\nThe hand was fair before! I have put you out:\nBut to your protestation; let me hear\nWhat you profess.\nFLORIZEL Do, and be witness to 't.\nPOLIXENES And this my neighbour too?\nFLORIZEL And he, and more\nThan he, and men, the earth, the heavens, and all:\nThat, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,\nThereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth\nThat ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge\nMore than was ever man's, I would not prize them\nWithout her love; for her employ them all;\nCommend them and condemn them to her service\nOr to their own perdition.\nPOLIXENES Fairly offer'd.\nCAMILLO This shows a sound affection.\nShepherd But, my daughter,\nSay you the like to him?\nPERDITA I cannot speak\nSo well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better:\nBy the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out\nThe purity of his.\nShepherd Take hands, a bargain!\nAnd, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to 't:\nI give my daughter to him, and will make\nHer portion equal his.\nFLORIZEL O, that must be\nI' the virtue of your daughter: one being dead,\nI shall have more than you can dream of yet;\nEnough then for your wonder. But, come on,\nContract us 'fore these witnesses.\nShepherd Come, your hand;\nAnd, daughter, yours.\nPOLIXENES Soft, swain, awhile, beseech you;\nHave you a father?\nFLORIZEL I have: but what of him?\nPOLIXENES Knows he of this?\nFLORIZEL He neither does nor shall.\nPOLIXENES Methinks a father\nIs at the nuptial of his son a guest\nThat best becomes the table. Pray you once more,\nIs not your father grown incapable\nOf reasonable affairs? is he not stupid\nWith age and altering rheums? can he speak? hear?\nKnow man from man? dispute his own estate?\nLies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing\nBut what he did being childish?\nFLORIZEL No, good sir;\nHe has his health and ampler strength indeed\nThan most have of his age.\nPOLIXENES By my white beard,\nYou offer him, if this be so, a wrong\nSomething unfilial: reason my son\nShould choose himself a wife, but as good reason\nThe father, all whose joy is nothing else\nBut fair posterity, should hold some counsel\nIn such a business.\nFLORIZEL I yield all this;\nBut for some other reasons, my grave sir,\nWhich 'tis not fit you know, I not acquaint\nMy father of this business.\nPOLIXENES Let him know't.\nFLORIZEL He shall not.\nPOLIXENES Prithee, let him.\nFLORIZEL No, he must not.\nShepherd Let him, my son: he shall not need to grieve\nAt knowing of thy choice.\nFLORIZEL Come, come, he must not.\nMark our contract.\nPOLIXENES Mark your divorce, young sir,\n[Discovering himself]\nWhom son I dare not call; thou art too base\nTo be acknowledged: thou a sceptre's heir,\nThat thus affect'st a sheep-hook! Thou old traitor,\nI am sorry that by hanging thee I can\nBut shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece\nOf excellent witchcraft, who of force must know\nThe royal fool thou copest with,--\nShepherd O, my heart!\nPOLIXENES I'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briers, and made\nMore homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy,\nIf I may ever know thou dost but sigh\nThat thou no more shalt see this knack, as never\nI mean thou shalt, we'll bar thee from succession;\nNot hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,\nFar than Deucalion off: mark thou my words:\nFollow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time,\nThough full of our displeasure, yet we free thee\nFrom the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment.--\nWorthy enough a herdsman: yea, him too,\nThat makes himself, but for our honour therein,\nUnworthy thee,--if ever henceforth thou\nThese rural latches to his entrance open,\nOr hoop his body more with thy embraces,\nI will devise a death as cruel for thee\nAs thou art tender to't.\n[Exit]\nPERDITA Even here undone!\nI was not much afeard; for once or twice\nI was about to speak and tell him plainly,\nThe selfsame sun that shines upon his court\nHides not his visage from our cottage but\nLooks on alike. Will't please you, sir, be gone?\nI told you what would come of this: beseech you,\nOf your own state take care: this dream of mine,--\nBeing now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther,\nBut milk my ewes and weep.\nCAMILLO Why, how now, father!\nSpeak ere thou diest.\nShepherd I cannot speak, nor think\nNor dare to know that which I know. O sir!\nYou have undone a man of fourscore three,\nThat thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,\nTo die upon the bed my father died,\nTo lie close by his honest bones: but now\nSome hangman must put on my shroud and lay me\nWhere no priest shovels in dust. O cursed wretch,\nThat knew'st this was the prince,\nand wouldst adventure\nTo mingle faith with him! Undone! undone!\nIf I might die within this hour, I have lived\nTo die when I desire.\n[Exit]\nFLORIZEL Why look you so upon me?\nI am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd,\nBut nothing alter'd: what I was, I am;\nMore straining on for plucking back, not following\nMy leash unwillingly.\nCAMILLO Gracious my lord,\nYou know your father's temper: at this time\nHe will allow no speech, which I do guess\nYou do not purpose to him; and as hardly\nWill he endure your sight as yet, I fear:\nThen, till the fury of his highness settle,\nCome not before him.\nFLORIZEL I not purpose it.\nI think, Camillo?\nCAMILLO Even he, my lord.\nPERDITA How often have I told you 'twould be thus!\nHow often said, my dignity would last\nBut till 'twere known!\nFLORIZEL It cannot fail but by\nThe violation of my faith; and then\nLet nature crush the sides o' the earth together\nAnd mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks:\nFrom my succession wipe me, father; I\nAm heir to my affection.\nCAMILLO Be advised.\nFLORIZEL I am, and by my fancy: if my reason\nWill thereto be obedient, I have reason;\nIf not, my senses, better pleased with madness,\nDo bid it welcome.\nCAMILLO This is desperate, sir.\nFLORIZEL So call it: but it does fulfil my vow;\nI needs must think it honesty. Camillo,\nNot for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may\nBe thereat glean'd, for all the sun sees or\nThe close earth wombs or the profound sea hides\nIn unknown fathoms, will I break my oath\nTo this my fair beloved: therefore, I pray you,\nAs you have ever been my father's honour'd friend,\nWhen he shall miss me,--as, in faith, I mean not\nTo see him any more,--cast your good counsels\nUpon his passion; let myself and fortune\nTug for the time to come. This you may know\nAnd so deliver, I am put to sea\nWith her whom here I cannot hold on shore;\nAnd most opportune to our need I have\nA vessel rides fast by, but not prepared\nFor this design. What course I mean to hold\nShall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor\nConcern me the reporting.\nCAMILLO O my lord!\nI would your spirit were easier for advice,\nOr stronger for your need.\nFLORIZEL Hark, Perdita\n[Drawing her aside]\nI'll hear you by and by.\nCAMILLO He's irremoveable,\nResolved for flight. Now were I happy, if\nHis going I could frame to serve my turn,\nSave him from danger, do him love and honour,\nPurchase the sight again of dear Sicilia\nAnd that unhappy king, my master, whom\nI so much thirst to see.\nFLORIZEL Now, good Camillo;\nI am so fraught with curious business that\nI leave out ceremony.\nCAMILLO Sir, I think\nYou have heard of my poor services, i' the love\nThat I have borne your father?\nFLORIZEL Very nobly\nHave you deserved: it is my father's music\nTo speak your deeds, not little of his care\nTo have them recompensed as thought on.\nCAMILLO Well, my lord,\nIf you may please to think I love the king\nAnd through him what is nearest to him, which is\nYour gracious self, embrace but my direction:\nIf your more ponderous and settled project\nMay suffer alteration, on mine honour,\nI'll point you where you shall have such receiving\nAs shall become your highness; where you may\nEnjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see,\nThere's no disjunction to be made, but by--\nAs heavens forefend!--your ruin; marry her,\nAnd, with my best endeavours in your absence,\nYour discontenting father strive to qualify\nAnd bring him up to liking.\nFLORIZEL How, Camillo,\nMay this, almost a miracle, be done?\nThat I may call thee something more than man\nAnd after that trust to thee.\nCAMILLO Have you thought on\nA place whereto you'll go?\nFLORIZEL Not any yet:\nBut as the unthought-on accident is guilty\nTo what we wildly do, so we profess\nOurselves to be the slaves of chance and flies\nOf every wind that blows.\nCAMILLO Then list to me:\nThis follows, if you will not change your purpose\nBut undergo this flight, make for Sicilia,\nAnd there present yourself and your fair princess,\nFor so I see she must be, 'fore Leontes:\nShe shall be habited as it becomes\nThe partner of your bed. Methinks I see\nLeontes opening his free arms and weeping\nHis welcomes forth; asks thee the son forgiveness,\nAs 'twere i' the father's person; kisses the hands\nOf your fresh princess; o'er and o'er divides him\n'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness; the one\nHe chides to hell and bids the other grow\nFaster than thought or time.\nFLORIZEL Worthy Camillo,\nWhat colour for my visitation shall I\nHold up before him?\nCAMILLO Sent by the king your father\nTo greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,\nThe manner of your bearing towards him, with\nWhat you as from your father shall deliver,\nThings known betwixt us three, I'll write you down:\nThe which shall point you forth at every sitting\nWhat you must say; that he shall not perceive\nBut that you have your father's bosom there\nAnd speak his very heart.\nFLORIZEL I am bound to you:\nThere is some sap in this.\nCAMILLO A cause more promising\nThan a wild dedication of yourselves\nTo unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain\nTo miseries enough; no hope to help you,\nBut as you shake off one to take another;\nNothing so certain as your anchors, who\nDo their best office, if they can but stay you\nWhere you'll be loath to be: besides you know\nProsperity's the very bond of love,\nWhose fresh complexion and whose heart together\nAffliction alters.\nPERDITA One of these is true:\nI think affliction may subdue the cheek,\nBut not take in the mind.\nCAMILLO Yea, say you so?\nThere shall not at your father's house these\nseven years\nBe born another such.\nFLORIZEL My good Camillo,\nShe is as forward of her breeding as\nShe is i' the rear our birth.\nCAMILLO I cannot say 'tis pity\nShe lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress\nTo most that teach.\nPERDITA Your pardon, sir; for this\nI'll blush you thanks.\nFLORIZEL My prettiest Perdita!\nBut O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo,\nPreserver of my father, now of me,\nThe medicine of our house, how shall we do?\nWe are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son,\nNor shall appear in Sicilia.\nCAMILLO My lord,\nFear none of this: I think you know my fortunes\nDo all lie there: it shall be so my care\nTo have you royally appointed as if\nThe scene you play were mine. For instance, sir,\nThat you may know you shall not want, one word.\n[They talk aside]\n[Re-enter AUTOLYCUS]\nAUTOLYCUS Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his\nsworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold\nall my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a\nribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad,\nknife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring,\nto keep my pack from fasting: they throng who\nshould buy first, as if my trinkets had been\nhallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer:\nby which means I saw whose purse was best in\npicture; and what I saw, to my good use I\nremembered. My clown, who wants but something to\nbe a reasonable man, grew so in love with the\nwenches' song, that he would not stir his pettitoes\ntill he had both tune and words; which so drew the\nrest of the herd to me that all their other senses\nstuck in ears: you might have pinched a placket, it\nwas senseless; 'twas nothing to geld a codpiece of a\npurse; I could have filed keys off that hung in\nchains: no hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song,\nand admiring the nothing of it. So that in this\ntime of lethargy I picked and cut most of their\nfestival purses; and had not the old man come in\nwith a whoo-bub against his daughter and the king's\nson and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not\nleft a purse alive in the whole army.\n[CAMILLO, FLORIZEL, and PERDITA come forward]\nCAMILLO Nay, but my letters, by this means being there\nSo soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.\nFLORIZEL And those that you'll procure from King Leontes--\nCAMILLO Shall satisfy your father.\nPERDITA Happy be you!\nAll that you speak shows fair.\nCAMILLO Who have we here?\n[Seeing AUTOLYCUS]\nWe'll make an instrument of this, omit\nNothing may give us aid.\nAUTOLYCUS If they have overheard me now, why, hanging.\nCAMILLO How now, good fellow! why shakest thou so? Fear\nnot, man; here's no harm intended to thee.\nAUTOLYCUS I am a poor fellow, sir.\nCAMILLO Why, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from\nthee: yet for the outside of thy poverty we must\nmake an exchange; therefore discase thee instantly,\n--thou must think there's a necessity in't,--and\nchange garments with this gentleman: though the\npennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee,\nthere's some boot.\nAUTOLYCUS I am a poor fellow, sir.\n[Aside]\nI know ye well enough.\nCAMILLO Nay, prithee, dispatch: the gentleman is half\nflayed already.\nAUTOLYCUS Are you in earnest, sir?\n[Aside]\nI smell the trick on't.\nFLORIZEL Dispatch, I prithee.\nAUTOLYCUS Indeed, I have had earnest: but I cannot with\nconscience take it.\nCAMILLO Unbuckle, unbuckle.\n[FLORIZEL and AUTOLYCUS exchange garments]\nFortunate mistress,--let my prophecy\nCome home to ye!--you must retire yourself\nInto some covert: take your sweetheart's hat\nAnd pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face,\nDismantle you, and, as you can, disliken\nThe truth of your own seeming; that you may--\nFor I do fear eyes over--to shipboard\nGet undescried.\nPERDITA I see the play so lies\nThat I must bear a part.\nCAMILLO No remedy.\nHave you done there?\nFLORIZEL Should I now meet my father,\nHe would not call me son.\nCAMILLO Nay, you shall have no hat.\n[Giving it to PERDITA]\nCome, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.\nAUTOLYCUS Adieu, sir.\nFLORIZEL O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!\nPray you, a word.\nCAMILLO [Aside] What I do next, shall be to tell the king\nOf this escape and whither they are bound;\nWherein my hope is I shall so prevail\nTo force him after: in whose company\nI shall review Sicilia, for whose sight\nI have a woman's longing.\nFLORIZEL Fortune speed us!\nThus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side.\nCAMILLO The swifter speed the better.\n[Exeunt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO]\nAUTOLYCUS I understand the business, I hear it: to have an\nopen ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is\nnecessary for a cut-purse; a good nose is requisite\nalso, to smell out work for the other senses. I see\nthis is the time that the unjust man doth thrive.\nWhat an exchange had this been without boot! What\na boot is here with this exchange! Sure the gods do\nthis year connive at us, and we may do any thing\nextempore. The prince himself is about a piece of\niniquity, stealing away from his father with his\nclog at his heels: if I thought it were a piece of\nhonesty to acquaint the king withal, I would not\ndo't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it;\nand therein am I constant to my profession.\n[Re-enter Clown and Shepherd]\nAside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain:\nevery lane's end, every shop, church, session,\nhanging, yields a careful man work.\nClown See, see; what a man you are now!\nThere is no other way but to tell the king\nshe's a changeling and none of your flesh and blood.\nShepherd Nay, but hear me.\nClown Nay, but hear me.\nShepherd Go to, then.\nClown She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh\nand blood has not offended the king; and so your\nflesh and blood is not to be punished by him. Show\nthose things you found about her, those secret\nthings, all but what she has with her: this being\ndone, let the law go whistle: I warrant you.\nShepherd I will tell the king all, every word, yea, and his\nson's pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man,\nneither to his father nor to me, to go about to make\nme the king's brother-in-law.\nClown Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you\ncould have been to him and then your blood had been\nthe dearer by I know how much an ounce.\nAUTOLYCUS [Aside] Very wisely, puppies!\nShepherd Well, let us to the king: there is that in this\nfardel will make him scratch his beard.\nAUTOLYCUS [Aside] I know not what impediment this complaint\nmay be to the flight of my master.\nClown Pray heartily he be at palace.\nAUTOLYCUS [Aside] Though I am not naturally honest, I am so\nsometimes by chance: let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement.\n[Takes off his false beard]\nHow now, rustics! whither are you bound?\nShepherd To the palace, an it like your worship.\nAUTOLYCUS Your affairs there, what, with whom, the condition\nof that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your\nnames, your ages, of what having, breeding, and any\nthing that is fitting to be known, discover.\nClown We are but plain fellows, sir.\nAUTOLYCUS A lie; you are rough and hairy. Let me have no\nlying: it becomes none but tradesmen, and they\noften give us soldiers the lie: but we pay them for\nit with stamped coin, not stabbing steel; therefore\nthey do not give us the lie.\nClown Your worship had like to have given us one, if you\nhad not taken yourself with the manner.\nShepherd Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir?\nAUTOLYCUS Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest\nthou not the air of the court in these enfoldings?\nhath not my gait in it the measure of the court?\nreceives not thy nose court-odor from me? reflect I\nnot on thy baseness court-contempt? Thinkest thou,\nfor that I insinuate, or toaze from thee thy\nbusiness, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier\ncap-a-pe; and one that will either push on or pluck\nback thy business there: whereupon I command thee to\nopen thy affair.\nShepherd My business, sir, is to the king.\nAUTOLYCUS What advocate hast thou to him?\nShepherd I know not, an't like you.\nClown Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant: say you\nhave none.\nShepherd None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.\nAUTOLYCUS How blessed are we that are not simple men!\nYet nature might have made me as these are,\nTherefore I will not disdain.\nClown This cannot be but a great courtier.\nShepherd His garments are rich, but he wears\nthem not handsomely.\nClown He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical:\na great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking\non's teeth.\nAUTOLYCUS The fardel there? what's i' the fardel?\nWherefore that box?\nShepherd Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box,\nwhich none must know but the king; and which he\nshall know within this hour, if I may come to the\nspeech of him.\nAUTOLYCUS Age, thou hast lost thy labour.\nShepherd Why, sir?\nAUTOLYCUS The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a\nnew ship to purge melancholy and air himself: for,\nif thou beest capable of things serious, thou must\nknow the king is full of grief.\nShepard So 'tis said, sir; about his son, that should have\nmarried a shepherd's daughter.\nAUTOLYCUS If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly:\nthe curses he shall have, the tortures he shall\nfeel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster.\nClown Think you so, sir?\nAUTOLYCUS Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy\nand vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to\nhim, though removed fifty times, shall all come\nunder the hangman: which though it be great pity,\nyet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue a\nram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into\ngrace! Some say he shall be stoned; but that death\nis too soft for him, say I draw our throne into a\nsheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.\nClown Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear. an't\nlike you, sir?\nAUTOLYCUS He has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then\n'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a\nwasp's nest; then stand till he be three quarters\nand a dram dead; then recovered again with\naqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as\nhe is, and in the hottest day prognostication\nproclaims, shall be be set against a brick-wall, the\nsun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he\nis to behold him with flies blown to death. But what\ntalk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries\nare to be smiled at, their offences being so\ncapital? Tell me, for you seem to be honest plain\nmen, what you have to the king: being something\ngently considered, I'll bring you where he is\naboard, tender your persons to his presence,\nwhisper him in your behalfs; and if it be in man\nbesides the king to effect your suits, here is man\nshall do it.\nClown He seems to be of great authority: close with him,\ngive him gold; and though authority be a stubborn\nbear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold: show\nthe inside of your purse to the outside of his hand,\nand no more ado. Remember 'stoned,' and 'flayed alive.'\nShepherd An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for\nus, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much\nmore and leave this young man in pawn till I bring it you.\nAUTOLYCUS After I have done what I promised?\nShepherd Ay, sir.\nAUTOLYCUS Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this business?\nClown In some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful\none, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.\nAUTOLYCUS O, that's the case of the shepherd's son: hang him,\nhe'll be made an example.\nClown Comfort, good comfort! We must to the king and show\nour strange sights: he must know 'tis none of your\ndaughter nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I\nwill give you as much as this old man does when the\nbusiness is performed, and remain, as he says, your\npawn till it be brought you.\nAUTOLYCUS I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side;\ngo on the right hand: I will but look upon the\nhedge and follow you.\nClown We are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest.\nShepherd Let's before as he bids us: he was provided to do us good.\n[Exeunt Shepherd and Clown]\nAUTOLYCUS If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would\nnot suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am\ncourted now with a double occasion, gold and a means\nto do the prince my master good; which who knows how\nthat may turn back to my advancement? I will bring\nthese two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he\nthink it fit to shore them again and that the\ncomplaint they have to the king concerns him\nnothing, let him call me rogue for being so far\nofficious; for I am proof against that title and\nwhat shame else belongs to't. To him will I present\nthem: there may be matter in it.\n[Exit]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT V\nSCENE I A room in LEONTES' palace.\n[Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and Servants]\nCLEOMENES Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd\nA saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make,\nWhich you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down\nMore penitence than done trespass: at the last,\nDo as the heavens have done, forget your evil;\nWith them forgive yourself.\nLEONTES Whilst I remember\nHer and her virtues, I cannot forget\nMy blemishes in them, and so still think of\nThe wrong I did myself; which was so much,\nThat heirless it hath made my kingdom and\nDestroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man\nBred his hopes out of.\nPAULINA True, too true, my lord:\nIf, one by one, you wedded all the world,\nOr from the all that are took something good,\nTo make a perfect woman, she you kill'd\nWould be unparallel'd.\nLEONTES I think so. Kill'd!\nShe I kill'd! I did so: but thou strikest me\nSorely, to say I did; it is as bitter\nUpon thy tongue as in my thought: now, good now,\nSay so but seldom.\nCLEOMENES Not at all, good lady:\nYou might have spoken a thousand things that would\nHave done the time more benefit and graced\nYour kindness better.\nPAULINA You are one of those\nWould have him wed again.\nDION If you would not so,\nYou pity not the state, nor the remembrance\nOf his most sovereign name; consider little\nWhat dangers, by his highness' fail of issue,\nMay drop upon his kingdom and devour\nIncertain lookers on. What were more holy\nThan to rejoice the former queen is well?\nWhat holier than, for royalty's repair,\nFor present comfort and for future good,\nTo bless the bed of majesty again\nWith a sweet fellow to't?\nPAULINA There is none worthy,\nRespecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods\nWill have fulfill'd their secret purposes;\nFor has not the divine Apollo said,\nIs't not the tenor of his oracle,\nThat King Leontes shall not have an heir\nTill his lost child be found? which that it shall,\nIs all as monstrous to our human reason\nAs my Antigonus to break his grave\nAnd come again to me; who, on my life,\nDid perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel\nMy lord should to the heavens be contrary,\nOppose against their wills.\n[To LEONTES]\nCare not for issue;\nThe crown will find an heir: great Alexander\nLeft his to the worthiest; so his successor\nWas like to be the best.\nLEONTES Good Paulina,\nWho hast the memory of Hermione,\nI know, in honour, O, that ever I\nHad squared me to thy counsel! then, even now,\nI might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes,\nHave taken treasure from her lips--\nPAULINA And left them\nMore rich for what they yielded.\nLEONTES Thou speak'st truth.\nNo more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse,\nAnd better used, would make her sainted spirit\nAgain possess her corpse, and on this stage,\nWhere we're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd,\nAnd begin, 'Why to me?'\nPAULINA Had she such power,\nShe had just cause.\nLEONTES She had; and would incense me\nTo murder her I married.\nPAULINA I should so.\nWere I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark\nHer eye, and tell me for what dull part in't\nYou chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your ears\nShould rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd\nShould be 'Remember mine.'\nLEONTES Stars, stars,\nAnd all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;\nI'll have no wife, Paulina.\nPAULINA Will you swear\nNever to marry but by my free leave?\nLEONTES Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!\nPAULINA Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.\nCLEOMENES You tempt him over-much.\nPAULINA Unless another,\nAs like Hermione as is her picture,\nAffront his eye.\nCLEOMENES Good madam,--\nPAULINA I have done.\nYet, if my lord will marry,--if you will, sir,\nNo remedy, but you will,--give me the office\nTo choose you a queen: she shall not be so young\nAs was your former; but she shall be such\nAs, walk'd your first queen's ghost,\nit should take joy\nTo see her in your arms.\nLEONTES My true Paulina,\nWe shall not marry till thou bid'st us.\nPAULINA That\nShall be when your first queen's again in breath;\nNever till then.\n[Enter a Gentleman]\nGentleman One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,\nSon of Polixenes, with his princess, she\nThe fairest I have yet beheld, desires access\nTo your high presence.\nLEONTES What with him? he comes not\nLike to his father's greatness: his approach,\nSo out of circumstance and sudden, tells us\n'Tis not a visitation framed, but forced\nBy need and accident. What train?\nGentleman But few,\nAnd those but mean.\nLEONTES His princess, say you, with him?\nGentleman Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,\nThat e'er the sun shone bright on.\nPAULINA O Hermione,\nAs every present time doth boast itself\nAbove a better gone, so must thy grave\nGive way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself\nHave said and writ so, but your writing now\nIs colder than that theme, 'She had not been,\nNor was not to be equall'd;'--thus your verse\nFlow'd with her beauty once: 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,\nTo say you have seen a better.\nGentleman Pardon, madam:\nThe one I have almost forgot,--your pardon,--\nThe other, when she has obtain'd your eye,\nWill have your tongue too. This is a creature,\nWould she begin a sect, might quench the zeal\nOf all professors else, make proselytes\nOf who she but bid follow.\nPAULINA How! not women?\nGentleman Women will love her, that she is a woman\nMore worth than any man; men, that she is\nThe rarest of all women.\nLEONTES Go, Cleomenes;\nYourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,\nBring them to our embracement. Still, 'tis strange\n[Exeunt CLEOMENES and others]\nHe thus should steal upon us.\nPAULINA Had our prince,\nJewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd\nWell with this lord: there was not full a month\nBetween their births.\nLEONTES Prithee, no more; cease; thou know'st\nHe dies to me again when talk'd of: sure,\nWhen I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches\nWill bring me to consider that which may\nUnfurnish me of reason. They are come.\n[Re-enter CLEOMENES and others, with FLORIZEL and PERDITA]\nYour mother was most true to wedlock, prince;\nFor she did print your royal father off,\nConceiving you: were I but twenty-one,\nYour father's image is so hit in you,\nHis very air, that I should call you brother,\nAs I did him, and speak of something wildly\nBy us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!\nAnd your fair princess,--goddess!--O, alas!\nI lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth\nMight thus have stood begetting wonder as\nYou, gracious couple, do: and then I lost--\nAll mine own folly--the society,\nAmity too, of your brave father, whom,\nThough bearing misery, I desire my life\nOnce more to look on him.\nFLORIZEL By his command\nHave I here touch'd Sicilia and from him\nGive you all greetings that a king, at friend,\nCan send his brother: and, but infirmity\nWhich waits upon worn times hath something seized\nHis wish'd ability, he had himself\nThe lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his\nMeasured to look upon you; whom he loves--\nHe bade me say so--more than all the sceptres\nAnd those that bear them living.\nLEONTES O my brother,\nGood gentleman! the wrongs I have done thee stir\nAfresh within me, and these thy offices,\nSo rarely kind, are as interpreters\nOf my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither,\nAs is the spring to the earth. And hath he too\nExposed this paragon to the fearful usage,\nAt least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,\nTo greet a man not worth her pains, much less\nThe adventure of her person?\nFLORIZEL Good my lord,\nShe came from Libya.\nLEONTES Where the warlike Smalus,\nThat noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and loved?\nFLORIZEL Most royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter\nHis tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence,\nA prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,\nTo execute the charge my father gave me\nFor visiting your highness: my best train\nI have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;\nWho for Bohemia bend, to signify\nNot only my success in Libya, sir,\nBut my arrival and my wife's in safety\nHere where we are.\nLEONTES The blessed gods\nPurge all infection from our air whilst you\nDo climate here! You have a holy father,\nA graceful gentleman; against whose person,\nSo sacred as it is, I have done sin:\nFor which the heavens, taking angry note,\nHave left me issueless; and your father's blest,\nAs he from heaven merits it, with you\nWorthy his goodness. What might I have been,\nMight I a son and daughter now have look'd on,\nSuch goodly things as you!\n[Enter a Lord]\nLord Most noble sir,\nThat which I shall report will bear no credit,\nWere not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,\nBohemia greets you from himself by me;\nDesires you to attach his son, who has--\nHis dignity and duty both cast off--\nFled from his father, from his hopes, and with\nA shepherd's daughter.\nLEONTES Where's Bohemia? speak.\nLord Here in your city; I now came from him:\nI speak amazedly; and it becomes\nMy marvel and my message. To your court\nWhiles he was hastening, in the chase, it seems,\nOf this fair couple, meets he on the way\nThe father of this seeming lady and\nHer brother, having both their country quitted\nWith this young prince.\nFLORIZEL Camillo has betray'd me;\nWhose honour and whose honesty till now\nEndured all weathers.\nLord Lay't so to his charge:\nHe's with the king your father.\nLEONTES Who? Camillo?\nLord Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now\nHas these poor men in question. Never saw I\nWretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth;\nForswear themselves as often as they speak:\nBohemia stops his ears, and threatens them\nWith divers deaths in death.\nPERDITA O my poor father!\nThe heaven sets spies upon us, will not have\nOur contract celebrated.\nLEONTES You are married?\nFLORIZEL We are not, sir, nor are we like to be;\nThe stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first:\nThe odds for high and low's alike.\nLEONTES My lord,\nIs this the daughter of a king?\nFLORIZEL She is,\nWhen once she is my wife.\nLEONTES That 'once' I see by your good father's speed\nWill come on very slowly. I am sorry,\nMost sorry, you have broken from his liking\nWhere you were tied in duty, and as sorry\nYour choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,\nThat you might well enjoy her.\nFLORIZEL Dear, look up:\nThough Fortune, visible an enemy,\nShould chase us with my father, power no jot\nHath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,\nRemember since you owed no more to time\nThan I do now: with thought of such affections,\nStep forth mine advocate; at your request\nMy father will grant precious things as trifles.\nLEONTES Would he do so, I'ld beg your precious mistress,\nWhich he counts but a trifle.\nPAULINA Sir, my liege,\nYour eye hath too much youth in't: not a month\n'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes\nThan what you look on now.\nLEONTES I thought of her,\nEven in these looks I made.\n[To FLORIZEL]\nBut your petition\nIs yet unanswer'd. I will to your father:\nYour honour not o'erthrown by your desires,\nI am friend to them and you: upon which errand\nI now go toward him; therefore follow me\nAnd mark what way I make: come, good my lord.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT V\nSCENE II Before LEONTES' palace.\n[Enter AUTOLYCUS and a Gentleman]\nAUTOLYCUS Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?\nFirst Gentleman I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old\nshepherd deliver the manner how he found it:\nwhereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all\ncommanded out of the chamber; only this methought I\nheard the shepherd say, he found the child.\nAUTOLYCUS I would most gladly know the issue of it.\nFirst Gentleman I make a broken delivery of the business; but the\nchanges I perceived in the king and Camillo were\nvery notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with\nstaring on one another, to tear the cases of their\neyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language\nin their very gesture; they looked as they had heard\nof a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable\npassion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest\nbeholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not\nsay if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the\nextremity of the one, it must needs be.\n[Enter another Gentleman]\nHere comes a gentleman that haply knows more.\nThe news, Rogero?\nSecond Gentleman Nothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled; the\nking's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is\nbroken out within this hour that ballad-makers\ncannot be able to express it.\n[Enter a third Gentleman]\nHere comes the Lady Paulina's steward: he can\ndeliver you more. How goes it now, sir? this news\nwhich is called true is so like an old tale, that\nthe verity of it is in strong suspicion: has the king\nfound his heir?\nThird Gentleman Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by\ncircumstance: that which you hear you'll swear you\nsee, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle\nof Queen Hermione's, her jewel about the neck of it,\nthe letters of Antigonus found with it which they\nknow to be his character, the majesty of the\ncreature in resemblance of the mother, the affection\nof nobleness which nature shows above her breeding,\nand many other evidences proclaim her with all\ncertainty to be the king's daughter. Did you see\nthe meeting of the two kings?\nSecond Gentleman No.\nThird Gentleman Then have you lost a sight, which was to be seen,\ncannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one\njoy crown another, so and in such manner that it\nseemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their\njoy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes,\nholding up of hands, with countenances of such\ndistraction that they were to be known by garment,\nnot by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of\nhimself for joy of his found daughter, as if that\njoy were now become a loss, cries 'O, thy mother,\nthy mother!' then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then\nembraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his\ndaughter with clipping her; now he thanks the old\nshepherd, which stands by like a weather-bitten\nconduit of many kings' reigns. I never heard of such\nanother encounter, which lames report to follow it\nand undoes description to do it.\nSecond Gentleman What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried\nhence the child?\nThird Gentleman Like an old tale still, which will have matter to\nrehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear\nopen. He was torn to pieces with a bear: this\navouches the shepherd's son; who has not only his\ninnocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a\nhandkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.\nFirst Gentleman What became of his bark and his followers?\nThird Gentleman Wrecked the same instant of their master's death and\nin the view of the shepherd: so that all the\ninstruments which aided to expose the child were\neven then lost when it was found. But O, the noble\ncombat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in\nPaulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of\nher husband, another elevated that the oracle was\nfulfilled: she lifted the princess from the earth,\nand so locks her in embracing, as if she would pin\nher to her heart that she might no more be in danger\nof losing.\nFirst Gentleman The dignity of this act was worth the audience of\nkings and princes; for by such was it acted.\nThird Gentleman One of the prettiest touches of all and that which\nangled for mine eyes, caught the water though not\nthe fish, was when, at the relation of the queen's\ndeath, with the manner how she came to't bravely\nconfessed and lamented by the king, how\nattentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one\nsign of dolour to another, she did, with an 'Alas,'\nI would fain say, bleed tears, for I am sure my\nheart wept blood. Who was most marble there changed\ncolour; some swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world\ncould have seen 't, the woe had been universal.\nFirst Gentleman Are they returned to the court?\nThird Gentleman No: the princess hearing of her mother's statue,\nwhich is in the keeping of Paulina,--a piece many\nyears in doing and now newly performed by that rare\nItalian master, Julio Romano, who, had he himself\neternity and could put breath into his work, would\nbeguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her\nape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that\nthey say one would speak to her and stand in hope of\nanswer: thither with all greediness of affection\nare they gone, and there they intend to sup.\nSecond Gentleman I thought she had some great matter there in hand;\nfor she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever\nsince the death of Hermione, visited that removed\nhouse. Shall we thither and with our company piece\nthe rejoicing?\nFirst Gentleman Who would be thence that has the benefit of access?\nevery wink of an eye some new grace will be born:\nour absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge.\nLet's along.\n[Exeunt Gentlemen]\nAUTOLYCUS Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me,\nwould preferment drop on my head. I brought the old\nman and his son aboard the prince: told him I heard\nthem talk of a fardel and I know not what: but he\nat that time, overfond of the shepherd's daughter,\nso he then took her to be, who began to be much\nsea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of\nweather continuing, this mystery remained\nundiscovered. But 'tis all one to me; for had I\nbeen the finder out of this secret, it would not\nhave relished among my other discredits.\n[Enter Shepherd and Clown]\nHere come those I have done good to against my will,\nand already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.\nShepherd Come, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and\ndaughters will be all gentlemen born.\nClown You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me\nthis other day, because I was no gentleman born.\nSee you these clothes? say you see them not and\nthink me still no gentleman born: you were best say\nthese robes are not gentlemen born: give me the\nlie, do, and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.\nAUTOLYCUS I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.\nClown Ay, and have been so any time these four hours.\nShepherd And so have I, boy.\nClown So you have: but I was a gentleman born before my\nfather; for the king's son took me by the hand, and\ncalled me brother; and then the two kings called my\nfather brother; and then the prince my brother and\nthe princess my sister called my father father; and\nso we wept, and there was the first gentleman-like\ntears that ever we shed.\nShepherd We may live, son, to shed many more.\nClown Ay; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so\npreposterous estate as we are.\nAUTOLYCUS I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the\nfaults I have committed to your worship and to give\nme your good report to the prince my master.\nShepherd Prithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are\ngentlemen.\nClown Thou wilt amend thy life?\nAUTOLYCUS Ay, an it like your good worship.\nClown Give me thy hand: I will swear to the prince thou\nart as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.\nShepherd You may say it, but not swear it.\nClown Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and\nfranklins say it, I'll swear it.\nShepherd How if it be false, son?\nClown If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear\nit in the behalf of his friend: and I'll swear to\nthe prince thou art a tall fellow of thy hands and\nthat thou wilt not be drunk; but I know thou art no\ntall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be\ndrunk: but I'll swear it, and I would thou wouldst\nbe a tall fellow of thy hands.\nAUTOLYCUS I will prove so, sir, to my power.\nClown Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow: if I do not\nwonder how thou darest venture to be drunk, not\nbeing a tall fellow, trust me not. Hark! the kings\nand the princes, our kindred, are going to see the\nqueen's picture. Come, follow us: we'll be thy\ngood masters.\n[Exeunt]\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\nACT V\nSCENE III A chapel in PAULINA'S house.\n[Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, FLORIZEL, PERDITA,\nCAMILLO, PAULINA, Lords, and Attendants]\nLEONTES O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort\nThat I have had of thee!\nPAULINA What, sovereign sir,\nI did not well I meant well. All my services\nYou have paid home: but that you have vouchsafed,\nWith your crown'd brother and these your contracted\nHeirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,\nIt is a surplus of your grace, which never\nMy life may last to answer.\nLEONTES O Paulina,\nWe honour you with trouble: but we came\nTo see the statue of our queen: your gallery\nHave we pass'd through, not without much content\nIn many singularities; but we saw not\nThat which my daughter came to look upon,\nThe statue of her mother.\nPAULINA As she lived peerless,\nSo her dead likeness, I do well believe,\nExcels whatever yet you look'd upon\nOr hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it\nLonely, apart. But here it is: prepare\nTo see the life as lively mock'd as ever\nStill sleep mock'd death: behold, and say 'tis well.\n[PAULINA draws a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE\nstanding like a statue]\nI like your silence, it the more shows off\nYour wonder: but yet speak; first, you, my liege,\nComes it not something near?\nLEONTES Her natural posture!\nChide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed\nThou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she\nIn thy not chiding, for she was as tender\nAs infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina,\nHermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing\nSo aged as this seems.\nPOLIXENES O, not by much.\nPAULINA So much the more our carver's excellence;\nWhich lets go by some sixteen years and makes her\nAs she lived now.\nLEONTES As now she might have done,\nSo much to my good comfort, as it is\nNow piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,\nEven with such life of majesty, warm life,\nAs now it coldly stands, when first I woo'd her!\nI am ashamed: does not the stone rebuke me\nFor being more stone than it? O royal piece,\nThere's magic in thy majesty, which has\nMy evils conjured to remembrance and\nFrom thy admiring daughter took the spirits,\nStanding like stone with thee.\nPERDITA And give me leave,\nAnd do not say 'tis superstition, that\nI kneel and then implore her blessing. Lady,\nDear queen, that ended when I but began,\nGive me that hand of yours to kiss.\nPAULINA O, patience!\nThe statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's Not dry.\nCAMILLO My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,\nWhich sixteen winters cannot blow away,\nSo many summers dry; scarce any joy\nDid ever so long live; no sorrow\nBut kill'd itself much sooner.\nPOLIXENES Dear my brother,\nLet him that was the cause of this have power\nTo take off so much grief from you as he\nWill piece up in himself.\nPAULINA Indeed, my lord,\nIf I had thought the sight of my poor image\nWould thus have wrought you,--for the stone is mine--\nI'ld not have show'd it.\nLEONTES Do not draw the curtain.\nPAULINA No longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy\nMay think anon it moves.\nLEONTES Let be, let be.\nWould I were dead, but that, methinks, already--\nWhat was he that did make it? See, my lord,\nWould you not deem it breathed? and that those veins\nDid verily bear blood?\nPOLIXENES Masterly done:\nThe very life seems warm upon her lip.\nLEONTES The fixture of her eye has motion in't,\nAs we are mock'd with art.\nPAULINA I'll draw the curtain:\nMy lord's almost so far transported that\nHe'll think anon it lives.\nLEONTES O sweet Paulina,\nMake me to think so twenty years together!\nNo settled senses of the world can match\nThe pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone.\nPAULINA I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you: but\nI could afflict you farther.\nLEONTES Do, Paulina;\nFor this affliction has a taste as sweet\nAs any cordial comfort. Still, methinks,\nThere is an air comes from her: what fine chisel\nCould ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,\nFor I will kiss her.\nPAULINA Good my lord, forbear:\nThe ruddiness upon her lip is wet;\nYou'll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own\nWith oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?\nLEONTES No, not these twenty years.\nPERDITA So long could I\nStand by, a looker on.\nPAULINA Either forbear,\nQuit presently the chapel, or resolve you\nFor more amazement. If you can behold it,\nI'll make the statue move indeed, descend\nAnd take you by the hand; but then you'll think--\nWhich I protest against--I am assisted\nBy wicked powers.\nLEONTES What you can make her do,\nI am content to look on: what to speak,\nI am content to hear; for 'tis as easy\nTo make her speak as move.\nPAULINA It is required\nYou do awake your faith. Then all stand still;\nOn: those that think it is unlawful business\nI am about, let them depart.\nLEONTES Proceed:\nNo foot shall stir.\nPAULINA Music, awake her; strike!\n[Music]\n'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;\nStrike all that look upon with marvel. Come,\nI'll fill your grave up: stir, nay, come away,\nBequeath to death your numbness, for from him\nDear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs:\n[HERMIONE comes down]\nStart not; her actions shall be holy as\nYou hear my spell is lawful: do not shun her\nUntil you see her die again; for then\nYou kill her double. Nay, present your hand:\nWhen she was young you woo'd her; now in age\nIs she become the suitor?\nLEONTES O, she's warm!\nIf this be magic, let it be an art\nLawful as eating.\nPOLIXENES She embraces him.\nCAMILLO She hangs about his neck:\nIf she pertain to life let her speak too.\nPOLIXENES Ay, and make't manifest where she has lived,\nOr how stolen from the dead.\nPAULINA That she is living,\nWere it but told you, should be hooted at\nLike an old tale: but it appears she lives,\nThough yet she speak not. Mark a little while.\nPlease you to interpose, fair madam: kneel\nAnd pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady;\nOur Perdita is found.\nHERMIONE You gods, look down\nAnd from your sacred vials pour your graces\nUpon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own.\nWhere hast thou been preserved? where lived? how found\nThy father's court? for thou shalt hear that I,\nKnowing by Paulina that the oracle\nGave hope thou wast in being, have preserved\nMyself to see the issue.\nPAULINA There's time enough for that;\nLest they desire upon this push to trouble\nYour joys with like relation. Go together,\nYou precious winners all; your exultation\nPartake to every one. I, an old turtle,\nWill wing me to some wither'd bough and there\nMy mate, that's never to be found again,\nLament till I am lost.\nLEONTES O, peace, Paulina!\nThou shouldst a husband take by my consent,\nAs I by thine a wife: this is a match,\nAnd made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine;\nBut how, is to be question'd; for I saw her,\nAs I thought, dead, and have in vain said many\nA prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far--\nFor him, I partly know his mind--to find thee\nAn honourable husband. Come, Camillo,\nAnd take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty\nIs richly noted and here justified\nBy us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place.\nWhat! look upon my brother: both your pardons,\nThat e'er I put between your holy looks\nMy ill suspicion. This is your son-in-law,\nAnd son unto the king, who, heavens directing,\nIs troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,\nLead us from hence, where we may leisurely\nEach one demand an answer to his part\nPerform'd in this wide gap of time since first\nWe were dissever'd: hastily lead away.\n[Exeunt]","title":"The Winter's Tale","type":"page"}