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THE WINTER'S TALE
DRAMATIS PERSONAE

MAMILLIUS       young prince of Sicilia.

CAMILLO

|
|

ANTIGONUS       |
        |  Four Lords of Sicilia.
CLEOMENES       |
        |
DION    |

POLIXENES       King of Bohemia.

FLORIZEL        Prince of Bohemia.

ARCHIDAMUS      a Lord of Bohemia.

Clown   his son.

AUTOLYCUS       a rogue.

A Mariner. (Mariner:)
A Gaoler. (Gaoler:)

HERMIONE        queen to Leontes.

MOPSA

|
| Shepherdesses.

Other Lords and Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers, and Servants, Shepherds, and Shepherdesses. (First Lord:)
(Gentleman:)
(First Gentleman:)
(Second Gentleman:)
(Third Gentleman:)
(First Lady:)
(Second Lady:)
(Officer:)
(Servant:)
(First Servant:)
(Second Servant:)

Time

as Chorus.

THE WINTER'S TALE

[Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS]

ARCHIDAMUS      If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on
        the like occasion whereon my services are now on
        foot, you shall see, as I have said, great
        difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.

CAMILLO

I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.

ARCHIDAMUS      Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be
        justified in our loves; for indeed--

ARCHIDAMUS      Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge:
        we cannot with such magnificence--in so rare--I know
        not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks,
        that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience,
        may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse

us.

ARCHIDAMUS      Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me
        and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.

CAMILLO

Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection, which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have seemed to be together, though absent, shook hands, as over a vast, and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves!

ARCHIDAMUS      I think there is not in the world either malice or
        matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable
        comfort of your young prince Mamillius: it is a
        gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came
        into my note.

CAMILLO

I very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it is a gallant child; one that indeed physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man.

ARCHIDAMUS      Would they else be content to die?

CAMILLO

Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.

ARCHIDAMUS      If the king had no son, they would desire to live
        on crutches till he had one.

[Exeunt]
THE WINTER'S TALE

SCENE II        A room of state in the same.

[Enter LEONTES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS,
POLIXENES, CAMILLO, and Attendants]

POLIXENES       Nine changes of the watery star hath been
        The shepherd's note since we have left our throne
        Without a burthen: time as long again
        Would be find up, my brother, with our thanks;
        And yet we should, for perpetuity,

Go hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher, Yet standing in rich place, I multiply
With one 'We thank you' many thousands moe That go before it.

LEONTES                   Stay your thanks a while;
        And pay them when you part.

POLIXENES       Sir, that's to-morrow.
        I am question'd by my fears, of what may chance
        Or breed upon our absence; that may blow
        No sneaping winds at home, to make us say
        'This is put forth too truly:' besides, I have stay'd

To tire your royalty.

LEONTES

We are tougher, brother,
Than you can put us to't.

POLIXENES       No longer stay.

LEONTES One seven-night longer.

POLIXENES       Very sooth, to-morrow.

LEONTES

We'll part the time between's then; and in that I'll no gainsaying.

POLIXENES       Press me not, beseech you, so.
        There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world,
        So soon as yours could win me: so it should now,
        Were there necessity in your request, although
        'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs

Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder
Were in your love a whip to me; my stay
To you a charge and trouble: to save both, Farewell, our brother.

LEONTES

Tongue-tied, our queen?
speak you.

HERMIONE        I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until
        You have drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,
        Charge him too coldly. Tell him, you are sure
        All in Bohemia's well; this satisfaction
        The by-gone day proclaim'd: say this to him,

He's beat from his best ward.

HERMIONE        To tell, he longs to see his son, were strong:
        But let him say so then, and let him go;
        But let him swear so, and he shall not stay,
        We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.
        Yet of your royal presence I'll adventure

The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
You take my lord, I'll give him my commission To let him there a month behind the gest
Prefix'd for's parting: yet, good deed, Leontes, I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind
What lady-she her lord. You'll stay?

POLIXENES       No, madam.

HERMIONE        Nay, but you will?

POLIXENES                         I may not, verily.

HERMIONE        Verily!
        You put me off with limber vows; but I,
        Though you would seek to unsphere the
        stars with oaths,
        Should yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily,

You shall not go: a lady's 'Verily' 's
As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet?
Force me to keep you as a prisoner,
Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you? My prisoner? or my guest? by your dread 'Verily,' One of them you shall be.

POLIXENES       Your guest, then, madam:
        To be your prisoner should import offending;
        Which is for me less easy to commit
        Than you to punish.

HERMIONE        Not your gaoler, then,
        But your kind hostess. Come, I'll question you
        Of my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys:
        You were pretty lordings then?

POLIXENES       We were, fair queen,
        Two lads that thought there was no more behind
        But such a day to-morrow as to-day,
        And to be boy eternal.

HERMIONE        Was not my lord
        The verier wag o' the two?

POLIXENES       We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun,
        And bleat the one at the other: what we changed
        Was innocence for innocence; we knew not
        The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd
        That any did. Had we pursued that life,
        And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd

With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven Boldly 'not guilty;' the imposition clear'd Hereditary ours.

HERMIONE                          By this we gather
        You have tripp'd since.

POLIXENES       O my most sacred lady!
        Temptations have since then been born to's; for
        In those unfledged days was my wife a girl;
        Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes
        Of my young play-fellow.

HERMIONE        Grace to boot!
        Of this make no conclusion, lest you say
        Your queen and I are devils: yet go on;
        The offences we have made you do we'll answer,
        If you first sinn'd with us and that with us

You did continue fault and that you slipp'd not With any but with us.

HERMIONE        He'll stay my lord.

LEONTES

At my request he would not.
Hermione, my dearest, thou never spokest To better purpose.

HERMIONE                                         Never?

LEONTES Never, but once.

HERMIONE        What! have I twice said well? when was't before?
        I prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's
        As fat as tame things: one good deed dying tongueless
        Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.
        Our praises are our wages: you may ride's

With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere With spur we beat an acre. But to the goal: My last good deed was to entreat his stay: What was my first? it has an elder sister, Or I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace! But once before I spoke to the purpose: when? Nay, let me have't; I long.

LEONTES

Why, that was when
Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death, Ere I could make thee open thy white hand And clap thyself my love: then didst thou utter 'I am yours for ever.'

HERMIONE        'Tis grace indeed.
        Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice:
        The one for ever earn'd a royal husband;
        The other for some while a friend.

LEONTES

[Aside] Too hot, too hot!
To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods. I have tremor cordis on me: my heart dances; But not for joy; not joy. This entertainment May a free face put on, derive a liberty From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom, And well become the agent; 't may, I grant; But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers, As now they are, and making practised smiles, As in a looking-glass, and then to sigh, as 'twere The mort o' the deer; O, that is entertainment My bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius, Art thou my boy?

MAMILLIUS                                  Ay, my good lord.

LEONTES

I' fecks!
Why, that's my bawcock. What, hast smutch'd thy nose? They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain, We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain: And yet the steer, the heifer and the calf Are all call'd neat.--Still virginalling Upon his palm!--How now, you wanton calf! Art thou my calf?

MAMILLIUS                         Yes, if you will, my lord.

LEONTES

Thou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have, To be full like me: yet they say we are Almost as like as eggs; women say so, That will say anything but were they false As o'er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false As dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes No bourn 'twixt his and mine, yet were it true To say this boy were like me. Come, sir page, Look on me with your welkin eye: sweet villain! Most dear'st! my collop! Can thy dam?--may't be?-- Affection! thy intention stabs the centre: Thou dost make possible things not so held, Communicatest with dreams;--how can this be?-- With what's unreal thou coactive art, And fellow'st nothing: then 'tis very credent Thou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost, And that beyond commission, and I find it, And that to the infection of my brains And hardening of my brows.

POLIXENES       What means Sicilia?

HERMIONE        He something seems unsettled.

POLIXENES       How, my lord!
        What cheer? how is't with you, best brother?

HERMIONE        You look as if you held a brow of much distraction
        Are you moved, my lord?

LEONTES

No, in good earnest.
How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines Of my boy's face, methoughts I did recoil Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreech'd, In my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled, Lest it should bite its master, and so prove, As ornaments oft do, too dangerous: How like, methought, I then was to this kernel, This squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend, Will you take eggs for money?

MAMILLIUS       No, my lord, I'll fight.

LEONTES

You will! why, happy man be's dole! My brother, Are you so fond of your young prince as we Do seem to be of ours?

POLIXENES       If at home, sir,
        He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter,
        Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy,
        My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all:
        He makes a July's day short as December,

And with his varying childness cures in me Thoughts that would thick my blood.

LEONTES

So stands this squire
Officed with me: we two will walk, my lord, And leave you to your graver steps. Hermione, How thou lovest us, show in our brother's welcome; Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap: Next to thyself and my young rover, he's Apparent to my heart.

HERMIONE        If you would seek us,
        We are yours i' the garden: shall's attend you there?

LEONTES

To your own bents dispose you: you'll be found, Be you beneath the sky.

[Aside]
I am angling now,
Though you perceive me not how I give line. Go to, go to!
How she holds up the neb, the bill to him! And arms her with the boldness of a wife
To her allowing husband!
[Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and Attendants]
Gone already!
Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and
ears a fork'd one!
Go, play, boy, play: thy mother plays, and I Play too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue Will hiss me to my grave: contempt and clamour Will be my knell. Go, play, boy, play.
There have been,
Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now;
And many a man there is, even at this present, Now while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm, That little thinks she has been sluiced in's absence And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by Sir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in't Whiles other men have gates and those gates open'd, As mine, against their will. Should all despair That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind Would hang themselves. Physic for't there is none; It is a bawdy planet, that will strike
Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful, think it, From east, west, north and south: be it concluded, No barricado for a belly; know't;
It will let in and out the enemy
With bag and baggage: many thousand on's
Have the disease, and feel't not. How now, boy!

MAMILLIUS       I am like you, they say.

[Exit MAMILLIUS]
Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.

CAMILLO

You had much ado to make his anchor hold:
When you cast out, it still came home.

CAMILLO

He would not stay at your petitions: made
His business more material.

[Aside]
They're here with me already, whispering, rounding 'Sicilia is a so-forth:' 'tis far gone,
When I shall gust it last. How came't, Camillo, That he did stay?

CAMILLO                   At the good queen's entreaty.

LEONTES

At the queen's be't: 'good' should be pertinent But, so it is, it is not. Was this taken By any understanding pate but thine? For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in More than the common blocks: not noted, is't, But of the finer natures? by some severals Of head-piece extraordinary? lower messes Perchance are to this business purblind? say.

CAMILLO

Business, my lord! I think most understand Bohemia stays here longer.

CAMILLO

To satisfy your highness and the entreaties Of our most gracious mistress.

LEONTES

Satisfy!
The entreaties of your mistress! satisfy! Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo, With all the nearest things to my heart, as well My chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou Hast cleansed my bosom, I from thee departed Thy penitent reform'd: but we have been Deceived in thy integrity, deceived In that which seems so.

LEONTES

To bide upon't, thou art not honest, or,
If thou inclinest that way, thou art a coward, Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining From course required; or else thou must be counted A servant grafted in my serious trust And therein negligent; or else a fool That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn, And takest it all for jest.

CAMILLO

My gracious lord,
I may be negligent, foolish and fearful; In every one of these no man is free, But that his negligence, his folly, fear, Among the infinite doings of the world, Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord, If ever I were wilful-negligent, It was my folly; if industriously I play'd the fool, it was my negligence, Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful To do a thing, where I the issue doubted, Where of the execution did cry out Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear Which oft infects the wisest: these, my lord, Are such allow'd infirmities that honesty Is never free of. But, beseech your grace, Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass By its own visage: if I then deny it, 'Tis none of mine.

LEONTES                   Ha' not you seen, Camillo,--
        But that's past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass
        Is thicker than a cuckold's horn,--or heard,--
        For to a vision so apparent rumour
        Cannot be mute,--or thought,--for cogitation

Resides not in that man that does not think,-- My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess, Or else be impudently negative,
To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say My wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench that puts to
Before her troth-plight: say't and justify't.

CAMILLO

I would not be a stander-by to hear
My sovereign mistress clouded so, without My present vengeance taken: 'shrew my heart, You never spoke what did become you less Than this; which to reiterate were sin As deep as that, though true.

LEONTES

Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses? Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career Of laughing with a sigh?--a note infallible Of breaking honesty--horsing foot on foot? Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift? Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only, That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing? Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing; The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing; My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings, If this be nothing.

CAMILLO

Good my lord, be cured
Of this diseased opinion, and betimes; For 'tis most dangerous.

LEONTES                   It is; you lie, you lie:
        I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee,
        Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,
        Or else a hovering temporizer, that
        Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,

Inclining to them both: were my wife's liver Infected as her life, she would not live
The running of one glass.

LEONTES

Why, he that wears her like a medal, hanging About his neck, Bohemia: who, if I Had servants true about me, that bare eyes To see alike mine honour as their profits, Their own particular thrifts, they would do that Which should undo more doing: ay, and thou, His cupbearer,--whom I from meaner form Have benched and reared to worship, who mayst see Plainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven, How I am galled,--mightst bespice a cup, To give mine enemy a lasting wink; Which draught to me were cordial.

CAMILLO

Sir, my lord,
I could do this, and that with no rash potion, But with a lingering dram that should not work Maliciously like poison: but I cannot Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress, So sovereignly being honourable. I have loved thee,--

LEONTES

Make that thy question, and go rot!
Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled, To appoint myself in this vexation, sully The purity and whiteness of my sheets, Which to preserve is sleep, which being spotted Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps, Give scandal to the blood o' the prince my son, Who I do think is mine and love as mine, Without ripe moving to't? Would I do this? Could man so blench?

CAMILLO

I must believe you, sir:
I do; and will fetch off Bohemia for't; Provided that, when he's removed, your highness Will take again your queen as yours at first, Even for your son's sake; and thereby for sealing The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms Known and allied to yours.

LEONTES

Thou dost advise me
Even so as I mine own course have set down: I'll give no blemish to her honour, none.

CAMILLO

My lord,
Go then; and with a countenance as clear As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia And with your queen. I am his cupbearer: If from me he have wholesome beverage, Account me not your servant.

LEONTES

This is all:
Do't and thou hast the one half of my heart; Do't not, thou split'st thine own.

[Exit]

CAMILLO

O miserable lady! But, for me,
What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner Of good Polixenes; and my ground to do't Is the obedience to a master, one Who in rebellion with himself will have All that are his so too. To do this deed, Promotion follows. If I could find example Of thousands that had struck anointed kings And flourish'd after, I'ld not do't; but since Nor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not one, Let villany itself forswear't. I must Forsake the court: to do't, or no, is certain To me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now! Here comes Bohemia.

[Re-enter POLIXENES]

POLIXENES       This is strange: methinks
        My favour here begins to warp. Not speak?
        Good day, Camillo.

CAMILLO                   Hail, most royal sir!

POLIXENES       What is the news i' the court?

CAMILLO None rare, my lord.

POLIXENES       The king hath on him such a countenance
        As he had lost some province and a region
        Loved as he loves himself: even now I met him
        With customary compliment; when he,
        Wafting his eyes to the contrary and falling

A lip of much contempt, speeds from me and So leaves me to consider what is breeding
That changeth thus his manners.

POLIXENES       How! dare not! do not. Do you know, and dare not?
        Be intelligent to me: 'tis thereabouts;
        For, to yourself, what you do know, you must.
        And cannot say, you dare not. Good Camillo,
        Your changed complexions are to me a mirror

Which shows me mine changed too; for I must be A party in this alteration, finding
Myself thus alter'd with 't.

CAMILLO

There is a sickness
Which puts some of us in distemper, but I cannot name the disease; and it is caught Of you that yet are well.

POLIXENES       How! caught of me!
        Make me not sighted like the basilisk:
        I have look'd on thousands, who have sped the better
        By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo,--
        As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto

Clerk-like experienced, which no less adorns Our gentry than our parents' noble names,
In whose success we are gentle,--I beseech you, If you know aught which does behove my knowledge Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not
In ignorant concealment.

POLIXENES       A sickness caught of me, and yet I well!
        I must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo,
        I conjure thee, by all the parts of man
        Which honour does acknowledge, whereof the least
        Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare

What incidency thou dost guess of harm
Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near; Which way to be prevented, if to be;
If not, how best to bear it.

CAMILLO

Sir, I will tell you;
Since I am charged in honour and by him That I think honourable: therefore mark my counsel, Which must be even as swiftly follow'd as I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me Cry lost, and so good night!

POLIXENES       On, good Camillo.

CAMILLO I am appointed him to murder you.

POLIXENES       By whom, Camillo?

CAMILLO                         By the king.

POLIXENES       For what?

CAMILLO

He thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears, As he had seen't or been an instrument To vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen Forbiddenly.

POLIXENES                         O, then my best blood turn
        To an infected jelly and my name
        Be yoked with his that did betray the Best!
        Turn then my freshest reputation to
        A savour that may strike the dullest nostril

Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd, Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection That e'er was heard or read!

CAMILLO

Swear his thought over
By each particular star in heaven and By all their influences, you may as well Forbid the sea for to obey the moon As or by oath remove or counsel shake The fabric of his folly, whose foundation Is piled upon his faith and will continue The standing of his body.

POLIXENES       How should this grow?

CAMILLO

I know not: but I am sure 'tis safer to
Avoid what's grown than question how 'tis born. If therefore you dare trust my honesty, That lies enclosed in this trunk which you Shall bear along impawn'd, away to-night! Your followers I will whisper to the business, And will by twos and threes at several posterns Clear them o' the city. For myself, I'll put My fortunes to your service, which are here By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain; For, by the honour of my parents, I Have utter'd truth: which if you seek to prove, I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer Than one condemn'd by the king's own mouth, thereon His execution sworn.

POLIXENES       I do believe thee:
        I saw his heart in 's face. Give me thy hand:
        Be pilot to me and thy places shall
        Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready and
        My people did expect my hence departure

Two days ago. This jealousy
Is for a precious creature: as she's rare, Must it be great, and as his person's mighty, Must it be violent, and as he does conceive He is dishonour'd by a man which ever
Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must
In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me: Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing Of his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo; I will respect thee as a father if
Thou bear'st my life off hence: let us avoid.

CAMILLO

It is in mine authority to command
The keys of all the posterns: please your highness To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.

[Exeunt]
THE WINTER'S TALE

[Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and Ladies]

HERMIONE        Take the boy to you: he so troubles me,
        'Tis past enduring.

First Lady      Come, my gracious lord,
        Shall I be your playfellow?

MAMILLIUS       No, I'll none of you.

First Lady      Why, my sweet lord?

MAMILLIUS       You'll kiss me hard and speak to me as if
        I were a baby still. I love you better.

Second Lady     And why so, my lord?

MAMILLIUS       Not for because
        Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,
        Become some women best, so that there be not
        Too much hair there, but in a semicircle
        Or a half-moon made with a pen.

Second Lady     Who taught you this?

MAMILLIUS       I learnt it out of women's faces. Pray now
        What colour are your eyebrows?

First Lady      Blue, my lord.

MAMILLIUS       Nay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's nose
        That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.

First Lady      Hark ye;
        The queen your mother rounds apace: we shall
        Present our services to a fine new prince
        One of these days; and then you'ld wanton with us,
        If we would have you.

Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her!

HERMIONE        What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now
        I am for you again: pray you, sit by us,
        And tell 's a tale.

MAMILLIUS       Merry or sad shall't be?

HERMIONE        As merry as you will.

MAMILLIUS       A sad tale's best for winter: I have one
        Of sprites and goblins.

HERMIONE        Let's have that, good sir.
        Come on, sit down: come on, and do your best
        To fright me with your sprites; you're powerful at it.

MAMILLIUS       There was a man--

HERMIONE                          Nay, come, sit down; then on.

MAMILLIUS       Dwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly;
        Yond crickets shall not hear it.

HERMIONE        Come on, then,
        And give't me in mine ear.

[Enter LEONTES, with ANTIGONUS, Lords and others]

First Lord      Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never
        Saw I men scour so on their way: I eyed them
        Even to their ships.

LEONTES

How blest am I
In my just censure, in my true opinion! Alack, for lesser knowledge! how accursed In being so blest! There may be in the cup A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart, And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge Is not infected: but if one present The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides, With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider. Camillo was his help in this, his pander: There is a plot against my life, my crown; All's true that is mistrusted: that false villain Whom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him: He has discover'd my design, and I Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick For them to play at will. How came the posterns So easily open?

First Lord                        By his great authority;
        Which often hath no less prevail'd than so
        On your command.

LEONTES                           I know't too well.
        Give me the boy: I am glad you did not nurse him:
        Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you
        Have too much blood in him.

HERMIONE        What is this? sport?

LEONTES

Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her; Away with him! and let her sport herself With that she's big with; for 'tis Polixenes Has made thee swell thus.

HERMIONE        But I'ld say he had not,
        And I'll be sworn you would believe my saying,
        Howe'er you lean to the nayward.

LEONTES

You, my lords,
Look on her, mark her well; be but about To say 'she is a goodly lady,' and The justice of your bearts will thereto add 'Tis pity she's not honest, honourable:' Praise her but for this her without-door form, Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands That calumny doth use--O, I am out-- That mercy does, for calumny will sear Virtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha's, When you have said 'she's goodly,' come between Ere you can say 'she's honest:' but be 't known, From him that has most cause to grieve it should be, She's an adulteress.

HERMIONE        Should a villain say so,
        The most replenish'd villain in the world,
        He were as much more villain: you, my lord,
        Do but mistake.

LEONTES                   You have mistook, my lady,
        Polixenes for Leontes: O thou thing!
        Which I'll not call a creature of thy place,
        Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
        Should a like language use to all degrees

And mannerly distinguishment leave out
Betwixt the prince and beggar: I have said She's an adulteress; I have said with whom: More, she's a traitor and Camillo is
A federary with her, and one that knows
What she should shame to know herself
But with her most vile principal, that she's A bed-swerver, even as bad as those
That vulgars give bold'st titles, ay, and privy To this their late escape.

HERMIONE        No, by my life.
        Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you,
        When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
        You thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord,
        You scarce can right me throughly then to say
        You did mistake.

LEONTES                   No; if I mistake
        In those foundations which I build upon,
        The centre is not big enough to bear
        A school-boy's top. Away with her! to prison!
        He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty
        But that he speaks.

HERMIONE        There's some ill planet reigns:
        I must be patient till the heavens look
        With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,
        I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
        Commonly are; the want of which vain dew

Perchance shall dry your pities: but I have That honourable grief lodged here which burns Worse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords, With thoughts so qualified as your charities Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so The king's will be perform'd!

HERMIONE        Who is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness,
        My women may be with me; for you see
        My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools;
        There is no cause: when you shall know your mistress
        Has deserved prison, then abound in tears

As I come out: this action I now go on
Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord:
I never wish'd to see you sorry; now
I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave.

[Exit HERMIONE, guarded; with Ladies]

First Lord      Beseech your highness, call the queen again.

ANTIGONUS       Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice
        Prove violence; in the which three great ones suffer,
        Yourself, your queen, your son.

First Lord      For her, my lord,
        I dare my life lay down and will do't, sir,
        Please you to accept it, that the queen is spotless
        I' the eyes of heaven and to you; I mean,
        In this which you accuse her.

ANTIGONUS       If it prove
        She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where
        I lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;
        Than when I feel and see her no farther trust her;
        For every inch of woman in the world,
        Ay, every dram of woman's flesh is false, If she be.

LEONTES          Hold your peaces.

First Lord      Good my lord,--

ANTIGONUS       It is for you we speak, not for ourselves:
        You are abused and by some putter-on
        That will be damn'd for't; would I knew the villain,
        I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd,
        I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven

The second and the third, nine, and some five; If this prove true, they'll pay for't:
by mine honour,
I'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see, To bring false generations: they are co-heirs; And I had rather glib myself than they
Should not produce fair issue.

LEONTES

Cease; no more.
You smell this business with a sense as cold As is a dead man's nose: but I do see't and feel't As you feel doing thus; and see withal The instruments that feel.

ANTIGONUS       If it be so,
        We need no grave to bury honesty:
        There's not a grain of it the face to sweeten
        Of the whole dungy earth.

First Lord      I had rather you did lack than I, my lord,
        Upon this ground; and more it would content me
        To have her honour true than your suspicion,
        Be blamed for't how you might.

LEONTES

Why, what need we
Commune with you of this, but rather follow Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative Calls not your counsels, but our natural goodness Imparts this; which if you, or stupefied Or seeming so in skill, cannot or will not Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves We need no more of your advice: the matter, The loss, the gain, the ordering on't, is all Properly ours.

ANTIGONUS                         And I wish, my liege,
        You had only in your silent judgment tried it,
        Without more overture.

LEONTES

How could that be?
Either thou art most ignorant by age, Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight, Added to their familiarity, Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture, That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation But only seeing, all other circumstances Made up to the deed, doth push on this proceeding: Yet, for a greater confirmation, For in an act of this importance 'twere Most piteous to be wild, I have dispatch'd in post To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple, Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know Of stuff'd sufficiency: now from the oracle They will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had, Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well?

First Lord      Well done, my lord.

LEONTES

Though I am satisfied and need no more
Than what I know, yet shall the oracle Give rest to the minds of others, such as he Whose ignorant credulity will not Come up to the truth. So have we thought it good From our free person she should be confined, Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence Be left her to perform. Come, follow us; We are to speak in public; for this business Will raise us all.

ANTIGONUS       [Aside]

To laughter, as I take it,
If the good truth were known.
[Exeunt]
THE WINTER'S TALE

SCENE II        A prison.

[Enter PAULINA, a Gentleman, and Attendants]

PAULINA

The keeper of the prison, call to him;
let him have knowledge who I am.

[Exit Gentleman]

                               Good lady,

No court in Europe is too good for thee;
What dost thou then in prison?
[Re-enter Gentleman, with the Gaoler]

                         Now, good sir,

You know me, do you not?

Gaoler

For a worthy lady
And one whom much I honour.

PAULINA

Pray you then,
Conduct me to the queen.

Gaoler

I may not, madam:
To the contrary I have express commandment.

PAULINA

Here's ado,
To lock up honesty and honour from The access of gentle visitors! Is't lawful, pray you, To see her women? any of them? Emilia?

Gaoler

So please you, madam,
To put apart these your attendants, I Shall bring Emilia forth.

PAULINA

I pray now, call her.
Withdraw yourselves.

[Exeunt Gentleman and Attendants]

Gaoler

And, madam,
I must be present at your conference.

[Exit Gaoler]
Here's such ado to make no stain a stain
As passes colouring.
[Re-enter Gaoler, with EMILIA]
Dear gentlewoman,
How fares our gracious lady?

EMILIA

As well as one so great and so forlorn
May hold together: on her frights and griefs, Which never tender lady hath born greater, She is something before her time deliver'd.

EMILIA       A daughter, and a goodly babe,
        Lusty and like to live: the queen receives
        Much comfort in't; says 'My poor prisoner,
        I am innocent as you.'

PAULINA

I dare be sworn
These dangerous unsafe lunes i' the king, beshrew them! He must be told on't, and he shall: the office Becomes a woman best; I'll take't upon me: If I prove honey-mouth'd let my tongue blister And never to my red-look'd anger be The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia, Commend my best obedience to the queen: If she dares trust me with her little babe, I'll show't the king and undertake to be Her advocate to the loud'st. We do not know How he may soften at the sight o' the child: The silence often of pure innocence Persuades when speaking fails.

EMILIA

Most worthy madam,
Your honour and your goodness is so evident That your free undertaking cannot miss A thriving issue: there is no lady living So meet for this great errand. Please your ladyship To visit the next room, I'll presently Acquaint the queen of your most noble offer; Who but to-day hammer'd of this design, But durst not tempt a minister of honour, Lest she should be denied.

PAULINA

Tell her, Emilia.
I'll use that tongue I have: if wit flow from't As boldness from my bosom, let 't not be doubted I shall do good.

EMILIA                    Now be you blest for it!
        I'll to the queen: please you,
        come something nearer.

Gaoler

Madam, if't please the queen to send the babe, I know not what I shall incur to pass it, Having no warrant.

PAULINA                   You need not fear it, sir:
        This child was prisoner to the womb and is
        By law and process of great nature thence
        Freed and enfranchised, not a party to
        The anger of the king nor guilty of,

If any be, the trespass of the queen.

PAULINA                   Do not you fear: upon mine honour,
        I will stand betwixt you and danger.

[Exeunt]
THE WINTER'S TALE

SCENE III       A room in LEONTES' palace.

[Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, Lords, and Servants]

LEONTES

Nor night nor day no rest: it is but weakness To bear the matter thus; mere weakness. If The cause were not in being,--part o' the cause, She the adulteress; for the harlot king Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank And level of my brain, plot-proof; but she I can hook to me: say that she were gone, Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest Might come to me again. Who's there?

First Servant                     He took good rest to-night;
        'Tis hoped his sickness is discharged.

LEONTES

To see his nobleness!
Conceiving the dishonour of his mother, He straight declined, droop'd, took it deeply, Fasten'd and fix'd the shame on't in himself, Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep, And downright languish'd. Leave me solely: go, See how he fares.

[Exit Servant]
Fie, fie! no thought of him:
The thought of my revenges that way
Recoil upon me: in himself too mighty,
And in his parties, his alliance; let him be Until a time may serve: for present vengeance, Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes
Laugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow: They should not laugh if I could reach them, nor Shall she within my power.
[Enter PAULINA, with a child]

First Lord      You must not enter.

PAULINA

Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me: Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas, Than the queen's life? a gracious innocent soul, More free than he is jealous.

ANTIGONUS       That's enough.

None should come at him.

PAULINA

Not so hot, good sir:
I come to bring him sleep. 'Tis such as you, That creep like shadows by him and do sigh At each his needless heavings, such as you Nourish the cause of his awaking: I Do come with words as medicinal as true, Honest as either, to purge him of that humour That presses him from sleep.

PAULINA

No noise, my lord; but needful conference
About some gossips for your highness.

LEONTES

How!
Away with that audacious lady! Antigonus, I charged thee that she should not come about me: I knew she would.

ANTIGONUS                         I told her so, my lord,
        On your displeasure's peril and on mine,
        She should not visit you.

PAULINA

From all dishonesty he can: in this,
Unless he take the course that you have done, Commit me for committing honour, trust it, He shall not rule me.

ANTIGONUS       La you now, you hear:
        When she will take the rein I let her run;
        But she'll not stumble.

PAULINA

Good my liege, I come;
And, I beseech you, hear me, who profess Myself your loyal servant, your physician, Your most obedient counsellor, yet that dare Less appear so in comforting your evils, Than such as most seem yours: I say, I come From your good queen.

PAULINA

Good queen, my lord,
Good queen; I say good queen; And would by combat make her good, so were I A man, the worst about you.

PAULINA

Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes First hand me: on mine own accord I'll off; But first I'll do my errand. The good queen, For she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter; Here 'tis; commends it to your blessing.

[Laying down the child]

LEONTES

Out!
A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door: A most intelligencing bawd!

PAULINA

Not so:
I am as ignorant in that as you In so entitling me, and no less honest Than you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant, As this world goes, to pass for honest.

LEONTES

Traitors!
Will you not push her out? Give her the bastard. Thou dotard! thou art woman-tired, unroosted By thy dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard; Take't up, I say; give't to thy crone.

PAULINA

For ever
Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou Takest up the princess by that forced baseness Which he has put upon't!

PAULINA

So I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt You'ld call your children yours.

ANTIGONUS       I am none, by this good light.

PAULINA

Nor I, nor any
But one that's here, and that's himself, for he The sacred honour of himself, his queen's, His hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander, Whose sting is sharper than the sword's; and will not-- For, as the case now stands, it is a curse He cannot be compell'd to't--once remove The root of his opinion, which is rotten As ever oak or stone was sound.

LEONTES

A callat
Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband And now baits me! This brat is none of mine; It is the issue of Polixenes: Hence with it, and together with the dam Commit them to the fire!

PAULINA

It is yours;
And, might we lay the old proverb to your charge, So like you, 'tis the worse. Behold, my lords, Although the print be little, the whole matter And copy of the father, eye, nose, lip, The trick of's frown, his forehead, nay, the valley, The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek, His smiles, The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger: And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it So like to him that got it, if thou hast The ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours No yellow in't, lest she suspect, as he does, Her children not her husband's!

LEONTES

A gross hag
And, lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd, That wilt not stay her tongue.

ANTIGONUS       Hang all the husbands
        That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself
        Hardly one subject.

PAULINA

A most unworthy and unnatural lord
Can do no more.

LEONTES                   I'll ha' thee burnt.

PAULINA

I care not:
It is an heretic that makes the fire, Not she which burns in't. I'll not call you tyrant; But this most cruel usage of your queen, Not able to produce more accusation Than your own weak-hinged fancy, something savours Of tyranny and will ignoble make you, Yea, scandalous to the world.

LEONTES

On your allegiance,
Out of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant, Where were her life? she durst not call me so, If she did know me one. Away with her!

PAULINA

I pray you, do not push me; I'll be gone.
Look to your babe, my lord; 'tis yours: Jove send her A better guiding spirit! What needs these hands? You, that are thus so tender o'er his follies, Will never do him good, not one of you. So, so: farewell; we are gone.

[Exit]

LEONTES

Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this. My child? away with't! Even thou, that hast A heart so tender o'er it, take it hence And see it instantly consumed with fire; Even thou and none but thou. Take it up straight: Within this hour bring me word 'tis done, And by good testimony, or I'll seize thy life, With what thou else call'st thine. If thou refuse And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so; The bastard brains with these my proper hands Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire; For thou set'st on thy wife.

ANTIGONUS       I did not, sir:
        These lords, my noble fellows, if they please,
        Can clear me in't.

Lords                     We can: my royal liege,
        He is not guilty of her coming hither.

First Lord      Beseech your highness, give us better credit:
        We have always truly served you, and beseech you
        So to esteem of us, and on our knees we beg,
        As recompense of our dear services
        Past and to come, that you do change this purpose,

Which being so horrible, so bloody, must
Lead on to some foul issue: we all kneel.

LEONTES

I am a feather for each wind that blows:
Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel And call me father? better burn it now Than curse it then. But be it; let it live. It shall not neither. You, sir, come you hither; You that have been so tenderly officious With Lady Margery, your midwife there, To save this bastard's life,--for 'tis a bastard, So sure as this beard's grey, --what will you adventure To save this brat's life?

ANTIGONUS       Any thing, my lord,
        That my ability may undergo
        And nobleness impose: at least thus much:
        I'll pawn the little blood which I have left
        To save the innocent: any thing possible.

LEONTES

It shall be possible. Swear by this sword
Thou wilt perform my bidding.

ANTIGONUS       I will, my lord.

LEONTES

Mark and perform it, see'st thou! for the fail Of any point in't shall not only be Death to thyself but to thy lewd-tongued wife, Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee, As thou art liege-man to us, that thou carry This female bastard hence and that thou bear it To some remote and desert place quite out Of our dominions, and that there thou leave it, Without more mercy, to its own protection And favour of the climate. As by strange fortune It came to us, I do in justice charge thee, On thy soul's peril and thy body's torture, That thou commend it strangely to some place Where chance may nurse or end it. Take it up.

ANTIGONUS       I swear to do this, though a present death
        Had been more merciful. Come on, poor babe:
        Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens
        To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say
        Casting their savageness aside have done

Like offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous
In more than this deed does require! And blessing Against this cruelty fight on thy side,
Poor thing, condemn'd to loss!
[Exit with the child]

LEONTES

No, I'll not rear
Another's issue.

[Enter a Servant]

Servant                   Please your highness, posts
        From those you sent to the oracle are come
        An hour since: Cleomenes and Dion,
        Being well arrived from Delphos, are both landed,
        Hasting to the court.

First Lord      So please you, sir, their speed
        Hath been beyond account.

LEONTES

Twenty-three days
They have been absent: 'tis good speed; foretells The great Apollo suddenly will have The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords; Summon a session, that we may arraign Our most disloyal lady, for, as she hath Been publicly accused, so shall she have A just and open trial. While she lives My heart will be a burthen to me. Leave me, And think upon my bidding.

[Exeunt]
THE WINTER'S TALE

[Enter CLEOMENES and DION]

CLEOMENES       The climate's delicate, the air most sweet,
        Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing
        The common praise it bears.

DION

I shall report,
For most it caught me, the celestial habits, Methinks I so should term them, and the reverence Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice! How ceremonious, solemn and unearthly It was i' the offering!

CLEOMENES       But of all, the burst
        And the ear-deafening voice o' the oracle,
        Kin to Jove's thunder, so surprised my sense.
        That I was nothing.

DION

If the event o' the journey
Prove as successful to the queen,--O be't so!-- As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy, The time is worth the use on't.

CLEOMENES       Great Apollo
        Turn all to the best! These proclamations,
        So forcing faults upon Hermione,
        I little like.

DION                      The violent carriage of it
        Will clear or end the business: when the oracle,
        Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up,
        Shall the contents discover, something rare
        Even then will rush to knowledge. Go: fresh horses!

And gracious be the issue!
[Exeunt]
THE WINTER'S TALE

SCENE II        A court of Justice.

[Enter LEONTES, Lords, and Officers]

LEONTES

This sessions, to our great grief we pronounce, Even pushes 'gainst our heart: the party tried The daughter of a king, our wife, and one Of us too much beloved. Let us be clear'd Of being tyrannous, since we so openly Proceed in justice, which shall have due course, Even to the guilt or the purgation. Produce the prisoner.

Officer

It is his highness' pleasure that the queen Appear in person here in court. Silence!

[Enter HERMIONE guarded;
PAULINA and Ladies attending]

Officer

[Reads] Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes, king of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in committing adultery with Polixenes, king of Bohemia, and conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign lord the king, thy royal husband: the pretence whereof being by circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of a true subject, didst counsel and aid them, for their better safety, to fly away by night.

HERMIONE        Since what I am to say must be but that
        Which contradicts my accusation and
        The testimony on my part no other
        But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me
        To say 'not guilty:' mine integrity

Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it, Be so received. But thus: if powers divine Behold our human actions, as they do,
I doubt not then but innocence shall make
False accusation blush and tyranny
Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know, Who least will seem to do so, my past life Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true, As I am now unhappy; which is more
Than history can pattern, though devised
And play'd to take spectators. For behold me A fellow of the royal bed, which owe
A moiety of the throne a great king's daughter, The mother to a hopeful prince, here standing To prate and talk for life and honour 'fore Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it As I weigh grief, which I would spare: for honour, 'Tis a derivative from me to mine,
And only that I stand for. I appeal
To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes Came to your court, how I was in your grace, How merited to be so; since he came,
With what encounter so uncurrent I
Have strain'd to appear thus: if one jot beyond The bound of honour, or in act or will
That way inclining, harden'd be the hearts Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin Cry fie upon my grave!

LEONTES

I ne'er heard yet
That any of these bolder vices wanted Less impudence to gainsay what they did Than to perform it first.

HERMIONE        That's true enough;
        Through 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.

HERMIONE        More than mistress of
        Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not
        At all acknowledge. For Polixenes,
        With whom I am accused, I do confess
        I loved him as in honour he required,

With such a kind of love as might become
A lady like me, with a love even such,
So and no other, as yourself commanded:
Which not to have done I think had been in me Both disobedience and ingratitude
To you and toward your friend, whose love had spoke, Even since it could speak, from an infant, freely That it was yours. Now, for conspiracy,
I know not how it tastes; though it be dish'd For me to try how: all I know of it
Is that Camillo was an honest man;

        And why he left your court, the gods themselves,
        Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.

LEONTES

You knew of his departure, as you know
What you have underta'en to do in's absence.

HERMIONE        Sir,
        You speak a language that I understand not:
        My life stands in the level of your dreams,
        Which I'll lay down.

LEONTES

Your actions are my dreams;
You had a bastard by Polixenes, And I but dream'd it. As you were past all shame,-- Those of your fact are so--so past all truth: Which to deny concerns more than avails; for as Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself, No father owning it,--which is, indeed, More criminal in thee than it,--so thou Shalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage Look for no less than death.

HERMIONE        Sir, spare your threats:
        The bug which you would fright me with I seek.
        To me can life be no commodity:
        The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,
        I do give lost; for I do feel it gone,

But know not how it went. My second joy
And first-fruits of my body, from his presence I am barr'd, like one infectious. My third comfort Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast, The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth, Haled out to murder: myself on every post
Proclaimed a strumpet: with immodest hatred The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried
Here to this place, i' the open air, before I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege, Tell me what blessings I have here alive,
That I should fear to die? Therefore proceed. But yet hear this: mistake me not; no life, I prize it not a straw, but for mine honour, Which I would free, if I shall be condemn'd Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you 'Tis rigor and not law. Your honours all,
I do refer me to the oracle:
Apollo be my judge!

First Lord      This your request
        Is altogether just: therefore bring forth,
        And in Apollos name, his oracle.

[Exeunt certain Officers]

HERMIONE        The Emperor of Russia was my father:
        O that he were alive, and here beholding
        His daughter's trial! that he did but see
        The flatness of my misery, yet with eyes
        Of pity, not revenge!

[Re-enter Officers, with CLEOMENES and DION]

Officer

You here shall swear upon this sword of justice, That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have Been both at Delphos, and from thence have brought The seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd Of great Apollo's priest; and that, since then, You have not dared to break the holy seal Nor read the secrets in't.

CLEOMENES       |
        |       All this we swear.
DION    |

Officer

[Reads] Hermione is chaste;
Polixenes blameless; Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; his innocent babe truly begotten; and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found.

Lords   Now blessed be the great Apollo!

HERMIONE        Praised!

Officer

Ay, my lord; even so
As it is here set down.

LEONTES

There is no truth at all i' the oracle:
The sessions shall proceed: this is mere falsehood.

[Enter Servant]

Servant

O sir, I shall be hated to report it!
The prince your son, with mere conceit and fear Of the queen's speed, is gone.

LEONTES

Apollo's angry; and the heavens themselves Do strike at my injustice.

[HERMIONE swoons]

                     How now there!

PAULINA

This news is mortal to the queen: look down And see what death is doing.

LEONTES

Take her hence:
Her heart is but o'ercharged; she will recover: I have too much believed mine own suspicion: Beseech you, tenderly apply to her Some remedies for life.

[Exeunt PAULINA and Ladies, with HERMIONE]
Apollo, pardon
My great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle! I'll reconcile me to Polixenes,
New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo, Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy;
For, being transported by my jealousies
To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose Camillo for the minister to poison
My friend Polixenes: which had been done,
But that the good mind of Camillo tardied
My swift command, though I with death and with Reward did threaten and encourage him,
Not doing 't and being done: he, most humane And fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest Unclasp'd my practise, quit his fortunes here, Which you knew great, and to the hazard
Of all encertainties himself commended,
No richer than his honour: how he glisters Thorough my rust! and how his pity
Does my deeds make the blacker!
[Re-enter PAULINA]

PAULINA

Woe the while!
O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it, Break too.

First Lord                What fit is this, good lady?

PAULINA

What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me? What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling? In leads or oils? what old or newer torture Must I receive, whose every word deserves To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny Together working with thy jealousies, Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle For girls of nine, O, think what they have done And then run mad indeed, stark mad! for all Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it. That thou betray'dst Polixenes,'twas nothing; That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant And damnable ingrateful: nor was't much, Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour, To have him kill a king: poor trespasses, More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon The casting forth to crows thy baby-daughter To be or none or little; though a devil Would have shed water out of fire ere done't: Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death Of the young prince, whose honourable thoughts, Thoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart That could conceive a gross and foolish sire Blemish'd his gracious dam: this is not, no, Laid to thy answer: but the last,--O lords, When I have said, cry 'woe!' the queen, the queen, The sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead, and vengeance for't Not dropp'd down yet.

First Lord      The higher powers forbid!

PAULINA

I say she's dead; I'll swear't. If word nor oath Prevail not, go and see: if you can bring Tincture or lustre in her lip, her eye, Heat outwardly or breath within, I'll serve you As I would do the gods. But, O thou tyrant! Do not repent these things, for they are heavier Than all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee To nothing but despair. A thousand knees Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting, Upon a barren mountain and still winter In storm perpetual, could not move the gods To look that way thou wert.

LEONTES

Go on, go on
Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserved All tongues to talk their bitterest.

First Lord      Say no more:
        Howe'er the business goes, you have made fault
        I' the boldness of your speech.

PAULINA

I am sorry for't:
All faults I make, when I shall come to know them, I do repent. Alas! I have show'd too much The rashness of a woman: he is touch'd To the noble heart. What's gone and what's past help Should be past grief: do not receive affliction At my petition; I beseech you, rather Let me be punish'd, that have minded you Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman: The love I bore your queen--lo, fool again!-- I'll speak of her no more, nor of your children; I'll not remember you of my own lord, Who is lost too: take your patience to you, And I'll say nothing.

LEONTES

Thou didst speak but well
When most the truth; which I receive much better Than to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me To the dead bodies of my queen and son: One grave shall be for both: upon them shall The causes of their death appear, unto Our shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit The chapel where they lie, and tears shed there Shall be my recreation: so long as nature Will bear up with this exercise, so long I daily vow to use it. Come and lead me Unto these sorrows.

[Exeunt]
THE WINTER'S TALE

SCENE III       Bohemia. A desert country near the sea.

[Enter ANTIGONUS with a Child, and a Mariner]

ANTIGONUS       Thou art perfect then, our ship hath touch'd upon
        The deserts of Bohemia?

Mariner

Ay, my lord: and fear
We have landed in ill time: the skies look grimly And threaten present blusters. In my conscience, The heavens with that we have in hand are angry And frown upon 's.

ANTIGONUS       Their sacred wills be done! Go, get aboard;
        Look to thy bark: I'll not be long before
        I call upon thee.

Mariner

Make your best haste, and go not
Too far i' the land: 'tis like to be loud weather; Besides, this place is famous for the creatures Of prey that keep upon't.

ANTIGONUS       Go thou away:
        I'll follow instantly.

Mariner

I am glad at heart
To be so rid o' the business.

[Exit]

ANTIGONUS       Come, poor babe:
        I have heard, but not believed,
        the spirits o' the dead
        May walk again: if such thing be, thy mother
        Appear'd to me last night, for ne'er was dream

So like a waking. To me comes a creature,
Sometimes her head on one side, some another; I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,
So fill'd and so becoming: in pure white robes, Like very sanctity, she did approach
My cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me, And gasping to begin some speech, her eyes Became two spouts: the fury spent, anon
Did this break-from her: 'Good Antigonus,
Since fate, against thy better disposition, Hath made thy person for the thrower-out
Of my poor babe, according to thine oath,
Places remote enough are in Bohemia,
There weep and leave it crying; and, for the babe Is counted lost for ever, Perdita,
I prithee, call't. For this ungentle business Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see Thy wife Paulina more.' And so, with shrieks She melted into air. Affrighted much,
I did in time collect myself and thought
This was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys: Yet for this once, yea, superstitiously,
I will be squared by this. I do believe
Hermione hath suffer'd death, and that
Apollo would, this being indeed the issue
Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid, Either for life or death, upon the earth
Of its right father. Blossom, speed thee well! There lie, and there thy character: there these; Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty, And still rest thine. The storm begins; poor wretch, That for thy mother's fault art thus exposed To loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot, But my heart bleeds; and most accursed am I To be by oath enjoin'd to this. Farewell!
The day frowns more and more: thou'rt like to have A lullaby too rough: I never saw
The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! Well may I get aboard! This is the chase:
I am gone for ever.
[Exit, pursued by a bear]
[Enter a Shepherd]

Shepherd        I would there were no age between sixteen and
        three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the
        rest; for there is nothing in the between but
        getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry,
        stealing, fighting--Hark you now! Would any but

these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the master: if any where I have them, 'tis by the seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an't be thy will what have we here! Mercy on 's, a barne a very pretty barne! A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one; a very pretty one: sure, some 'scape: though I am not bookish, yet I can read
waiting-gentlewoman in the 'scape. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some
behind-door-work: they were warmer that got this than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he hallooed but even now. Whoa, ho, hoa!
[Enter Clown]

Clown   Hilloa, loa!

Shepherd        What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk
        on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What
        ailest thou, man?

Clown

I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land! but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky: betwixt the firmament and it you cannot thrust a bodkin's point.

Shepherd        Why, boy, how is it?

Clown

I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up the shore! but that's not the point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em; now the ship boring the moon with her main-mast, and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'ld thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land-service, to see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help and said his name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an end of the ship, to see how the sea flap-dragoned it: but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them; and how the poor gentleman roared and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than the sea or weather.

Shepherd        Name of mercy, when was this, boy?

Clown

Now, now: I have not winked since I saw these sights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman: he's at it now.

Shepherd        Would I had been by, to have helped the old man!

Clown

I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her: there your charity would have lacked footing.

Shepherd        Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here,
        boy. Now bless thyself: thou mettest with things
        dying, I with things newborn. Here's a sight for
        thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's
        child! look thee here; take up, take up, boy;

open't. So, let's see: it was told me I should be rich by the fairies. This is some changeling: open't. What's within, boy?

Clown

You're a made old man: if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!

Shepherd        This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up
        with't, keep it close: home, home, the next way.
        We are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires
        nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go: come, good
        boy, the next way home.

Clown

Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman and how much he hath eaten: they are never curst but when they are hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury it.

Shepherd        That's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that
        which is left of him what he is, fetch me to the
        sight of him.

Clown   Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground.

Shepherd        'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds on't.

[Exeunt]
THE WINTER'S TALE

[Enter Time, the Chorus]

Time

I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error, Now take upon me, in the name of Time, To use my wings. Impute it not a crime To me or my swift passage, that I slide O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried Of that wide gap, since it is in my power To o'erthrow law and in one self-born hour To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass The same I am, ere ancient'st order was Or what is now received: I witness to The times that brought them in; so shall I do To the freshest things now reigning and make stale The glistering of this present, as my tale Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing, I turn my glass and give my scene such growing As you had slept between: Leontes leaving, The effects of his fond jealousies so grieving That he shuts up himself, imagine me, Gentle spectators, that I now may be In fair Bohemia, and remember well, I mentioned a son o' the king's, which Florizel I now name to you; and with speed so pace To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace Equal with wondering: what of her ensues I list not prophecy; but let Time's news Be known when 'tis brought forth. A shepherd's daughter, And what to her adheres, which follows after, Is the argument of Time. Of this allow, If ever you have spent time worse ere now; If never, yet that Time himself doth say He wishes earnestly you never may.

[Exit]
THE WINTER'S TALE

SCENE II        Bohemia. The palace of POLIXENES.

[Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO]

POLIXENES       I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate:
        'tis a sickness denying thee any thing; a death to
        grant this.

CAMILLO

It is fifteen years since I saw my country: though I have for the most part been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to think so, which is another spur to my departure.

POLIXENES       As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of
        thy services by leaving me now: the need I have of
        thee thine own goodness hath made; better not to
        have had thee than thus to want thee: thou, having
        made me businesses which none without thee can

sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself or take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I have not enough considered, as too much I cannot, to be more thankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit therein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country, Sicilia, prithee speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou callest him, and reconciled king, my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved their virtues.

CAMILLO

Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I have missingly noted, he is of late much retired from court and is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.

POLIXENES       I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some
        care; so far that I have eyes under my service which
        look upon his removedness; from whom I have this
        intelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a
        most homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from

very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.

CAMILLO

I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note: the report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage.

POLIXENES       That's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I
        fear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou
        shalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not
        appearing what we are, have some question with the
        shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not

uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Prithee, be my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

POLIXENES       My best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves.

[Exeunt]
THE WINTER'S TALE

SCENE III       A road near the Shepherd's cottage.

[Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing]

AUTOLYCUS       When daffodils begin to peer,
        With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
        Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
        For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing! Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.
The lark, that tirra-lyra chants,
With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay, Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay.
I have served Prince Florizel and in my time wore three-pile; but now I am out of service:
But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
The pale moon shines by night:
And when I wander here and there,
I then do most go right.
If tinkers may have leave to live,
And bear the sow-skin budget,
Then my account I well may, give,
And in the stocks avouch it.
My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and drab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is the silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway: beating and hanging are terrors to me: for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it. A prize! a prize!
[Enter Clown]

Clown

Let me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod yields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn. what comes the wool to?

AUTOLYCUS       [Aside]

If the springe hold, the cock's mine.

Clown

I cannot do't without counters. Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar, five pound of currants, rice,--what will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me four and twenty nose-gays for the shearers, three-man-song-men all, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases; but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to horn-pipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden pies; mace; dates?--none, that's out of my note; nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I may beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' the sun.

AUTOLYCUS       O that ever I was born!

[Grovelling on the ground]

Clown   I' the name of me--

AUTOLYCUS       O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and
        then, death, death!

Clown

Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off.

AUTOLYCUS       O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more
        than the stripes I have received, which are mighty
        ones and millions.

Clown

Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter.

AUTOLYCUS       I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel
        ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon
        me.

Clown   What, by a horseman, or a footman?

AUTOLYCUS       A footman, sweet sir, a footman.

Clown

Indeed, he should be a footman by the garments he has left with thee: if this be a horseman's coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.

AUTOLYCUS       O, good sir, tenderly, O!

Clown   Alas, poor soul!

AUTOLYCUS       O, good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my
        shoulder-blade is out.

Clown   How now! canst stand?

AUTOLYCUS       [Picking his pocket]

Softly, dear sir; good sir, softly. You ha' done me a charitable office.

Clown   Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.

AUTOLYCUS       No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have
        a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence,
        unto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or
        any thing I want: offer me no money, I pray you;
        that kills my heart.

Clown   What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?

AUTOLYCUS       A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with
        troll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the
        prince: I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his
        virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.

Clown

His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped out of the court: they cherish it to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but abide.

AUTOLYCUS       Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he
        hath been since an ape-bearer; then a
        process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a
        motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's
        wife within a mile where my land and living lies;

and, having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus.

Clown

Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts wakes, fairs and bear-baitings.

AUTOLYCUS       Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that
        put me into this apparel.

Clown

Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia: if you had but looked big and spit at him, he'ld have run.

AUTOLYCUS       I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am
        false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant
        him.

Clown   How do you now?

AUTOLYCUS       Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and
        walk: I will even take my leave of you, and pace
        softly towards my kinsman's.

Clown   Shall I bring thee on the way?

AUTOLYCUS       No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir.

Clown

Then fare thee well: I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing.

AUTOLYCUS       Prosper you, sweet sir!

[Exit Clown]
Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too: if I make not this cheat bring out another and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my name put in the book of virtue!
[Sings]
Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
[Exit]
THE WINTER'S TALE

SCENE IV        The Shepherd's cottage.

[Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA]

FLORIZEL        These your unusual weeds to each part of you
        Do give a life: no shepherdess, but Flora
        Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing
        Is as a meeting of the petty gods,
        And you the queen on't.

PERDITA

Sir, my gracious lord,
To chide at your extremes it not becomes me: O, pardon, that I name them! Your high self, The gracious mark o' the land, you have obscured With a swain's wearing, and me, poor lowly maid, Most goddess-like prank'd up: but that our feasts In every mess have folly and the feeders Digest it with a custom, I should blush To see you so attired, sworn, I think, To show myself a glass.

FLORIZEL        I bless the time
        When my good falcon made her flight across
        Thy father's ground.

PERDITA

Now Jove afford you cause!
To me the difference forges dread; your greatness Hath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble To think your father, by some accident, Should pass this way as you did: O, the Fates! How would he look, to see his work so noble Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how Should I, in these my borrow'd flaunts, behold The sternness of his presence?

FLORIZEL        Apprehend
        Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,
        Humbling their deities to love, have taken
        The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter
        Became a bull, and bellow'd; the green Neptune

A ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god, Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,
As I seem now. Their transformations
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,
Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires
Run not before mine honour, nor my lusts
Burn hotter than my faith.

PERDITA

O, but, sir,
Your resolution cannot hold, when 'tis Opposed, as it must be, by the power of the king: One of these two must be necessities, Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose, Or I my life.

FLORIZEL                          Thou dearest Perdita,
        With these forced thoughts, I prithee, darken not
        The mirth o' the feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,
        Or not my father's. For I cannot be
        Mine own, nor any thing to any, if

I be not thine. To this I am most constant, Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle;
Strangle such thoughts as these with any thing That you behold the while. Your guests are coming: Lift up your countenance, as it were the day Of celebration of that nuptial which
We two have sworn shall come.

PERDITA

O lady Fortune,
Stand you auspicious!

FLORIZEL        See, your guests approach:
        Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,
        And let's be red with mirth.

[Enter Shepherd, Clown, MOPSA, DORCAS, and others, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO disguised]

Shepherd        Fie, daughter! when my old wife lived, upon
        This day she was both pantler, butler, cook,
        Both dame and servant; welcomed all, served all;
        Would sing her song and dance her turn; now here,
        At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle;

On his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire With labour and the thing she took to quench it, She would to each one sip. You are retired, As if you were a feasted one and not
The hostess of the meeting: pray you, bid
These unknown friends to's welcome; for it is A way to make us better friends, more known. Come, quench your blushes and present yourself That which you are, mistress o' the feast: come on, And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing, As your good flock shall prosper.

PERDITA

[To POLIXENES] Sir, welcome: It is my father's will I should take on me The hostess-ship o' the day.

[To CAMILLO]

                       You're welcome, sir.

Give me those flowers there, Dorcas. Reverend sirs, For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming and savour all the winter long:
Grace and remembrance be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing!

POLIXENES       Shepherdess,
        A fair one are you--well you fit our ages
        With flowers of winter.

PERDITA

Sir, the year growing ancient,
Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors, Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not To get slips of them.

POLIXENES       Wherefore, gentle maiden,
        Do you neglect them?

PERDITA

For I have heard it said
There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature.

POLIXENES       Say there be;
        Yet nature is made better by no mean
        But nature makes that mean: so, over that art
        Which you say adds to nature, is an art
        That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry

A gentler scion to the wildest stock,
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race: this is an art
Which does mend nature, change it rather, but The art itself is nature.

POLIXENES       Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,
        And do not call them bastards.

PERDITA

I'll not put
The dibble in earth to set one slip of them; No more than were I painted I would wish This youth should say 'twere well and only therefore Desire to breed by me. Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age. You're very welcome.

CAMILLO

I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing.

PERDITA

Out, alas!
You'd be so lean, that blasts of January Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair'st friend, I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might Become your time of day; and yours, and yours, That wear upon your virgin branches yet Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall From Dis's waggon! daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bight Phoebus in his strength--a malady Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds, The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack, To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend, To strew him o'er and o'er!

FLORIZEL        What, like a corse?

PERDITA

No, like a bank for love to lie and play on; Not like a corse; or if, not to be buried, But quick and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers: Methinks I play as I have seen them do In Whitsun pastorals: sure this robe of mine Does change my disposition.

FLORIZEL        What you do
        Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.
        I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,
        I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
        Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,

To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function: each your doing, So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deed, That all your acts are queens.

PERDITA

O Doricles,
Your praises are too large: but that your youth, And the true blood which peepeth fairly through't, Do plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd, With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, You woo'd me the false way.

FLORIZEL        I think you have
        As little skill to fear as I have purpose
        To put you to't. But come; our dance, I pray:
        Your hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair,
        That never mean to part.

POLIXENES       This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever
        Ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems
        But smacks of something greater than herself,
        Too noble for this place.

CAMILLO

He tells her something
That makes her blood look out: good sooth, she is The queen of curds and cream.

DORCAS

Mopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic, To mend her kissing with!

Clown

Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners. Come, strike up!

[Music. Here a dance of Shepherds and
Shepherdesses]

POLIXENES       Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this
        Which dances with your daughter?

Shepherd        They call him Doricles; and boasts himself
        To have a worthy feeding: but I have it
        Upon his own report and I believe it;
        He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter:
        I think so too; for never gazed the moon

Upon the water as he'll stand and read
As 'twere my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain. I think there is not half a kiss to choose Who loves another best.

POLIXENES       She dances featly.

Shepherd        So she does any thing; though I report it,
        That should be silent: if young Doricles
        Do light upon her, she shall bring him that
        Which he not dreams of.

[Enter Servant]

Servant

O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabour and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings several tunes faster than you'll tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads and all men's ears grew to his tunes.

Clown

He could never come better; he shall come in. I love a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.

Servant

He hath songs for man or woman, of all sizes; no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves: he has the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burthens of dildos and fadings, 'jump her and thump her;' and where some stretch-mouthed rascal would, as it were, mean mischief and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man;' puts him off, slights him, with 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'

POLIXENES       This is a brave fellow.

Clown

Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares?

Servant

He hath ribbons of an the colours i' the rainbow; points more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by the gross: inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns: why, he sings 'em over as they were gods or goddesses; you would think a smock were a she-angel, he so chants to the sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't.

[Exit Servant]

Clown

You have of these pedlars, that have more in them than you'ld think, sister.

[Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing]

AUTOLYCUS            Lawn as white as driven snow;
        Cyprus black as e'er was crow;
        Gloves as sweet as damask roses;
        Masks for faces and for noses;
        Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,

Perfume for a lady's chamber;
Golden quoifs and stomachers,
For my lads to give their dears:
Pins and poking-sticks of steel,
What maids lack from head to heel:
Come buy of me, come; come buy, come buy;
Buy lads, or else your lasses cry: Come buy.

Clown

If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.

MOPSA

I was promised them against the feast; but they come not too late now.

MOPSA

He hath paid you all he promised you; may be, he has paid you more, which will shame you to give him again.

Clown

Is there no manners left among maids? will they wear their plackets where they should bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guests? 'tis well they are whispering: clamour your tongues, and not a word more.

MOPSA

I have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry-lace and a pair of sweet gloves.

Clown

Have I not told thee how I was cozened by the way and lost all my money?

AUTOLYCUS       And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad;
        therefore it behoves men to be wary.

Clown   Fear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here.

AUTOLYCUS       I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge.

MOPSA

Pray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print o' life, for then we are sure they are true.

AUTOLYCUS       Here's one to a very doleful tune, how a usurer's
        wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a
        burthen and how she longed to eat adders' heads and
        toads carbonadoed.

MOPSA   Is it true, think you?

AUTOLYCUS       Very true, and but a month old.

DORCAS  Bless me from marrying a usurer!

AUTOLYCUS       Here's the midwife's name to't, one Mistress
        Tale-porter, and five or six honest wives that were
        present. Why should I carry lies abroad?

Clown

Come on, lay it by: and let's first see moe ballads; we'll buy the other things anon.

AUTOLYCUS       Here's another ballad of a fish, that appeared upon
        the coast on Wednesday the four-score of April,
        forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this
        ballad against the hard hearts of maids: it was
        thought she was a woman and was turned into a cold

fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her: the ballad is very pitiful and as true.

AUTOLYCUS       Five justices' hands at it, and witnesses more than
        my pack will hold.

Clown   Lay it by too: another.

AUTOLYCUS       This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.

MOPSA   Let's have some merry ones.

AUTOLYCUS       Why, this is a passing merry one and goes to
        the tune of 'Two maids wooing a man:' there's
        scarce a maid westward but she sings it; 'tis in
        request, I can tell you.

MOPSA

We can both sing it: if thou'lt bear a part, thou shalt hear; 'tis in three parts.

AUTOLYCUS       I can bear my part; you must know 'tis my
        occupation; have at it with you.
        [SONG]

AUTOLYCUS       Get you hence, for I must go
        Where it fits not you to know.

DORCAS       Whither?

MOPSA                     O, whither?

DORCAS  Whither?

MOPSA        It becomes thy oath full well,
        Thou to me thy secrets tell.

DORCAS            Me too, let me go thither.

MOPSA        Or thou goest to the orange or mill.

DORCAS       If to either, thou dost ill.

AUTOLYCUS       Neither.

DORCAS         What, neither?

AUTOLYCUS       Neither.

DORCAS       Thou hast sworn my love to be.

MOPSA        Thou hast sworn it more to me:
        Then whither goest? say, whither?

Clown

We'll have this song out anon by ourselves: my father and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll not trouble them. Come, bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I'll buy for you both. Pedlar, let's have the first choice. Follow me, girls.

[Exit with DORCAS and MOPSA]

AUTOLYCUS       And you shall pay well for 'em.

[Follows singing]
Will you buy any tape,
Or lace for your cape,
My dainty duck, my dear-a?
Any silk, any thread,
Any toys for your head,
Of the new'st and finest, finest wear-a?
Come to the pedlar;
Money's a medler.
That doth utter all men's ware-a.
[Exit]
[Re-enter Servant]

Servant

Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made themselves all men of hair, they call themselves Saltiers, and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in't; but they themselves are o' the mind, if it be not too rough for some that know little but bowling, it will please plentifully.

Shepherd        Away! we'll none on 't: here has been too much
        homely foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.

POLIXENES       You weary those that refresh us: pray, let's see
        these four threes of herdsmen.

Servant

One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the king; and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squier.

Shepherd        Leave your prating: since these good men are
        pleased, let them come in; but quickly now.

[Exit]
[Here a dance of twelve Satyrs]

POLIXENES       O, father, you'll know more of that hereafter.

[To CAMILLO]
Is it not too far gone? 'Tis time to part them. He's simple and tells much.
[To FLORIZEL]

                      How now, fair shepherd!

Your heart is full of something that does take Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young And handed love as you do, I was wont
To load my she with knacks: I would have ransack'd The pedlar's silken treasury and have pour'd it To her acceptance; you have let him go
And nothing marted with him. If your lass
Interpretation should abuse and call this
Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited For a reply, at least if you make a care
Of happy holding her.

FLORIZEL        Old sir, I know
        She prizes not such trifles as these are:
        The gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd
        Up in my heart; which I have given already,
        But not deliver'd. O, hear me breathe my life

Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem, Hath sometime loved! I take thy hand, this hand, As soft as dove's down and as white as it, Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd
snow that's bolted
By the northern blasts twice o'er.

POLIXENES       What follows this?
        How prettily the young swain seems to wash
        The hand was fair before! I have put you out:
        But to your protestation; let me hear
        What you profess.

FLORIZEL                          Do, and be witness to 't.

POLIXENES       And this my neighbour too?

FLORIZEL        And he, and more
        Than he, and men, the earth, the heavens, and all:
        That, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,
        Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth
        That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge

More than was ever man's, I would not prize them Without her love; for her employ them all; Commend them and condemn them to her service Or to their own perdition.

POLIXENES       Fairly offer'd.

CAMILLO This shows a sound affection.

Shepherd        But, my daughter,
        Say you the like to him?

PERDITA

I cannot speak
So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better: By the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out The purity of his.

Shepherd                          Take hands, a bargain!
        And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to 't:
        I give my daughter to him, and will make
        Her portion equal his.

FLORIZEL        O, that must be
        I' the virtue of your daughter: one being dead,
        I shall have more than you can dream of yet;
        Enough then for your wonder. But, come on,
        Contract us 'fore these witnesses.

Shepherd        Come, your hand;
        And, daughter, yours.

POLIXENES       Soft, swain, awhile, beseech you;
        Have you a father?

FLORIZEL                          I have: but what of him?

POLIXENES       Knows he of this?

FLORIZEL                          He neither does nor shall.

POLIXENES       Methinks a father
        Is at the nuptial of his son a guest
        That best becomes the table. Pray you once more,
        Is not your father grown incapable
        Of reasonable affairs? is he not stupid

With age and altering rheums? can he speak? hear? Know man from man? dispute his own estate? Lies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing But what he did being childish?

FLORIZEL        No, good sir;
        He has his health and ampler strength indeed
        Than most have of his age.

POLIXENES       By my white beard,
        You offer him, if this be so, a wrong
        Something unfilial: reason my son
        Should choose himself a wife, but as good reason
        The father, all whose joy is nothing else

But fair posterity, should hold some counsel In such a business.

FLORIZEL        I yield all this;
        But for some other reasons, my grave sir,
        Which 'tis not fit you know, I not acquaint
        My father of this business.

POLIXENES       Let him know't.

FLORIZEL        He shall not.

POLIXENES                         Prithee, let him.

FLORIZEL        No, he must not.

Shepherd        Let him, my son: he shall not need to grieve
        At knowing of thy choice.

FLORIZEL        Come, come, he must not.
        Mark our contract.

POLIXENES                         Mark your divorce, young sir,

[Discovering himself]
Whom son I dare not call; thou art too base To be acknowledged: thou a sceptre's heir, That thus affect'st a sheep-hook! Thou old traitor, I am sorry that by hanging thee I can
But shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece Of excellent witchcraft, who of force must know The royal fool thou copest with,--

Shepherd        O, my heart!

POLIXENES       I'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briers, and made
        More homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy,
        If I may ever know thou dost but sigh
        That thou no more shalt see this knack, as never
        I mean thou shalt, we'll bar thee from succession;

Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin, Far than Deucalion off: mark thou my words: Follow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time, Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee From the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment.-- Worthy enough a herdsman: yea, him too,
That makes himself, but for our honour therein, Unworthy thee,--if ever henceforth thou
These rural latches to his entrance open,
Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,
I will devise a death as cruel for thee
As thou art tender to't.
[Exit]

PERDITA

Even here undone!
I was not much afeard; for once or twice I was about to speak and tell him plainly, The selfsame sun that shines upon his court Hides not his visage from our cottage but Looks on alike. Will't please you, sir, be gone? I told you what would come of this: beseech you, Of your own state take care: this dream of mine,-- Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther, But milk my ewes and weep.

CAMILLO

Why, how now, father!
Speak ere thou diest.

Shepherd        I cannot speak, nor think
        Nor dare to know that which I know. O sir!
        You have undone a man of fourscore three,
        That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,
        To die upon the bed my father died,

To lie close by his honest bones: but now
Some hangman must put on my shroud and lay me Where no priest shovels in dust. O cursed wretch, That knew'st this was the prince,
and wouldst adventure
To mingle faith with him! Undone! undone!
If I might die within this hour, I have lived To die when I desire.
[Exit]

FLORIZEL        Why look you so upon me?
        I am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd,
        But nothing alter'd: what I was, I am;
        More straining on for plucking back, not following
        My leash unwillingly.

CAMILLO

Gracious my lord,
You know your father's temper: at this time He will allow no speech, which I do guess You do not purpose to him; and as hardly Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear: Then, till the fury of his highness settle, Come not before him.

FLORIZEL        I not purpose it.
        I think, Camillo?

CAMILLO                   Even he, my lord.

PERDITA

How often have I told you 'twould be thus! How often said, my dignity would last But till 'twere known!

FLORIZEL        It cannot fail but by
        The violation of my faith; and then
        Let nature crush the sides o' the earth together
        And mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks:
        From my succession wipe me, father; I

Am heir to my affection.

FLORIZEL        I am, and by my fancy: if my reason
        Will thereto be obedient, I have reason;
        If not, my senses, better pleased with madness,
        Do bid it welcome.

CAMILLO                   This is desperate, sir.

FLORIZEL        So call it: but it does fulfil my vow;
        I needs must think it honesty. Camillo,
        Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may
        Be thereat glean'd, for all the sun sees or
        The close earth wombs or the profound sea hides

In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath
To this my fair beloved: therefore, I pray you, As you have ever been my father's honour'd friend, When he shall miss me,--as, in faith, I mean not To see him any more,--cast your good counsels Upon his passion; let myself and fortune
Tug for the time to come. This you may know And so deliver, I am put to sea
With her whom here I cannot hold on shore; And most opportune to our need I have
A vessel rides fast by, but not prepared
For this design. What course I mean to hold Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor
Concern me the reporting.

CAMILLO

O my lord!
I would your spirit were easier for advice, Or stronger for your need.

FLORIZEL        Hark, Perdita

[Drawing her aside]
I'll hear you by and by.

CAMILLO

He's irremoveable,
Resolved for flight. Now were I happy, if His going I could frame to serve my turn, Save him from danger, do him love and honour, Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia And that unhappy king, my master, whom I so much thirst to see.

FLORIZEL        Now, good Camillo;
        I am so fraught with curious business that
        I leave out ceremony.

CAMILLO

Sir, I think
You have heard of my poor services, i' the love That I have borne your father?

FLORIZEL        Very nobly
        Have you deserved: it is my father's music
        To speak your deeds, not little of his care
        To have them recompensed as thought on.

CAMILLO

Well, my lord,
If you may please to think I love the king And through him what is nearest to him, which is Your gracious self, embrace but my direction: If your more ponderous and settled project May suffer alteration, on mine honour, I'll point you where you shall have such receiving As shall become your highness; where you may Enjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see, There's no disjunction to be made, but by-- As heavens forefend!--your ruin; marry her, And, with my best endeavours in your absence, Your discontenting father strive to qualify And bring him up to liking.

FLORIZEL        How, Camillo,
        May this, almost a miracle, be done?
        That I may call thee something more than man
        And after that trust to thee.

CAMILLO

Have you thought on
A place whereto you'll go?

FLORIZEL        Not any yet:
        But as the unthought-on accident is guilty
        To what we wildly do, so we profess
        Ourselves to be the slaves of chance and flies
        Of every wind that blows.

CAMILLO

Then list to me:
This follows, if you will not change your purpose But undergo this flight, make for Sicilia, And there present yourself and your fair princess, For so I see she must be, 'fore Leontes: She shall be habited as it becomes The partner of your bed. Methinks I see Leontes opening his free arms and weeping His welcomes forth; asks thee the son forgiveness, As 'twere i' the father's person; kisses the hands Of your fresh princess; o'er and o'er divides him 'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness; the one He chides to hell and bids the other grow Faster than thought or time.

FLORIZEL        Worthy Camillo,
        What colour for my visitation shall I
        Hold up before him?

CAMILLO

Sent by the king your father
To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir, The manner of your bearing towards him, with What you as from your father shall deliver, Things known betwixt us three, I'll write you down: The which shall point you forth at every sitting What you must say; that he shall not perceive But that you have your father's bosom there And speak his very heart.

FLORIZEL        I am bound to you:
        There is some sap in this.

CAMILLO

A cause more promising
Than a wild dedication of yourselves To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain To miseries enough; no hope to help you, But as you shake off one to take another; Nothing so certain as your anchors, who Do their best office, if they can but stay you Where you'll be loath to be: besides you know Prosperity's the very bond of love, Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together Affliction alters.

PERDITA                   One of these is true:
        I think affliction may subdue the cheek,
        But not take in the mind.

CAMILLO

Yea, say you so?
There shall not at your father's house these seven years Be born another such.

FLORIZEL        My good Camillo,
        She is as forward of her breeding as
        She is i' the rear our birth.

CAMILLO

I cannot say 'tis pity
She lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress To most that teach.

PERDITA

Your pardon, sir; for this
I'll blush you thanks.

FLORIZEL        My prettiest Perdita!
        But O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo,
        Preserver of my father, now of me,
        The medicine of our house, how shall we do?
        We are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son,

Nor shall appear in Sicilia.

CAMILLO

My lord,
Fear none of this: I think you know my fortunes Do all lie there: it shall be so my care To have you royally appointed as if The scene you play were mine. For instance, sir, That you may know you shall not want, one word.

[They talk aside]
[Re-enter AUTOLYCUS]

AUTOLYCUS       Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his
        sworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold
        all my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a
        ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad,
        knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring,

to keep my pack from fasting: they throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer: by which means I saw whose purse was best in picture; and what I saw, to my good use I
remembered. My clown, who wants but something to be a reasonable man, grew so in love with the wenches' song, that he would not stir his pettitoes till he had both tune and words; which so drew the rest of the herd to me that all their other senses stuck in ears: you might have pinched a placket, it was senseless; 'twas nothing to geld a codpiece of a purse; I could have filed keys off that hung in chains: no hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and admiring the nothing of it. So that in this time of lethargy I picked and cut most of their festival purses; and had not the old man come in with a whoo-bub against his daughter and the king's son and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army.
[CAMILLO, FLORIZEL, and PERDITA come forward]

CAMILLO

Nay, but my letters, by this means being there So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.

FLORIZEL        And those that you'll procure from King Leontes--

PERDITA

Happy be you!
All that you speak shows fair.

[Seeing AUTOLYCUS]
We'll make an instrument of this, omit
Nothing may give us aid.

AUTOLYCUS       If they have overheard me now, why, hanging.

CAMILLO

How now, good fellow! why shakest thou so? Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee.

AUTOLYCUS       I am a poor fellow, sir.

CAMILLO

Why, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from thee: yet for the outside of thy poverty we must make an exchange; therefore discase thee instantly, --thou must think there's a necessity in't,--and change garments with this gentleman: though the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee, there's some boot.

AUTOLYCUS       I am a poor fellow, sir.

[Aside]
I know ye well enough.

CAMILLO

Nay, prithee, dispatch: the gentleman is half flayed already.

AUTOLYCUS       Are you in earnest, sir?

[Aside]
I smell the trick on't.

FLORIZEL        Dispatch, I prithee.

AUTOLYCUS       Indeed, I have had earnest: but I cannot with
        conscience take it.

[FLORIZEL and AUTOLYCUS exchange garments]
Fortunate mistress,--let my prophecy
Come home to ye!--you must retire yourself Into some covert: take your sweetheart's hat And pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face, Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken
The truth of your own seeming; that you may-- For I do fear eyes over--to shipboard
Get undescried.

PERDITA                   I see the play so lies
        That I must bear a part.

CAMILLO

No remedy.
Have you done there?

FLORIZEL        Should I now meet my father,
        He would not call me son.

[Giving it to PERDITA]
Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.

AUTOLYCUS       Adieu, sir.

FLORIZEL        O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!
        Pray you, a word.

CAMILLO

[Aside] What I do next, shall be to tell the king Of this escape and whither they are bound; Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail To force him after: in whose company I shall review Sicilia, for whose sight I have a woman's longing.

FLORIZEL        Fortune speed us!
        Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side.

[Exeunt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO]

AUTOLYCUS       I understand the business, I hear it: to have an
        open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is
        necessary for a cut-purse; a good nose is requisite
        also, to smell out work for the other senses. I see
        this is the time that the unjust man doth thrive.

What an exchange had this been without boot! What a boot is here with this exchange! Sure the gods do this year connive at us, and we may do any thing extempore. The prince himself is about a piece of iniquity, stealing away from his father with his clog at his heels: if I thought it were a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal, I would not do't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my profession.
[Re-enter Clown and Shepherd]
Aside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain: every lane's end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man work.

Clown

See, see; what a man you are now!
There is no other way but to tell the king she's a changeling and none of your flesh and blood.

Shepherd        Nay, but hear me.

Clown   Nay, but hear me.

Shepherd        Go to, then.

Clown

She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the king; and so your flesh and blood is not to be punished by him. Show those things you found about her, those secret things, all but what she has with her: this being done, let the law go whistle: I warrant you.

Shepherd        I will tell the king all, every word, yea, and his
        son's pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man,
        neither to his father nor to me, to go about to make
        me the king's brother-in-law.

Clown

Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have been to him and then your blood had been the dearer by I know how much an ounce.

AUTOLYCUS       [Aside]  Very wisely, puppies!

Shepherd        Well, let us to the king: there is that in this
        fardel will make him scratch his beard.

AUTOLYCUS       [Aside]  I know not what impediment this complaint
        may be to the flight of my master.

Clown   Pray heartily he be at palace.

AUTOLYCUS       [Aside]  Though I am not naturally honest, I am so
        sometimes by chance: let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement.

[Takes off his false beard]
How now, rustics! whither are you bound?

Shepherd        To the palace, an it like your worship.

AUTOLYCUS       Your affairs there, what, with whom, the condition
        of that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your
        names, your ages, of what having, breeding, and any
        thing that is fitting to be known, discover.

Clown   We are but plain fellows, sir.

AUTOLYCUS       A lie; you are rough and hairy. Let me have no
        lying: it becomes none but tradesmen, and they
        often give us soldiers the lie: but we pay them for
        it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel; therefore
        they do not give us the lie.

Clown

Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the manner.

Shepherd        Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir?

AUTOLYCUS       Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest
        thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings?
        hath not my gait in it the measure of the court?
        receives not thy nose court-odor from me? reflect I
        not on thy baseness court-contempt? Thinkest thou,

for that I insinuate, or toaze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-a-pe; and one that will either push on or pluck back thy business there: whereupon I command thee to open thy affair.

Shepherd        My business, sir, is to the king.

AUTOLYCUS       What advocate hast thou to him?

Shepherd        I know not, an't like you.

Clown

Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant: say you have none.

Shepherd        None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.

AUTOLYCUS       How blessed are we that are not simple men!
        Yet nature might have made me as these are,
        Therefore I will not disdain.

Clown   This cannot be but a great courtier.

Shepherd        His garments are rich, but he wears
        them not handsomely.

Clown

He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical: a great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking on's teeth.

AUTOLYCUS       The fardel there? what's i' the fardel?
        Wherefore that box?

Shepherd        Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box,
        which none must know but the king; and which he
        shall know within this hour, if I may come to the
        speech of him.

AUTOLYCUS       Age, thou hast lost thy labour.

Shepherd        Why, sir?

AUTOLYCUS       The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a
        new ship to purge melancholy and air himself: for,
        if thou beest capable of things serious, thou must
        know the king is full of grief.

Shepard

So 'tis said, sir; about his son, that should have married a shepherd's daughter.

AUTOLYCUS       If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly:
        the curses he shall have, the tortures he shall
        feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster.

Clown   Think you so, sir?

AUTOLYCUS       Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy
        and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to
        him, though removed fifty times, shall all come
        under the hangman: which though it be great pity,
        yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue a
        ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into
        grace! Some say he shall be stoned; but that death
        is too soft for him, say I      draw our throne into a
        sheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.

Clown

Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear. an't like you, sir?

AUTOLYCUS       He has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then
        'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a
        wasp's nest; then stand till he be three quarters
        and a dram dead; then recovered again with
        aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as

he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall be be set against a brick-wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he is to behold him with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at, their offences being so capital? Tell me, for you seem to be honest plain men, what you have to the king: being something gently considered, I'll bring you where he is aboard, tender your persons to his presence, whisper him in your behalfs; and if it be in man besides the king to effect your suits, here is man shall do it.

Clown

He seems to be of great authority: close with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold: show the inside of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado. Remember 'stoned,' and 'flayed alive.'

Shepherd        An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for
        us, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much
        more and leave this young man in pawn till I bring it you.

AUTOLYCUS       After I have done what I promised?

Shepherd        Ay, sir.

AUTOLYCUS       Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this business?

Clown

In some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.

AUTOLYCUS       O, that's the case of the shepherd's son: hang him,
        he'll be made an example.

Clown

Comfort, good comfort! We must to the king and show our strange sights: he must know 'tis none of your daughter nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does when the business is performed, and remain, as he says, your pawn till it be brought you.

AUTOLYCUS       I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side;
        go on the right hand: I will but look upon the
        hedge and follow you.

Clown   We are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest.

Shepherd        Let's before as he bids us: he was provided to do us good.

[Exeunt Shepherd and Clown]

AUTOLYCUS       If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would
        not suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am
        courted now with a double occasion, gold and a means
        to do the prince my master good; which who knows how
        that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring

these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he think it fit to shore them again and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far officious; for I am proof against that title and what shame else belongs to't. To him will I present them: there may be matter in it.
[Exit]
THE WINTER'S TALE

[Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and Servants]

CLEOMENES       Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd
        A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make,
        Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down
        More penitence than done trespass: at the last,
        Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil;

With them forgive yourself.

LEONTES

Whilst I remember
Her and her virtues, I cannot forget My blemishes in them, and so still think of The wrong I did myself; which was so much, That heirless it hath made my kingdom and Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man Bred his hopes out of.

PAULINA

True, too true, my lord:
If, one by one, you wedded all the world, Or from the all that are took something good, To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd Would be unparallel'd.

LEONTES

I think so. Kill'd!
She I kill'd! I did so: but thou strikest me Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter Upon thy tongue as in my thought: now, good now, Say so but seldom.

CLEOMENES                         Not at all, good lady:
        You might have spoken a thousand things that would
        Have done the time more benefit and graced
        Your kindness better.

PAULINA

You are one of those
Would have him wed again.

DION

If you would not so,
You pity not the state, nor the remembrance Of his most sovereign name; consider little What dangers, by his highness' fail of issue, May drop upon his kingdom and devour Incertain lookers on. What were more holy Than to rejoice the former queen is well? What holier than, for royalty's repair, For present comfort and for future good, To bless the bed of majesty again With a sweet fellow to't?

PAULINA

There is none worthy,
Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes; For has not the divine Apollo said, Is't not the tenor of his oracle, That King Leontes shall not have an heir Till his lost child be found? which that it shall, Is all as monstrous to our human reason As my Antigonus to break his grave And come again to me; who, on my life, Did perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel My lord should to the heavens be contrary, Oppose against their wills.

[To LEONTES]

                      Care not for issue;

The crown will find an heir: great Alexander Left his to the worthiest; so his successor Was like to be the best.

LEONTES

Good Paulina,
Who hast the memory of Hermione, I know, in honour, O, that ever I Had squared me to thy counsel! then, even now, I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes, Have taken treasure from her lips--

PAULINA

And left them
More rich for what they yielded.

LEONTES

Thou speak'st truth.
No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse, And better used, would make her sainted spirit Again possess her corpse, and on this stage, Where we're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd, And begin, 'Why to me?'

PAULINA

Had she such power,
She had just cause.

LEONTES

She had; and would incense me
To murder her I married.

PAULINA

I should so.
Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't You chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your ears Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd Should be 'Remember mine.'

LEONTES

Stars, stars,
And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife; I'll have no wife, Paulina.

PAULINA

Will you swear
Never to marry but by my free leave?

CLEOMENES       You tempt him over-much.

PAULINA

Unless another,
As like Hermione as is her picture, Affront his eye.

CLEOMENES                         Good madam,--

PAULINA

I have done.
Yet, if my lord will marry,--if you will, sir, No remedy, but you will,--give me the office To choose you a queen: she shall not be so young As was your former; but she shall be such As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy To see her in your arms.

LEONTES

My true Paulina,
We shall not marry till thou bid'st us.

PAULINA

That
Shall be when your first queen's again in breath; Never till then.

[Enter a Gentleman]

Gentleman       One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,
        Son of Polixenes, with his princess, she
        The fairest I have yet beheld, desires access
        To your high presence.

LEONTES

What with him? he comes not
Like to his father's greatness: his approach, So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us 'Tis not a visitation framed, but forced By need and accident. What train?

Gentleman       But few,
        And those but mean.

Gentleman       Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,
        That e'er the sun shone bright on.

PAULINA

O Hermione,
As every present time doth boast itself Above a better gone, so must thy grave Give way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself Have said and writ so, but your writing now Is colder than that theme, 'She had not been, Nor was not to be equall'd;'--thus your verse Flow'd with her beauty once: 'tis shrewdly ebb'd, To say you have seen a better.

Gentleman       Pardon, madam:
        The one I have almost forgot,--your pardon,--
        The other, when she has obtain'd your eye,
        Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,
        Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal

Of all professors else, make proselytes
Of who she but bid follow.

Gentleman       Women will love her, that she is a woman
        More worth than any man; men, that she is
        The rarest of all women.

LEONTES

Go, Cleomenes;
Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends, Bring them to our embracement. Still, 'tis strange

[Exeunt CLEOMENES and others]
He thus should steal upon us.

PAULINA

Had our prince,
Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd Well with this lord: there was not full a month Between their births.

LEONTES

Prithee, no more; cease; thou know'st
He dies to me again when talk'd of: sure, When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches Will bring me to consider that which may Unfurnish me of reason. They are come.

[Re-enter CLEOMENES and others, with FLORIZEL and PERDITA]
Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince; For she did print your royal father off,
Conceiving you: were I but twenty-one,
Your father's image is so hit in you,
His very air, that I should call you brother, As I did him, and speak of something wildly By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome! And your fair princess,--goddess!--O, alas! I lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth Might thus have stood begetting wonder as
You, gracious couple, do: and then I lost-- All mine own folly--the society,
Amity too, of your brave father, whom,
Though bearing misery, I desire my life
Once more to look on him.

FLORIZEL        By his command
        Have I here touch'd Sicilia and from him
        Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,
        Can send his brother: and, but infirmity
        Which waits upon worn times hath something seized

His wish'd ability, he had himself
The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his Measured to look upon you; whom he loves-- He bade me say so--more than all the sceptres And those that bear them living.

LEONTES

O my brother,
Good gentleman! the wrongs I have done thee stir Afresh within me, and these thy offices, So rarely kind, are as interpreters Of my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither, As is the spring to the earth. And hath he too Exposed this paragon to the fearful usage, At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune, To greet a man not worth her pains, much less The adventure of her person?

FLORIZEL        Good my lord,
        She came from Libya.

LEONTES

Where the warlike Smalus,
That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and loved?

FLORIZEL        Most royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter
        His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence,
        A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,
        To execute the charge my father gave me
        For visiting your highness: my best train

I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd; Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
Not only my success in Libya, sir,
But my arrival and my wife's in safety
Here where we are.

LEONTES                   The blessed gods
        Purge all infection from our air whilst you
        Do climate here! You have a holy father,
        A graceful gentleman; against whose person,
        So sacred as it is, I have done sin:

For which the heavens, taking angry note,
Have left me issueless; and your father's blest, As he from heaven merits it, with you
Worthy his goodness. What might I have been, Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on, Such goodly things as you!
[Enter a Lord]

Lord

Most noble sir,
That which I shall report will bear no credit, Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir, Bohemia greets you from himself by me; Desires you to attach his son, who has-- His dignity and duty both cast off-- Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with A shepherd's daughter.

Lord

Here in your city; I now came from him:
I speak amazedly; and it becomes My marvel and my message. To your court Whiles he was hastening, in the chase, it seems, Of this fair couple, meets he on the way The father of this seeming lady and Her brother, having both their country quitted With this young prince.

FLORIZEL        Camillo has betray'd me;
        Whose honour and whose honesty till now
        Endured all weathers.

Lord

Lay't so to his charge:
He's with the king your father.

Lord

Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now
Has these poor men in question. Never saw I Wretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth; Forswear themselves as often as they speak: Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them With divers deaths in death.

PERDITA

O my poor father!
The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have Our contract celebrated.

FLORIZEL        We are not, sir, nor are we like to be;
        The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first:
        The odds for high and low's alike.

LEONTES

My lord,
Is this the daughter of a king?

FLORIZEL        She is,
        When once she is my wife.

LEONTES

That 'once' I see by your good father's speed Will come on very slowly. I am sorry, Most sorry, you have broken from his liking Where you were tied in duty, and as sorry Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty, That you might well enjoy her.

FLORIZEL        Dear, look up:
        Though Fortune, visible an enemy,
        Should chase us with my father, power no jot
        Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,
        Remember since you owed no more to time

Than I do now: with thought of such affections, Step forth mine advocate; at your request
My father will grant precious things as trifles.

LEONTES

Would he do so, I'ld beg your precious mistress, Which he counts but a trifle.

PAULINA

Sir, my liege,
Your eye hath too much youth in't: not a month 'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes Than what you look on now.

LEONTES

I thought of her,
Even in these looks I made.

[To FLORIZEL]

                       But your petition

Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father:
Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires, I am friend to them and you: upon which errand I now go toward him; therefore follow me
And mark what way I make: come, good my lord.
[Exeunt]
THE WINTER'S TALE

SCENE II        Before LEONTES' palace.

[Enter AUTOLYCUS and a Gentleman]

AUTOLYCUS       Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?

shepherd deliver the manner how he found it: whereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber; only this methought I heard the shepherd say, he found the child.

AUTOLYCUS       I would most gladly know the issue of it.

changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were very notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture; they looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not say if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be.
[Enter another Gentleman]
Here comes a gentleman that haply knows more. The news, Rogero?

Second Gentleman        Nothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled; the
        king's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is
        broken out within this hour that ballad-makers
        cannot be able to express it.

[Enter a third Gentleman]
Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward: he can deliver you more. How goes it now, sir? this news which is called true is so like an old tale, that the verity of it is in strong suspicion: has the king found his heir?

circumstance: that which you hear you'll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione's, her jewel about the neck of it, the letters of Antigonus found with it which they know to be his character, the majesty of the creature in resemblance of the mother, the affection of nobleness which nature shows above her breeding, and many other evidences proclaim her with all certainty to be the king's daughter. Did you see the meeting of the two kings?

Second Gentleman        No.

cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenances of such distraction that they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries 'O, thy mother, thy mother!' then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his daughter with clipping her; now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings' reigns. I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it and undoes description to do it.

Second Gentleman        What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried
        hence the child?

rehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear open. He was torn to pieces with a bear: this avouches the shepherd's son; who has not only his innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.

in the view of the shepherd: so that all the instruments which aided to expose the child were even then lost when it was found. But O, the noble combat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in Paulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled: she lifted the princess from the earth, and so locks her in embracing, as if she would pin her to her heart that she might no more be in danger of losing.

kings and princes; for by such was it acted.

angled for mine eyes, caught the water though not the fish, was when, at the relation of the queen's death, with the manner how she came to't bravely confessed and lamented by the king, how
attentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of dolour to another, she did, with an 'Alas,' I would fain say, bleed tears, for I am sure my heart wept blood. Who was most marble there changed colour; some swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world could have seen 't, the woe had been universal.

which is in the keeping of Paulina,--a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that they say one would speak to her and stand in hope of answer: thither with all greediness of affection are they gone, and there they intend to sup.

Second Gentleman        I thought she had some great matter there in hand;
        for she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever
        since the death of Hermione, visited that removed
        house. Shall we thither and with our company piece
        the rejoicing?

every wink of an eye some new grace will be born: our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along.
[Exeunt Gentlemen]

AUTOLYCUS       Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me,
        would preferment drop on my head. I brought the old
        man and his son aboard the prince: told him I heard
        them talk of a fardel and I know not what: but he
        at that time, overfond of the shepherd's daughter,

so he then took her to be, who began to be much sea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of weather continuing, this mystery remained
undiscovered. But 'tis all one to me; for had I been the finder out of this secret, it would not have relished among my other discredits.
[Enter Shepherd and Clown]
Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.

Shepherd        Come, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and
        daughters will be all gentlemen born.

Clown

You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me this other day, because I was no gentleman born. See you these clothes? say you see them not and think me still no gentleman born: you were best say these robes are not gentlemen born: give me the lie, do, and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.

AUTOLYCUS       I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.

Clown   Ay, and have been so any time these four hours.

Shepherd        And so have I, boy.

Clown

So you have: but I was a gentleman born before my father; for the king's son took me by the hand, and called me brother; and then the two kings called my father brother; and then the prince my brother and the princess my sister called my father father; and so we wept, and there was the first gentleman-like tears that ever we shed.

Shepherd        We may live, son, to shed many more.

Clown

Ay; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so
preposterous estate as we are.

AUTOLYCUS       I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the
        faults I have committed to your worship and to give
        me your good report to the prince my master.

Shepherd        Prithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are
        gentlemen.

Clown   Thou wilt amend thy life?

AUTOLYCUS       Ay, an it like your good worship.

Clown

Give me thy hand: I will swear to the prince thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.

Shepherd        You may say it, but not swear it.

Clown

Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins say it, I'll swear it.

Shepherd        How if it be false, son?

Clown

If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it in the behalf of his friend: and I'll swear to the prince thou art a tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be drunk: but I'll swear it, and I would thou wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands.

AUTOLYCUS       I will prove so, sir, to my power.

Clown

Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow: if I do not wonder how thou darest venture to be drunk, not being a tall fellow, trust me not. Hark! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are going to see the queen's picture. Come, follow us: we'll be thy good masters.

[Exeunt]
THE WINTER'S TALE

SCENE III       A chapel in PAULINA'S house.

[Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, FLORIZEL, PERDITA, CAMILLO, PAULINA, Lords, and Attendants]

LEONTES

O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort That I have had of thee!

PAULINA

What, sovereign sir,
I did not well I meant well. All my services You have paid home: but that you have vouchsafed, With your crown'd brother and these your contracted Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit, It is a surplus of your grace, which never My life may last to answer.

LEONTES

O Paulina,
We honour you with trouble: but we came To see the statue of our queen: your gallery Have we pass'd through, not without much content In many singularities; but we saw not That which my daughter came to look upon, The statue of her mother.

PAULINA

As she lived peerless,
So her dead likeness, I do well believe, Excels whatever yet you look'd upon Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it Lonely, apart. But here it is: prepare To see the life as lively mock'd as ever Still sleep mock'd death: behold, and say 'tis well.

[PAULINA draws a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE standing like a statue]
I like your silence, it the more shows off Your wonder: but yet speak; first, you, my liege, Comes it not something near?

LEONTES

Her natural posture!
Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she In thy not chiding, for she was as tender As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina, Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing So aged as this seems.

POLIXENES       O, not by much.

PAULINA

So much the more our carver's excellence;
Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her As she lived now.

LEONTES                   As now she might have done,
        So much to my good comfort, as it is
        Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,
        Even with such life of majesty, warm life,
        As now it coldly stands, when first I woo'd her!

I am ashamed: does not the stone rebuke me For being more stone than it? O royal piece, There's magic in thy majesty, which has
My evils conjured to remembrance and
From thy admiring daughter took the spirits, Standing like stone with thee.

PERDITA

And give me leave,
And do not say 'tis superstition, that I kneel and then implore her blessing. Lady, Dear queen, that ended when I but began, Give me that hand of yours to kiss.

PAULINA

O, patience!
The statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's Not dry.

CAMILLO

My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on, Which sixteen winters cannot blow away, So many summers dry; scarce any joy Did ever so long live; no sorrow But kill'd itself much sooner.

POLIXENES       Dear my brother,
        Let him that was the cause of this have power
        To take off so much grief from you as he
        Will piece up in himself.

PAULINA

Indeed, my lord,
If I had thought the sight of my poor image Would thus have wrought you,--for the stone is mine-- I'ld not have show'd it.

PAULINA

No longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy May think anon it moves.

LEONTES

Let be, let be.
Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already-- What was he that did make it? See, my lord, Would you not deem it breathed? and that those veins Did verily bear blood?

POLIXENES       Masterly done:
        The very life seems warm upon her lip.

LEONTES

The fixture of her eye has motion in't,
As we are mock'd with art.

PAULINA

I'll draw the curtain:
My lord's almost so far transported that He'll think anon it lives.

LEONTES

O sweet Paulina,
Make me to think so twenty years together! No settled senses of the world can match The pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone.

PAULINA

I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you: but I could afflict you farther.

LEONTES

Do, Paulina;
For this affliction has a taste as sweet As any cordial comfort. Still, methinks, There is an air comes from her: what fine chisel Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me, For I will kiss her.

PAULINA

Good my lord, forbear:
The ruddiness upon her lip is wet; You'll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?

PERDITA

So long could I
Stand by, a looker on.

PAULINA

Either forbear,
Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you For more amazement. If you can behold it, I'll make the statue move indeed, descend And take you by the hand; but then you'll think-- Which I protest against--I am assisted By wicked powers.

LEONTES                   What you can make her do,
        I am content to look on: what to speak,
        I am content to hear; for 'tis as easy
        To make her speak as move.

PAULINA

It is required
You do awake your faith. Then all stand still; On: those that think it is unlawful business I am about, let them depart.

LEONTES

Proceed:
No foot shall stir.

[Music]
'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach; Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come, I'll fill your grave up: stir, nay, come away, Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him Dear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs:
[HERMIONE comes down]
Start not; her actions shall be holy as
You hear my spell is lawful: do not shun her Until you see her die again; for then
You kill her double. Nay, present your hand: When she was young you woo'd her; now in age Is she become the suitor?

LEONTES

O, she's warm!
If this be magic, let it be an art Lawful as eating.

POLIXENES                         She embraces him.

CAMILLO

She hangs about his neck:
If she pertain to life let her speak too.

POLIXENES       Ay, and make't manifest where she has lived,
        Or how stolen from the dead.

PAULINA

That she is living,
Were it but told you, should be hooted at Like an old tale: but it appears she lives, Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while. Please you to interpose, fair madam: kneel And pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady; Our Perdita is found.

HERMIONE        You gods, look down
        And from your sacred vials pour your graces
        Upon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own.
        Where hast thou been preserved? where lived? how found
        Thy father's court? for thou shalt hear that I,

Knowing by Paulina that the oracle
Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserved Myself to see the issue.

PAULINA

There's time enough for that;
Lest they desire upon this push to trouble Your joys with like relation. Go together, You precious winners all; your exultation Partake to every one. I, an old turtle, Will wing me to some wither'd bough and there My mate, that's never to be found again, Lament till I am lost.

LEONTES

O, peace, Paulina!
Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent, As I by thine a wife: this is a match, And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine; But how, is to be question'd; for I saw her, As I thought, dead, and have in vain said many A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far-- For him, I partly know his mind--to find thee An honourable husband. Come, Camillo, And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty Is richly noted and here justified By us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place. What! look upon my brother: both your pardons, That e'er I put between your holy looks My ill suspicion. This is your son-in-law, And son unto the king, who, heavens directing, Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina, Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely Each one demand an answer to his part Perform'd in this wide gap of time since first We were dissever'd: hastily lead away.

[Exeunt]