The Winter's Tale/Source

DRAMATIS PERSONAE (Persons Represented):

LEONTES, King of Sicilia.
 * MAMILLIUS, his son.
 * CAMILLO, Sicilian Lord.
 * ANTIGONUS, Sicilian Lord.
 * CLEOMENES, Sicilian Lord.
 * DION, Sicilian Lord.
 * Other Sicilian Lords.
 * Sicilian Gentlemen.
 * Officers of a Court of Judicature.
 * POLIXENES, King of Bohemia.
 * FLORIZEL, his son.
 * ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian Lord.
 * A Mariner.
 * Gaoler.
 * An Old Shepherd, reputed father of Perdita.
 * CLOWN, his son.
 * Servant to the Old Shepherd.
 * AUTOLYCUS, a rogue.
 * TIME, as Chorus.


 * HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes.
 * PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Hermione.
 * PAULINA, wife to Antigonus.
 * EMILIA, a lady attending on the Queen.
 * Other Ladies, attending on the Queen.
 * MOPSA, shepherdess.
 * DORCAS, shepherdess.


 * Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Satyrs for a Dance; Shepherds, Shepherdesses, Guards, &c.

SCENE: Sometimes in Sicilia; sometimes in Bohemia.

SCENE I. Sicilia. An Antechamber in LEONTES' Palace.
[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,—

CAMILLO.
 * Beseech you,—

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.

CAMILLO.
 * You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.

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

CAMILLO.
 * Sicilia cannot show himself overkind 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.]

SCENE II. The same. A Room of State in the Palace.
[Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and Attendants.]

POLIXENES.
 * Nine changes of the watery star hath been
 * The shepherd's note since we have left our throne
 * Without a burden: time as long again
 * Would be fill'd 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 more
 * 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 had 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 proclaimed: say this to him,
 * He's beat from his best ward.

LEONTES.
 * Well said, Hermione.

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[To POLIXENES.] 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 of 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 is
 * As potent as a lord's. Will 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 th' other. What we chang'd
 * Was innocence for innocence; we knew not
 * The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd
 * That any did. Had we pursu'd 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 unfledg'd 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.

LEONTES.
 * Is he won yet?

HERMIONE.
 * He'll stay, my lord.

LEONTES.
 * At my request he would not.
 * Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok'st
 * To better purpose.

HERMIONE.
 * Never?

LEONTES.
 * Never but once.

HERMIONE.
 * What! have I twice said well? when was't before?
 * I pr'ythee 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 heat 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.
 * It is Grace indeed.
 * Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice;
 * The one for ever earn'd a royal husband;
 * Th' other for some while a friend.

[Giving her hand to POLIXENES.]

LEONTES.
 * Too hot, too hot! [Aside.]
 * 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 practis'd 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

[Observing POL. and HER.]
 * 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-dy'd 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,
 * Communicat'st with dreams;—how can this be?—
 * With what's unreal thou co-active 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 mov'd, 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
 * Offic'd with me. We two will walk, my lord,
 * And leave you to your graver steps.—Hermione,
 * How thou lov'st us show in our brother's welcome;
 * Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap:
 * 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!

[Observing POL. and HER.]
 * How she holds up the neb, the bill to him!
 * And arms her with the boldness of a wife
 * To her allowing husband!
 * Gone already!

[Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and Attendants.]

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 disgrac'd 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 deceiv'd, 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 sluic'd in his 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 hath revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
 * Would hang themselves. Physic for't there's 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 of us
 * Have the disease, and feel't not.—How now, boy!

MAMILLIUS.
 * I am like you, they say.

LEONTES.
 * Why, that's some comfort.—
 * What! Camillo there?

CAMILLO.
 * Ay, my good lord.

LEONTES.
 * Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man.—

[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.

LEONTES.
 * Didst note it?

CAMILLO.
 * He would not stay at your petitions; made
 * His business more material.

LEONTES.
 * Didst perceive it?—
 * 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.

LEONTES.
 * Ha!

CAMILLO.
 * Stays here longer.

LEONTES.
 * Ay, but why?

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

LEONTES.
 * Satisfy
 * Th' 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 cleans'd my bosom; I from thee departed
 * Thy penitent reform'd: but we have been
 * Deceiv'd in thy integrity, deceiv'd
 * In that which seems so.

CAMILLO.
 * Be it forbid, my lord!

LEONTES.
 * To bide upon't,—thou art not honest; or,
 * If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward,
 * Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining
 * From course requir'd; 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 tak'st 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,
 * Whereof the execution did cry out
 * Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear
 * Which oft affects 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.
 * Have 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 it,—
 * 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 laughter 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 cur'd
 * Of this diseas'd opinion, and betimes;
 * For 'tis most dangerous.

LEONTES.
 * Say it be, 'tis true.

CAMILLO.
 * No, no, my lord.

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.

CAMILLO.
 * Who does infect her?

LEONTES.
 * Why, he that wears her like her 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 bench'd and rear'd 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 ling'ring 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 lov'd 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 remov'd, 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 splitt'st thine own.

CAMILLO.
 * I'll do't, my lord.

LEONTES.
 * I will seem friendly, as thou hast advis'd me.

[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'd not do't; but since
 * Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,
 * Let villainy itself forswear't. I must
 * Forsake the court: to do't, or no, is certain
 * To me a break-neck. Happy star reign now!
 * Here comes Bohemia.

[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
 * Lov'd 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;
 * So leaves me to consider what is breeding
 * That changes thus his manners.

CAMILLO.
 * I dare not know, my lord.

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 chang'd complexions are to me a mirror
 * Which shows me mine chang'd 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, experienc'd, 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.

CAMILLO.
 * I may not answer.

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 charg'd in honour, and by him
 * That I think honourable: therefore mark my counsel,
 * Which must be ev'n as swiftly follow'd as
 * I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me
 * Cry lost, and so goodnight!

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 yok'd 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 pil'd 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 his 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 this 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.]

SCENE I. Sicilia. A Room in the Palace.
[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 learn'd 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'd wanton with us,
 * If we would have you.

SECOND LADY.
 * She is spread of late
 * 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, ANTIGONUS, Lords, and Guards.]

LEONTES.
 * Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him?

FIRST LORD.
 * Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never
 * Saw I men scour so on their way: I ey'd them
 * Even to their ships.

LEONTES.
 * How bles'd am I
 * In my just censure, in my true opinion!—
 * Alack, for lesser knowledge!—How accurs'd
 * 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

[Exit MAMILLIUS, with some of the Guards.]
 * With that she's big with;—for 'tis Polixenes
 * Has made thee swell thus.

HERMIONE.
 * But I'd say he had not,
 * And I'll be sworn you would believe my saying,
 * Howe'er you learn 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 hearts 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 hum's, and ha's,
 * When you have said 'she's goodly,' come between,
 * Ere you can say' she's honest': but be it known,
 * From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,
 * She's an adultress!

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 adultress; 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 boldest 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 lodg'd 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!

LEONTES.
 * [To the GUARD.] Shall I be heard?

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 deserv'd 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.

LEONTES.
 * Go, do our bidding; hence!

[Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies, with Guards.]

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 further 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 abus'd, 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.

LEONTES.
 * What! Lack I credit?

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 blam'd 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 stupified
 * 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 ord'ring 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 th' 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 despatch'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 th' truth: so have we thought it good
 * From our free person she should be confin'd;
 * 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.]

SCENE II. The same. The outer Room of a Prison.
[Enter PAULINA and Attendants.]

PAULINA.
 * The keeper of the prison,—call to him;
 * Let him have knowledge who I am.

[Exit an Attendant.]

Good lady!
 * No court in Europe is too good for thee;
 * What dost thou then in prison?

[Re-enter Attendant, with the Keeper.]

Now, good sir,
 * You know me, do you not?

KEEPER.
 * For a worthy lady,
 * And one who much I honour.

PAULINA.
 * Pray you, then,
 * Conduct me to the queen.

KEEPER.
 * 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?

KEEPER.
 * So please you, madam, to put
 * Apart these your attendants,
 * Shall bring Emilia forth.

PAULINA.
 * I pray now, call her.
 * Withdraw yourselves.

[Exeunt ATTENDANTS.]

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

PAULINA.
 * Well, be't so, pr'ythee.

[Exit KEEPER.]

Here's such ado to make no stain a stain
 * As passes colouring.

[Re-enter KEEPER, 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 borne greater,—
 * She is, something before her time, deliver'd.

PAULINA.
 * A boy?

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 as 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 th' 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 it
 * As boldness from my bosom, let't not be doubted
 * I shall do good.

EMILIA.
 * Now be you bless'd for it!
 * I'll to the queen: please you come something nearer.

KEEPER.
 * 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 enfranchis'd: not a party to
 * The anger of the king, nor guilty of,
 * If any be, the trespass of the queen.

KEEPER.
 * I do believe it.

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

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. The same. A Room in the Palace.
[Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, Lords, and other Attendants.]

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 adultress; 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 ATTENDANT.
 * My lord?

LEONTES.
 * How does the boy?

FIRST ATTENDANT.
 * He took good rest to-night;
 * 'Tis hop'd his sickness is discharg'd.

LEONTES.
 * To see his nobleness!
 * Conceiving the dishonour of his mother,
 * He straight declin'd, 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 FIRST ATTENDANT.]

—Fie, fie! no thought of him;
 * The very 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.

SECOND ATTENDANT.
 * Madam, he hath not slept to-night; commanded
 * 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 med'cinal as true,
 * Honest as either, to purge him of that humour
 * That presses him from sleep.

LEONTES.
 * What noise there, ho?

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

LEONTES.
 * How!—
 * Away with that audacious lady!—Antigonus,
 * I charg'd 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.

LEONTES.
 * What, canst not rule her?

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 professes
 * Myself your loyal servant, your physician,
 * Your most obedient counsellor: yet that dares
 * Less appear so, in comforting your evils,
 * Than such as most seem yours:—I say I come
 * From your good queen.

LEONTES.
 * 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.

LEONTES.
 * Force her hence!

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 dotar, [To ANTIGONUS], thou art woman-tir'd, 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
 * Tak'st up the princess by that forced baseness
 * Which he has put upon't!

LEONTES.
 * He dreads his wife.

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

LEONTES.
 * A nest of traitors?

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 his 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, losel, 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.

LEONTES.
 * Once more, take her hence.

PAULINA.
 * A most unworthy and unnatural lord
 * Can do no more.

LEONTES.
 * I'll have thee burn'd.

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-hing'd 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 consum'd 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 that 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.

LEONTES.
 * You're liars all.

FIRST LORD.
 * Beseech your highness, give us better credit:
 * We have always truly serv'd you; and beseech
 * 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.—[To ANTIGONUS.] 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.
 * Anything, 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:—anything 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,—seest thou? for the fail
 * Of any point in't shall not only be
 * Death to thyself, but to thy lewd-tongu'd wife,
 * Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,
 * As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry
 * This female bastard hence; and that thou bear it
 * To some remote and desert place, quite out
 * Of our dominions; and that there thou leave it,
 * Without more mercy, to it 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.

SECOND ATTENDANT.
 * Please your highness, posts
 * From those you sent to the oracle are come
 * An hour since: Cleomenes and Dion,
 * Being well arriv'd 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 accus'd, so shall she have
 * A just and open trial. While she lives,
 * My heart will be a burden to me. Leave me;
 * And think upon my bidding.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE I. Sicilia. A Street in some Town.
[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-deaf'ning 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 th' 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.]

SCENE II. The same. A Court of Justice
[Enter LEONTES, Lords, and Officers appear, properly seated.]

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 belov'd. 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.—

CRIER.
 * Silence!

[HERMIONE, is brought in guarded; PAULINA, and Ladies attending.]


 * LEONTES.
 * Read the indictment.

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 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 receiv'd. 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 devis'd
 * 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 t' 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;
 * Though 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.

LEONTES.
 * You will not own it.

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 accus'd,—I do confess
 * I lov'd him, as in honour he requir'd;
 * 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,
 * Ever 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 it most innocent mouth,—
 * Hal'd out to murder: myself on every post
 * Proclaim'd 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 rigour, 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 Apollo's 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
 * This seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd
 * Of great Apollo's priest; and that since then,
 * You have not dar'd to break the holy seal,
 * Nor read the secrets in't.

CLEOMENES, DION.
 * All this we swear.

LEONTES.
 * Break up the seals and read.

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!

LEONTES.
 * Hast thou read truth?

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 a Servant hastily.]

SERVANT.
 * My lord the king, the king!

LEONTES.
 * What is the business?

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.
 * How! gone?

SERVANT.
 * Is dead.

LEONTES.
 * Apollo's angry; and the heavens themselves
 * Do strike at my injustice. [HERMIONE faints.]
 * 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'ercharg'd; she will recover.—
 * I have too much believ'd mine own suspicion:—
 * Beseech you tenderly apply to her
 * Some remedies for life.—Apollo, pardon

[Exeunt PAULINA and Ladies with HERMIONE.]

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 it and being done: he, most humane,
 * And fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest
 * Unclasp'd my practice; quit his fortunes here,
 * Which you knew great; and to the certain hazard
 * Of all incertainties himself commended,
 * No richer than his honour:—how he glisters
 * Thorough my rust! And how his piety
 * 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 sweetest, dearest 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 deserv'd
 * 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 th' 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. Pr'ythee, 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
 * To these sorrows.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Bohemia. A desert Country near the Sea.
[Enter ANTIGONUS with the 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' th' business.

[Exit.]

ANTIGONUS.
 * Come, poor babe:—
 * I have heard (but not believ'd), the spirits of 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 pr'ythee call't. For this ungentle business,
 * Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see
 * Thy wife Paulina more': 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 squar'd 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!
 * [Laying down the child.]
 * There lie; and there thy character: there thes;
 * [Laying down a bundle.]
 * 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 expos'd
 * To loss and what may follow!—Weep I cannot,
 * But my heart bleeds: and most accurs'd 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 chace:
 * I am gone for ever.

[Exit, pursued by a bear.]

[Enter an old 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 sea-side, browsing of ivy.—Good luck, an't be thy will! what
 * have we here? [Taking up the child.] Mercy on's, a bairn: A very
 * pretty bairn! A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one; a very
 * pretty one: sure, some scape: though I am not bookish, yet I can
 * read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some
 * stair-work, 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 comes; he hallaed but even
 * now.—Whoa, ho hoa!

CLOWN.
 * [Within.] Hilloa, loa!

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

[Enter CLOWN.]

What ail'st 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 to the point. O, the most
 * piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to
 * see 'em; now the ship boring the moon with her mainmast, and anon
 * swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd 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-dragon'd 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! [Aside.] But look thee here, boy.
 * Now bless thyself: thou mettest with things dying, I with things
 * new-born. 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 it,
 * 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.]

SCENE I.
[Enter Time, as Chorus.]

TIME.
 * I,—that please some, try all; both joy and terror
 * Of good and bad; that make and unfold 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 mention'd 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 prophesy; 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.]

SCENE II. Bohemia. A Room in the palace of POLIXENES.
[Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO.]

POLIXENES.
 * I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 'tis
 * a sickness denying thee anything; 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, pr'ythee,
 * speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance
 * of that penitent, as thou call'st him, and reconciled king, my
 * brother; whose loss of his most precious queen 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. Pr'ythee, be
 * my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts
 * of Sicilia.

CAMILLO.
 * I willingly obey your command.

POLIXENES.
 * My best Camillo!—We must disguise ourselves.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. The same. A Road near the Shepherd's cottage.
[Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.]
 * When daffodils begin to peer,—
 * With, hey! 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, hey! 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-lirra chants,—
 * With, hey! with, hey! the thrush and the jay,—
 * Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
 * While we lie tumbling in the hay.


 * I have serv'd 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, I as 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 nosegays 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 hornpipes. 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.
 * [Grovelling on the ground.] O that ever I was born!

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 offend 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 robb'd, 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.

[Helping him up.]

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.
 * Softly, dear sir! [Picks his pocket.] 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 anything 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'd 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 enrolled,
 * and my name put in the book of virtue!

[Sings.]
 * Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
 * And merrily hent the stile-a:
 * A merry heart goes all the day,
 * Your sad tires in a mile-a.

[Exit.]

SCENE IV. The same. A 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 obscur'd
 * 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 attir'd; swoon, 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 us'd 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-rob'd 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
 * Oppos'd, 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 forc'd thoughts, I pr'ythee, 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 anything 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, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO, disguised; CLOWN,
 * MOPSA, DORCAS, with others.]

SHEPHERD.
 * Fie, daughter! When my old wife liv'd, upon
 * This day she was both pantler, butler, cook;
 * Both dame and servant; welcom'd all; serv'd 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 retir'd,
 * As if you were a feasted one, and not
 * The hostess of the meeting: pray you, bid
 * These unknown friends to us 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, o'er 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.

PERDITA.
 * So it is.

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, savory, marjoram;
 * The marigold, that goes to bed with 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 fairest 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,
 * From the flowers now, that, frighted, thou lett'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
 * Bright 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'd have you do it ever; when you sing,
 * I'd 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 deeds,
 * That all your acts are queens.

PERDITA.
 * O Doricles,
 * Your praises are too large: but that your youth,
 * And the true blood which peeps fairly through it,
 * Do plainly give you out an unstained 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.

PERDITA.
 * I'll swear for 'em.

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.

CLOWN.
 * Come on, strike up.

DORCAS.
 * Mopsa must be your mistress; marry, garlic,
 * To mend her kissing with!

MOPSA.
 * Now, in good time!

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 gaz'd 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 anything; 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 a SERVANT.]

SERVANT.
 * O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you
 * would never dance again after a tabor 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 burdens of 'dildos' and 'fadings', 'jump her and thump
 * her'; and where some stretch-mouth'd 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 all 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 she-angel, he so chants to the
 * sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't.

CLOWN.
 * Pr'ythee bring him in; and let him approach singing.

PERDITA.
 * Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in his tunes.

[Exit SERVANT.]

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

PERDITA.
 * Ay, good brother, or go about to think.

[Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.]
 * Lawn as white as driven snow;
 * Cypress 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 promis'd them against the feast; but they come not too
 * late now.

DORCAS.
 * He hath promised you more than that, or there be liars.

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.

CLOWN.
 * What hast here? ballads?

MOPSA.
 * Pray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print a-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 burden, and how she
 * long'd 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 Taleporter,
 * and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I
 * carry lies abroad?

MOPSA.
 * Pray you now, buy it.

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

AUTOLYCUS.
 * Here's another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the
 * coast on Wednesday the fourscore 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.

DORCAS.
 * Is it true too, think you?

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

DORCAS.
 * We had the tune on't a month ago.

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 grange 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.
 * [Aside.] And you shall pay well for 'em.


 * 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 fin'st, fin'st wear-a?
 * Come to the pedlar;
 * Money's a meddler
 * That doth utter all men's ware-a.

[Exeunt Clown, AUT., DOR., and MOP.]

[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 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 squire.

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

SERVANT.
 * Why, they stay at door, sir.

[Exit.]

[Enter Twelve Rustics, habited like Satyrs. They dance, and then
 * exeunt.]

POLIXENES.
 * O, father, you'll know more of that hereafter.—
 * Is it not too far gone?—'Tis time to part them.—
 * He's simple and tells much. [Aside.] 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 lov'd,—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.
 * Pr'ythee 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.
 * [Discovering himself.] Mark your divorce, young sir,
 * Whom son I dare not call; thou art too base
 * To be acknowledged: thou a sceptre's heir,
 * That thus affects 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 cop'st 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 self-same sun that shines upon his court
 * Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
 * Looks on alike.—[To FLORIZEL.] 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 further,
 * 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.—[To FLORIZEL.] 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.—[To PERDITA.] 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 liv'd
 * To die when I desire.

[Exit.]

FLORIZEL.
 * Why look you so upon me?
 * I am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd,
 * But nothing alt'red: 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.

CAMILLO.
 * Be advis'd.

FLORIZEL.
 * I am,—and by my fancy; if my reason
 * Will thereto be obedient, I have reason;
 * If not, my senses, better pleas'd 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 seas hide
 * In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath
 * To this my fair belov'd: 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, who here I cannot hold on shore;
 * And, most opportune to her need, I have
 * A vessel rides fast by, but not prepar'd
 * 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.—[Takes her aside.]
 * [To CAMILLO.]I'll hear you by and by.

CAMILLO.
 * He's irremovable,
 * Resolv'd 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 deserv'd: it is my father's music
 * To speak your deeds; not little of his care
 * To have them recompens'd as thought on.

CAMILLO.
 * Well, my lord,
 * If you may please to think I love the king,
 * And, through him, what's 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 forfend! 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 course 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 instruction; 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 riband, 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 would 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 whoobub 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,—

CAMILLO.
 * Shall satisfy your father.

PERDITA.
 * Happy be you!
 * All that you speak shows fair.

CAMILLO.
 * [seeing AUTOLYCUS.] Who have we here?
 * We'll make an instrument of this; omit
 * Nothing may give us aid.

AUTOLYCUS.
 * [Aside.] 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. [Giving money.]

AUTOLYCUS.
 * I am a poor fellow, sir:—[Aside.] I know ye well enough.

CAMILLO.
 * Nay, pr'ythee dispatch: the gentleman is half flay'd already.

AUTOLYCUS.
 * Are you in camest, sir?—[Aside.] I smell the trick on't.

FLORIZEL.
 * Dispatch, I pr'ythee.

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

CAMILLO.
 * Unbuckle, unbuckle.

[FLORIZEL and AUTOLYCUS exchange garments.]

Fortunate mistress,—let my prophecy
 * Come home to you!—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.

CAMILLO.
 * Nay, you shall have no hat.—
 * [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.

[They converse apart.]

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 re-view Sicilia; for whose sight
 * I have a woman's longing.

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

CAMILLO.
 * The swifter speed the better.

[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 anything 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.
 * Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
 * Let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement. [Aside, and 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 anything 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-odour from me?
 * reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Think'st thou, for
 * that I insinuate, that 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 the 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 bless'd 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.

SHEPHERD.
 * 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 he 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,—ston'd 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 blessed in this man, as I may say, even blessed.

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.]

SCENE I. Sicilia. A Room in the palace of LEONTES.
[Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and others.]

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 strik'st 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 grac'd
 * 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 tenour 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 squar'd 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 us'd, would make her sainted spirit
 * Again possess her corpse; and on this stage,—
 * Where we offend her now,—appear soul-vexed,
 * 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'd bid you mark
 * Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't
 * You chose her: then I'd shriek, that even your ears
 * 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?

LEONTES.
 * Never, Paulina; so be bless'd my spirit!

PAULINA.
 * Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.

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 bidd'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 fram'd, but forc'd
 * By need and accident. What train?

GENTLEMAN.
 * But few,
 * And those but mean.

LEONTES.
 * His princess, say you, with him?

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.

PAULINA.
 * How! not women?

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.—

[Exeunt CLEO, Lords, and Gent.]

Still, 'tis strange
 * 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.
 * Pr'ythee 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, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and Attendants.]

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 seiz'd
 * His wish'd ability, he had himself
 * The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
 * Measur'd, 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
 * Expos'd 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 lov'd?

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 bless'd,—
 * 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.

LEONTES.
 * Where's Bohemia? speak.

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 hast'ning,—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,
 * Endur'd all weathers.

LORD.
 * Lay't so to his charge;
 * He's with the king your father.

LEONTES.
 * Who? Camillo?

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.

LEONTES.
 * You are married?

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 ow'd 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'd 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.]

SCENE II. The same. Before the Palace.
[Enter AUTOLYCUS and a Gentleman.]

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

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old 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.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * I make a broken delivery of the business; but the changes I
 * perceived in the king and Camillo were very notes of admiration:
 * They seem'd 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. Here comes a gentleman
 * that happily knows more.

[Enter a Gentleman.]

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.
 * Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward: he can deliver you more.

[Enter a third Gentleman.]

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?

THIRD GENTLEMAN.
 * Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance. That
 * which you hear you'll swear you see, there is such unity in the
 * proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione; 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.

THIRD GENTLEMAN.
 * Then you have lost a sight which was to be seen, cannot be spoken
 * of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in
 * such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them; for
 * their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding
 * up of hands, with countenance 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?

THIRD GENTLEMAN.
 * Like an old tale still, which will have matter to rehearse,
 * though credit be asleep and not an ear open. He was torn to
 * pieces with a bear: this avouches the shepherd's son, who has not
 * only his innocence,—which seems much,—to justify him, but a
 * handkerchief and rings of his, that Paulina knows.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * What became of his bark and his followers?

THIRD GENTLEMAN.
 * Wrecked the same instant of their master's death, and in the view
 * of the shepherd: so that all the instruments which aided to
 * expose the child were even then lost when it was found. But, O,
 * the noble combat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in
 * Paulina! She had one eye declined for the 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.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and
 * princes; for by such was it acted.

THIRD GENTLEMAN.
 * One of the prettiest touches of all, and that which 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 it,—bravely confessed and lamented by the king,—how
 * attentivenes 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 it, the woe had been universal.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * Are they returned to the court?

THIRD GENTLEMAN.
 * No: the princess hearing of her mother's statue, which is in the
 * keeping of Paulina,—a piece many years in doing and now newly
 * performed by that rare Italian master, Julio 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?

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
 * Who would be thence that has the benefit of access? every wink of
 * an eye some new grace will be born: our absence makes us
 * unthrifty 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 over-fond 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 undiscover'd. But 'tis all one
 * to me; for had I been the finder-out of this secret, it would not
 * have relish'd among my other discredits. Here come those I have
 * done good to against my will, and already appearing in the
 * blossoms of their fortune.

[Enter Shepherd and Clown.]

SHEPHERD.
 * Come, boy; I am past more 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.
 * Pr'ythee, 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.]

SCENE III. The same. A Room 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 vouchsaf'd,
 * 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 liv'd 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 undraws a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE, standing as 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 liv'd 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 asham'd: 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 conjur'd 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'd not have show'd it.

LEONTES.
 * Do not draw the curtain.

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 breath'd, 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 further.

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?

LEONTES.
 * No, not these twenty years.

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 requir'd
 * You do awake your faith. Then all stand still;
 * Or those that think it is unlawful business
 * I am about, let them depart.

LEONTES.
 * Proceed:
 * No foot shall stir.

PAULINA.
 * Music, awake her: strike.—[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 from the pedestal.]

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!

[Embracing her.]
 * 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 it manifest where she has liv'd,
 * Or how stol'n 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.

[Presenting PERDITA, who kneels to HERMIONE.]

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 preserv'd? where liv'd? 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 preserv'd
 * 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 your son-in-law,
 * And son unto the king, whom heavens directing,
 * Is troth-plight to your daughter.—Good Paulina,
 * Lead us from hence; where we may leisurely
 * Each one demand, and answer to his part
 * Perform'd in this wide gap of time, since first
 * We were dissever'd: hastily lead away.!

[Exeunt.]


 * Back to