APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/shakespear/wintrtal_1/WINTRTAL_1

Text File | 1994-08-29 | 163.7 KB | 4,644 lines

        THE WINTER'S TALE


        DRAMATIS PERSONAE


LEONTES king of Sicilia.

MAMILLIUS       young prince of Sicilia.


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


POLIXENES       King of Bohemia.

FLORIZEL        Prince of Bohemia.

ARCHIDAMUS      a Lord of Bohemia.

Old Shepherd    reputed father of Perdita. (Shepherd:)

Clown   his son.

AUTOLYCUS       a rogue.

        A Mariner. (Mariner:)

        A Gaoler.  (Gaoler:)

HERMIONE        queen to Leontes.

PERDITA daughter to Leontes and Hermione.

PAULINA wife to Antigonus.

EMILIA  a lady attending on Hermione,


MOPSA   |
        |  Shepherdesses.
DORCAS  |


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

Time    as Chorus.


SCENE   Sicilia, and Bohemia.




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT I



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

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

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

ARCHIDAMUS      Would they else be content to die?

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

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

        [Exeunt]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT I



SCENE II        A room of state in the same.



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

POLIXENES       Nine changes of the watery star hath been
        The shepherd's note since we have left our throne
        Without a burthen: time as long again
        Would be find up, my brother, with our thanks;
        And yet we should, for perpetuity,
        Go hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher,
        Yet standing in rich place, I multiply
        With one 'We thank you' many thousands moe
        That go before it.

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

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

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

POLIXENES       No longer stay.

LEONTES One seven-night longer.

POLIXENES       Very sooth, to-morrow.

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

POLIXENES       Press me not, beseech you, so.
        There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world,
        So soon as yours could win me: so it should now,
        Were there necessity in your request, although
        'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs
        Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder
        Were in your love a whip to me; my stay
        To you a charge and trouble: to save both,
        Farewell, our brother.

LEONTES Tongue-tied, our queen?
        speak you.

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

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

POLIXENES       No, madam.

HERMIONE        Nay, but you will?

POLIXENES                         I may not, verily.

HERMIONE        Verily!
        You put me off with limber vows; but I,
        Though you would seek to unsphere the
        stars with oaths,
        Should yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily,
        You shall not go: a lady's 'Verily' 's
        As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet?
        Force me to keep you as a prisoner,
        Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees
        When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?
        My prisoner? or my guest? by your dread 'Verily,'
        One of them you shall be.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HERMIONE        Grace to boot!
        Of this make no conclusion, lest you say
        Your queen and I are devils: yet go on;
        The offences we have made you do we'll answer,
        If you first sinn'd with us and that with us
        You did continue fault and that you slipp'd not
        With any but with us.

LEONTES Is he won yet?

HERMIONE        He'll stay my lord.

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

HERMIONE                                         Never?

LEONTES Never, but once.

HERMIONE        What! have I twice said well? when was't before?
        I prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's
        As fat as tame things: one good deed dying tongueless
        Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.
        Our praises are our wages: you may ride's
        With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere
        With spur we beat an acre. But to the goal:
        My last good deed was to entreat his stay:
        What was my first? it has an elder sister,
        Or I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace!
        But once before I spoke to the purpose: when?
        Nay, let me have't; I long.

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

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

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

MAMILLIUS                                  Ay, my good lord.

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

MAMILLIUS                         Yes, if you will, my lord.

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

POLIXENES       What means Sicilia?

HERMIONE        He something seems unsettled.

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

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

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

MAMILLIUS       No, my lord, I'll fight.

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

POLIXENES       If at home, sir,
        He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter,
        Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy,
        My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all:
        He makes a July's day short as December,
        And with his varying childness cures in me
        Thoughts that would thick my blood.

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

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

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

        [Aside]

                  I am angling now,
        Though you perceive me not how I give line.
        Go to, go to!
        How she holds up the neb, the bill to him!
        And arms her with the boldness of a wife
        To her allowing husband!

        [Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and Attendants]

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

MAMILLIUS       I am like you, they say.

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?

        [Aside]

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

CAMILLO                   At the good queen's entreaty.

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

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

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

CAMILLO Be it forbid, my lord!

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

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

LEONTES                   Ha' not you seen, Camillo,--
        But that's past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass
        Is thicker than a cuckold's horn,--or heard,--
        For to a vision so apparent rumour
        Cannot be mute,--or thought,--for cogitation
        Resides not in that man that does not think,--
        My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess,
        Or else be impudently negative,
        To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say
        My wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name
        As rank as any flax-wench that puts to
        Before her troth-plight: say't and justify't.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CAMILLO I'll do't, my lord.

LEONTES I will seem friendly, as thou hast advised 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'ld not do't; but since
        Nor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not one,
        Let villany itself forswear't. I must
        Forsake the court: to do't, or no, is certain
        To me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now!
        Here comes Bohemia.

        [Re-enter POLIXENES]

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

CAMILLO                   Hail, most royal sir!

POLIXENES       What is the news i' the court?

CAMILLO None rare, my lord.

POLIXENES       The king hath on him such a countenance
        As he had lost some province and a region
        Loved as he loves himself: even now I met him
        With customary compliment; when he,
        Wafting his eyes to the contrary and falling
        A lip of much contempt, speeds from me and
        So leaves me to consider what is breeding
        That changeth thus his manners.

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

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

POLIXENES       How! caught of me!
        Make me not sighted like the basilisk:
        I have look'd on thousands, who have sped the better
        By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo,--
        As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto
        Clerk-like experienced, which no less adorns
        Our gentry than our parents' noble names,
        In whose success we are gentle,--I beseech you,
        If you know aught which does behove my knowledge
        Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not
        In ignorant concealment.

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

POLIXENES       On, good Camillo.

CAMILLO I am appointed him to murder you.

POLIXENES       By whom, Camillo?

CAMILLO                         By the king.

POLIXENES       For what?

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

POLIXENES                         O, then my best blood turn
        To an infected jelly and my name
        Be yoked with his that did betray the Best!
        Turn then my freshest reputation to
        A savour that may strike the dullest nostril
        Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd,
        Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection
        That e'er was heard or read!

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

POLIXENES       How should this grow?

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

POLIXENES       I do believe thee:
        I saw his heart in 's face. Give me thy hand:
        Be pilot to me and thy places shall
        Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready and
        My people did expect my hence departure
        Two days ago. This jealousy
        Is for a precious creature: as she's rare,
        Must it be great, and as his person's mighty,
        Must it be violent, and as he does conceive
        He is dishonour'd by a man which ever
        Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must
        In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me:
        Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
        The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing
        Of his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo;
        I will respect thee as a father if
        Thou bear'st my life off hence: let us avoid.

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

        [Exeunt]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT II



SCENE I A room in LEONTES' 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 learnt it out of women's faces. Pray now
        What colour are your eyebrows?

First Lady      Blue, my lord.

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

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

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, with ANTIGONUS, Lords and others]

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 eyed them
        Even to their ships.

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

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

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

HERMIONE        What is this? sport?

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

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

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

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

LEONTES                   You have mistook, my lady,
        Polixenes for Leontes: O thou thing!
        Which I'll not call a creature of thy place,
        Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
        Should a like language use to all degrees
        And mannerly distinguishment leave out
        Betwixt the prince and beggar: I have said
        She's an adulteress; I have said with whom:
        More, she's a traitor and Camillo is
        A federary with her, and one that knows
        What she should shame to know herself
        But with her most vile principal, that she's
        A bed-swerver, even as bad as those
        That vulgars give bold'st titles, ay, and privy
        To this their late escape.

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

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

HERMIONE        There's some ill planet reigns:
        I must be patient till the heavens look
        With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,
        I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
        Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
        Perchance shall dry your pities: but I have
        That honourable grief lodged here which burns
        Worse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords,
        With thoughts so qualified as your charities
        Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so
        The king's will be perform'd!

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

LEONTES Go, do our bidding; hence!

        [Exit HERMIONE, guarded; with Ladies]

First Lord      Beseech your highness, call the queen again.

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

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

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

LEONTES          Hold your peaces.

First Lord      Good my lord,--

ANTIGONUS       It is for you we speak, not for ourselves:
        You are abused and by some putter-on
        That will be damn'd for't; would I knew the villain,
        I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd,
        I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven
        The second and the third, nine, and some five;
        If this prove true, they'll pay for't:
        by mine honour,
        I'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see,
        To bring false generations: they are co-heirs;
        And I had rather glib myself than they
        Should not produce fair issue.

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

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

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 blamed for't how you might.

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

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

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

First Lord      Well done, my lord.

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

ANTIGONUS       [Aside]

        To laughter, as I take it,
        If the good truth were known.

        [Exeunt]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT II



SCENE II        A prison.


        [Enter PAULINA, a Gentleman, and Attendants]

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

        [Exit Gentleman]

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

        [Re-enter Gentleman, with the Gaoler]

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

Gaoler  For a worthy lady
        And one whom much I honour.

PAULINA Pray you then,
        Conduct me to the queen.

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

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

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

PAULINA I pray now, call her.
        Withdraw yourselves.

        [Exeunt Gentleman and Attendants]

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

PAULINA Well, be't so, prithee.

        [Exit Gaoler]

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

        [Re-enter Gaoler, with EMILIA]

        Dear gentlewoman,
        How fares our gracious lady?

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

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 innocent as you.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gaoler  I do believe it.

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

        [Exeunt]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT II



SCENE III       A room in LEONTES' palace.


        [Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, Lords, and Servants]

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

First Servant   My lord?

LEONTES How does the boy?

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

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

        [Exit Servant]

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

        [Enter PAULINA, with a child]

First Lord      You must not enter.

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

ANTIGONUS       That's enough.

Second Servant  Madam, he hath not slept tonight; 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 medicinal 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 charged thee that she should not come about me:
        I knew she would.

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

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

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 dotard! thou art woman-tired, unroosted
        By thy dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard;
        Take't up, I say; give't to thy crone.

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

LEONTES He dreads his wife.

PAULINA So I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt
        You'ld 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's frown, his forehead, nay, the valley,
        The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek,
        His smiles,
        The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger:
        And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it
        So like to him that got it, if thou hast
        The ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours
        No yellow in't, lest she suspect, as he does,
        Her children not her husband's!

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

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

LEONTES Once more, take her hence.

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

LEONTES                   I'll ha' thee burnt.

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

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

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

        [Exit]

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

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

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

LEONTES You're liars all.

First Lord      Beseech your highness, give us better credit:
        We have always truly served you, and beseech you
        So to esteem of us, and on our knees we beg,
        As recompense of our dear services
        Past and to come, that you do change this purpose,
        Which being so horrible, so bloody, must
        Lead on to some foul issue: we all kneel.

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

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

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

ANTIGONUS       I will, my lord.

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

ANTIGONUS       I swear to do this, though a present death
        Had been more merciful. Come on, poor babe:
        Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens
        To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say
        Casting their savageness aside have done
        Like offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous
        In more than this deed does require! And blessing
        Against this cruelty fight on thy side,
        Poor thing, condemn'd to loss!

        [Exit with the child]

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

        [Enter a Servant]

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

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

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

        [Exeunt]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT III



SCENE I A sea-port in Sicilia.



        [Enter CLEOMENES and DION]

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

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

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

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

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

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

        [Exeunt]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT III



SCENE II        A court of Justice.


        [Enter LEONTES, Lords, and Officers]

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

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

        [Enter HERMIONE guarded;
        PAULINA and Ladies attending]

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 a true subject, didst counsel and aid them, for
        their better safety, to fly away by night.

HERMIONE        Since what I am to say must be but that
        Which contradicts my accusation and
        The testimony on my part no other
        But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me
        To say 'not guilty:' mine integrity
        Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,
        Be so received. But thus: if powers divine
        Behold our human actions, as they do,
        I doubt not then but innocence shall make
        False accusation blush and tyranny
        Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know,
        Who least will seem to do so, my past life
        Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,
        As I am now unhappy; which is more
        Than history can pattern, though devised
        And play'd to take spectators. For behold me
        A fellow of the royal bed, which owe
        A moiety of the throne a great king's daughter,
        The mother to a hopeful prince, here standing
        To prate and talk for life and honour 'fore
        Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it
        As I weigh grief, which I would spare: for honour,
        'Tis a derivative from me to mine,
        And only that I stand for. I appeal
        To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes
        Came to your court, how I was in your grace,
        How merited to be so; since he came,
        With what encounter so uncurrent I
        Have strain'd to appear thus: if one jot beyond
        The bound of honour, or in act or will
        That way inclining, harden'd be the hearts
        Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin
        Cry fie upon my grave!

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

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

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 accused, I do confess
        I loved him as in honour he required,
        With such a kind of love as might become
        A lady like me, with a love even such,
        So and no other, as yourself commanded:
        Which not to have done I think had been in me
        Both disobedience and ingratitude
        To you and toward your friend, whose love had spoke,
        Even since it could speak, from an infant, freely
        That it was yours. Now, for conspiracy,
        I know not how it tastes; though it be dish'd
        For me to try how: all I know of it
        Is that Camillo was an honest man;
        And why he left your court, the gods themselves,
        Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.

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

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

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

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

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

        [Exeunt certain Officers]

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

        [Re-enter Officers, with CLEOMENES and DION]

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


CLEOMENES       |
        |       All this we swear.
DION    |


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 Servant]

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 swoons]

                     How now there!

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

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

        [Exeunt PAULINA and Ladies, with HERMIONE]

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

        [Re-enter PAULINA]

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

First Lord                What fit is this, good lady?

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

First Lord      The higher powers forbid!

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

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

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

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

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

        [Exeunt]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT III



SCENE III       Bohemia. A desert country near the sea.


        [Enter ANTIGONUS with a Child, and a Mariner]

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

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

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

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

ANTIGONUS       Go thou away:
        I'll follow instantly.

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

        [Exit]

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

        [Exit, pursued by a bear]

        [Enter a Shepherd]

Shepherd        I would there were no age between sixteen and
        three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the
        rest; for there is nothing in the between but
        getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry,
        stealing, fighting--Hark you now! Would any but
        these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty
        hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my
        best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find
        than the master: if any where I have them, 'tis by
        the seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an't be thy
        will what have we here! Mercy on 's, a barne a very
        pretty barne! A boy or a child, I wonder? A
        pretty one; a very pretty one: sure, some 'scape:
        though I am not bookish, yet I can read
        waiting-gentlewoman in the 'scape. This has been
        some stair-work, some trunk-work, some
        behind-door-work: they were warmer that got this
        than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for
        pity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he hallooed
        but even now. Whoa, ho, hoa!

        [Enter Clown]

Clown   Hilloa, loa!

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

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

Shepherd        Why, boy, how is it?

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

Shepherd        Name of mercy, when was this, boy?

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

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

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

Shepherd        Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here,
        boy. Now bless thyself: thou mettest with things
        dying, I with things newborn. Here's a sight for
        thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's
        child! look thee here; take up, take up, boy;
        open't. So, let's see: it was told me I should be
        rich by the fairies. This is some changeling:
        open't. What's within, boy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

        [Exeunt]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT IV



SCENE I:


        [Enter Time, the Chorus]

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

        [Exit]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT IV



SCENE II        Bohemia. The palace of POLIXENES.


        [Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO]

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

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

POLIXENES       As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of
        thy services by leaving me now: the need I have of
        thee thine own goodness hath made; better not to
        have had thee than thus to want thee: thou, having
        made me businesses which none without thee can
        sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute
        them thyself or take away with thee the very
        services thou hast done; which if I have not enough
        considered, as too much I cannot, to be more
        thankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit
        therein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal
        country, Sicilia, prithee speak no more; whose very
        naming punishes me with the remembrance of that
        penitent, as thou callest him, and reconciled king,
        my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen
        and children are even now to be afresh lamented.
        Say to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my
        son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not
        being gracious, than they are in losing them when
        they have approved their virtues.

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

POLIXENES       I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some
        care; so far that I have eyes under my service which
        look upon his removedness; from whom I have this
        intelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a
        most homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from
        very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his
        neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.

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

POLIXENES       That's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I
        fear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou
        shalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not
        appearing what we are, have some question with the
        shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not
        uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither.
        Prithee, be my present partner in this business, and
        lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

CAMILLO I willingly obey your command.

POLIXENES       My best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves.

        [Exeunt]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT IV



SCENE III       A road near the Shepherd's cottage.


        [Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing]

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

        The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
        With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
        Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
        For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

        The lark, that tirra-lyra chants,
        With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,
        Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
        While we lie tumbling in the hay.

        I have served Prince Florizel and in my time
        wore three-pile; but now I am out of service:

        But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
        The pale moon shines by night:
        And when I wander here and there,
        I then do most go right.

        If tinkers may have leave to live,
        And bear the sow-skin budget,
        Then my account I well may, give,
        And in the stocks avouch it.

        My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to
        lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who
        being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise
        a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and
        drab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is
        the silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful
        on the highway: beating and hanging are terrors to
        me: for the life to come, I sleep out the thought
        of it. A prize! a prize!

        [Enter Clown]

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

AUTOLYCUS       [Aside]

        If the springe hold, the cock's mine.

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

AUTOLYCUS       O that ever I was born!

        [Grovelling on the ground]

Clown   I' the name of me--

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

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

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

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

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

Clown   What, by a horseman, or a footman?

AUTOLYCUS       A footman, sweet sir, a footman.

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

AUTOLYCUS       O, good sir, tenderly, O!

Clown   Alas, poor soul!

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

Clown   How now! canst stand?

AUTOLYCUS       [Picking his pocket]

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

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

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

Clown   What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?

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

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

AUTOLYCUS       Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he
        hath been since an ape-bearer; then a
        process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a
        motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's
        wife within a mile where my land and living lies;
        and, having flown over many knavish professions, he
        settled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus.

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

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

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

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

Clown   How do you now?

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

Clown   Shall I bring thee on the way?

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

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

AUTOLYCUS       Prosper you, sweet sir!

        [Exit Clown]

        Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice.
        I'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too: if I
        make not this cheat bring out another and the
        shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my name
        put in the book of virtue!

        [Sings]

        Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
        And merrily hent the stile-a:
        A merry heart goes all the day,
        Your sad tires in a mile-a.

        [Exit]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT IV



SCENE IV        The Shepherd's cottage.


        [Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA]

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

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

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

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

FLORIZEL        Apprehend
        Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,
        Humbling their deities to love, have taken
        The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter
        Became a bull, and bellow'd; the green Neptune
        A ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god,
        Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,
        As I seem now. Their transformations
        Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,
        Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires
        Run not before mine honour, nor my lusts
        Burn hotter than my faith.

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

FLORIZEL                          Thou dearest Perdita,
        With these forced thoughts, I prithee, darken not
        The mirth o' the feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,
        Or not my father's. For I cannot be
        Mine own, nor any thing to any, if
        I be not thine. To this I am most constant,
        Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle;
        Strangle such thoughts as these with any thing
        That you behold the while. Your guests are coming:
        Lift up your countenance, as it were the day
        Of celebration of that nuptial which
        We two have sworn shall come.

PERDITA O lady Fortune,
        Stand you auspicious!

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

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

Shepherd        Fie, daughter! when my old wife lived, upon
        This day she was both pantler, butler, cook,
        Both dame and servant; welcomed all, served all;
        Would sing her song and dance her turn; now here,
        At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle;
        On his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire
        With labour and the thing she took to quench it,
        She would to each one sip. You are retired,
        As if you were a feasted one and not
        The hostess of the meeting: pray you, bid
        These unknown friends to's welcome; for it is
        A way to make us better friends, more known.
        Come, quench your blushes and present yourself
        That which you are, mistress o' the feast: come on,
        And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,
        As your good flock shall prosper.

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

        [To CAMILLO]

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

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

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

POLIXENES       Wherefore, gentle maiden,
        Do you neglect them?

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

POLIXENES       Say there be;
        Yet nature is made better by no mean
        But nature makes that mean: so, over that art
        Which you say adds to nature, is an art
        That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
        A gentler scion to the wildest stock,
        And make conceive a bark of baser kind
        By bud of nobler race: this is an art
        Which does mend nature, change it rather, but
        The art itself is nature.

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, savoury, marjoram;
        The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun
        And with him rises weeping: these are flowers
        Of middle summer, and I think they are given
        To men of middle age. You're very welcome.

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

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

FLORIZEL        What, like a corse?

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

FLORIZEL        What you do
        Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.
        I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,
        I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
        Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
        To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
        A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
        Nothing but that; move still, still so,
        And own no other function: each your doing,
        So singular in each particular,
        Crowns what you are doing in the present deed,
        That all your acts are queens.

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

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

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

POLIXENES       She dances featly.

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

        [Enter Servant]

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

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

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

POLIXENES       This is a brave fellow.

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

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

Clown   Prithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.

PERDITA Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in 's tunes.

        [Exit Servant]

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

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

        [Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing]

AUTOLYCUS            Lawn as white as driven snow;
        Cyprus black as e'er was crow;
        Gloves as sweet as damask roses;
        Masks for faces and for noses;
        Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,
        Perfume for a lady's chamber;
        Golden quoifs and stomachers,
        For my lads to give their dears:
        Pins and poking-sticks of steel,
        What maids lack from head to heel:
        Come buy of me, come; come buy, come buy;
        Buy lads, or else your lasses cry: Come buy.

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

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

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 o'
        life, for then we are sure they are true.

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

MOPSA   Is it true, think you?

AUTOLYCUS       Very true, and but a month old.

DORCAS  Bless me from marrying a usurer!

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

MOPSA   Pray you now, buy it.

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

AUTOLYCUS       Here's another ballad of a fish, that appeared upon
        the coast on Wednesday the four-score of April,
        forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this
        ballad against the hard hearts of maids: it was
        thought she was a woman and was turned into a cold
        fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that
        loved her: the ballad is very pitiful and as true.

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   We 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 orange or mill.

DORCAS       If to either, thou dost ill.

AUTOLYCUS       Neither.

DORCAS         What, neither?

AUTOLYCUS       Neither.

DORCAS       Thou hast sworn my love to be.

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

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

        [Exit with DORCAS and MOPSA]

AUTOLYCUS       And you shall pay well for 'em.

        [Follows singing]

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

        [Exit]

        [Re-enter Servant]

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

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

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

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

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

Servant Why, they stay at door, sir.

        [Exit]

        [Here a dance of twelve Satyrs]

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

        [To CAMILLO]

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

        [To FLORIZEL]

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

FLORIZEL        Old sir, I know
        She prizes not such trifles as these are:
        The gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd
        Up in my heart; which I have given already,
        But not deliver'd. O, hear me breathe my life
        Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem,
        Hath sometime loved! I take thy hand, this hand,
        As soft as dove's down and as white as it,
        Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd
        snow that's bolted
        By the northern blasts twice o'er.

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

FLORIZEL                          Do, and be witness to 't.

POLIXENES       And this my neighbour too?

FLORIZEL        And he, and more
        Than he, and men, the earth, the heavens, and all:
        That, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,
        Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth
        That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge
        More than was ever man's, I would not prize them
        Without her love; for her employ them all;
        Commend them and condemn them to her service
        Or to their own perdition.

POLIXENES       Fairly offer'd.

CAMILLO This shows a sound affection.

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

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

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

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

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

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

FLORIZEL                          I have: but what of him?

POLIXENES       Knows he of this?

FLORIZEL                          He neither does nor shall.

POLIXENES       Methinks a father
        Is at the nuptial of his son a guest
        That best becomes the table. Pray you once more,
        Is not your father grown incapable
        Of reasonable affairs? is he not stupid
        With age and altering rheums? can he speak? hear?
        Know man from man? dispute his own estate?
        Lies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing
        But what he did being childish?

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

POLIXENES       By my white beard,
        You offer him, if this be so, a wrong
        Something unfilial: reason my son
        Should choose himself a wife, but as good reason
        The father, all whose joy is nothing else
        But fair posterity, should hold some counsel
        In such a business.

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

POLIXENES       Let him know't.

FLORIZEL        He shall not.

POLIXENES                         Prithee, let him.

FLORIZEL        No, he must not.

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

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

POLIXENES                         Mark your divorce, young sir,

        [Discovering himself]

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

Shepherd        O, my heart!

POLIXENES       I'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briers, and made
        More homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy,
        If I may ever know thou dost but sigh
        That thou no more shalt see this knack, as never
        I mean thou shalt, we'll bar thee from succession;
        Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,
        Far than Deucalion off: mark thou my words:
        Follow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time,
        Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee
        From the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment.--
        Worthy enough a herdsman: yea, him too,
        That makes himself, but for our honour therein,
        Unworthy thee,--if ever henceforth thou
        These rural latches to his entrance open,
        Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,
        I will devise a death as cruel for thee
        As thou art tender to't.

        [Exit]

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

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

Shepherd        I cannot speak, nor think
        Nor dare to know that which I know. O sir!
        You have undone a man of fourscore three,
        That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,
        To die upon the bed my father died,
        To lie close by his honest bones: but now
        Some hangman must put on my shroud and lay me
        Where no priest shovels in dust. O cursed wretch,
        That knew'st this was the prince,
        and wouldst adventure
        To mingle faith with him! Undone! undone!
        If I might die within this hour, I have lived
        To die when I desire.

        [Exit]

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

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

FLORIZEL        I not purpose it.
        I think, Camillo?

CAMILLO                   Even he, my lord.

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

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

CAMILLO Be advised.

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

CAMILLO                   This is desperate, sir.

FLORIZEL        So call it: but it does fulfil my vow;
        I needs must think it honesty. Camillo,
        Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may
        Be thereat glean'd, for all the sun sees or
        The close earth wombs or the profound sea hides
        In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath
        To this my fair beloved: therefore, I pray you,
        As you have ever been my father's honour'd friend,
        When he shall miss me,--as, in faith, I mean not
        To see him any more,--cast your good counsels
        Upon his passion; let myself and fortune
        Tug for the time to come. This you may know
        And so deliver, I am put to sea
        With her whom here I cannot hold on shore;
        And most opportune to our need I have
        A vessel rides fast by, but not prepared
        For this design. What course I mean to hold
        Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor
        Concern me the reporting.

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

FLORIZEL        Hark, Perdita

        [Drawing her aside]

        I'll hear you by and by.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FLORIZEL        My prettiest Perdita!
        But O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo,
        Preserver of my father, now of me,
        The medicine of our house, how shall we do?
        We are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son,
        Nor shall appear in Sicilia.

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

        [They talk aside]

        [Re-enter AUTOLYCUS]

AUTOLYCUS       Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his
        sworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold
        all my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a
        ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad,
        knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring,
        to keep my pack from fasting: they throng who
        should buy first, as if my trinkets had been
        hallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer:
        by which means I saw whose purse was best in
        picture; and what I saw, to my good use I
        remembered. My clown, who wants but something to
        be a reasonable man, grew so in love with the
        wenches' song, that he would not stir his pettitoes
        till he had both tune and words; which so drew the
        rest of the herd to me that all their other senses
        stuck in ears: you might have pinched a placket, it
        was senseless; 'twas nothing to geld a codpiece of a
        purse; I could have filed keys off that hung in
        chains: no hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song,
        and admiring the nothing of it. So that in this
        time of lethargy I picked and cut most of their
        festival purses; and had not the old man come in
        with a whoo-bub against his daughter and the king's
        son and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not
        left a purse alive in the whole army.

        [CAMILLO, FLORIZEL, and PERDITA come forward]

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

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

CAMILLO Shall satisfy your father.

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

CAMILLO Who have we here?

        [Seeing AUTOLYCUS]

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

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

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

AUTOLYCUS       I am a poor fellow, sir.

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

AUTOLYCUS       I am a poor fellow, sir.

        [Aside]

                   I know ye well enough.

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

AUTOLYCUS       Are you in earnest, sir?

        [Aside]

                   I smell the trick on't.

FLORIZEL        Dispatch, I prithee.

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

CAMILLO Unbuckle, unbuckle.

        [FLORIZEL and AUTOLYCUS exchange garments]

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

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

CAMILLO No remedy.
        Have you done there?

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

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.

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

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

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 any thing
        extempore. The prince himself is about a piece of
        iniquity, stealing away from his father with his
        clog at his heels: if I thought it were a piece of
        honesty to acquaint the king withal, I would not
        do't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it;
        and therein am I constant to my profession.

        [Re-enter Clown and Shepherd]

        Aside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain:
        every lane's end, every shop, church, session,
        hanging, yields a careful man work.

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

Shepherd        Nay, but hear me.

Clown   Nay, but hear me.

Shepherd        Go to, then.

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

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

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

AUTOLYCUS       [Aside]  Very wisely, puppies!

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

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

Clown   Pray heartily he be at palace.

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

        [Takes off his false beard]

        How now, rustics! whither are you bound?

Shepherd        To the palace, an it like your worship.

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

Clown   We are but plain fellows, sir.

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

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

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

AUTOLYCUS       Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest
        thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings?
        hath not my gait in it the measure of the court?
        receives not thy nose court-odor from me? reflect I
        not on thy baseness court-contempt? Thinkest thou,
        for that I insinuate, or toaze from thee thy
        business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier
        cap-a-pe; and one that will either push on or pluck
        back thy business there: whereupon I command thee to
        open thy affair.

Shepherd        My business, sir, is to the king.

AUTOLYCUS       What advocate hast thou to him?

Shepherd        I know not, an't like you.

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

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

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

Clown   This cannot be but a great courtier.

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

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

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

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

AUTOLYCUS       Age, thou hast lost thy labour.

Shepherd        Why, sir?

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

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

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

Clown   Think you so, sir?

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

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

AUTOLYCUS       He has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then
        'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a
        wasp's nest; then stand till he be three quarters
        and a dram dead; then recovered again with
        aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as
        he is, and in the hottest day prognostication
        proclaims, shall be be set against a brick-wall, the
        sun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he
        is to behold him with flies blown to death. But what
        talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries
        are to be smiled at, their offences being so
        capital? Tell me, for you seem to be honest plain
        men, what you have to the king: being something
        gently considered, I'll bring you where he is
        aboard, tender your persons to his presence,
        whisper him in your behalfs; and if it be in man
        besides the king to effect your suits, here is man
        shall do it.

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

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

AUTOLYCUS       After I have done what I promised?

Shepherd        Ay, sir.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        [Exeunt Shepherd and Clown]

AUTOLYCUS       If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would
        not suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am
        courted now with a double occasion, gold and a means
        to do the prince my master good; which who knows how
        that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring
        these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he
        think it fit to shore them again and that the
        complaint they have to the king concerns him
        nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far
        officious; for I am proof against that title and
        what shame else belongs to't. To him will I present
        them: there may be matter in it.

        [Exit]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT V



SCENE I A room in LEONTES' palace.


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

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

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

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

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

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

PAULINA You are one of those
        Would have him wed again.

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

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

        [To LEONTES]

                      Care not for issue;
        The crown will find an heir: great Alexander
        Left his to the worthiest; so his successor
        Was like to be the best.

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

PAULINA And left them
        More rich for what they yielded.

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

PAULINA Had she such power,
        She had just cause.

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

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

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

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

LEONTES Never, Paulina; so be blest 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 bid'st us.

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

        [Enter a Gentleman]

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

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

Gentleman       But few,
        And those but mean.

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. Still, 'tis strange

        [Exeunt CLEOMENES and others]

        He thus should steal upon us.

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

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

        [Re-enter CLEOMENES and others, with FLORIZEL and PERDITA]

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

FLORIZEL        By his command
        Have I here touch'd Sicilia and from him
        Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,
        Can send his brother: and, but infirmity
        Which waits upon worn times hath something seized
        His wish'd ability, he had himself
        The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
        Measured to look upon you; whom he loves--
        He bade me say so--more than all the sceptres
        And those that bear them living.

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

FLORIZEL        Good my lord,
        She came from Libya.

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

FLORIZEL        Most royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter
        His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence,
        A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,
        To execute the charge my father gave me
        For visiting your highness: my best train
        I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;
        Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
        Not only my success in Libya, sir,
        But my arrival and my wife's in safety
        Here where we are.

LEONTES                   The blessed gods
        Purge all infection from our air whilst you
        Do climate here! You have a holy father,
        A graceful gentleman; against whose person,
        So sacred as it is, I have done sin:
        For which the heavens, taking angry note,
        Have left me issueless; and your father's blest,
        As he from heaven merits it, with you
        Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,
        Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on,
        Such goodly things as you!

        [Enter a Lord]

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

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 hastening, in the chase, it seems,
        Of this fair couple, meets he on the way
        The father of this seeming lady and
        Her brother, having both their country quitted
        With this young prince.

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

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

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 owed no more to time
        Than I do now: with thought of such affections,
        Step forth mine advocate; at your request
        My father will grant precious things as trifles.

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

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

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

        [To FLORIZEL]

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

        [Exeunt]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT V



SCENE II        Before LEONTES' 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 seemed almost, with
        staring on one another, to tear the cases of their
        eyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language
        in their very gesture; they looked as they had heard
        of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable
        passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest
        beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not
        say if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the
        extremity of the one, it must needs be.

        [Enter another Gentleman]

        Here comes a gentleman that haply knows more.
        The news, Rogero?

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

        [Enter a third Gentleman]

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

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's, her jewel about the neck of it,
        the letters of Antigonus found with it which they
        know to be his character, the majesty of the
        creature in resemblance of the mother, the affection
        of nobleness which nature shows above her breeding,
        and many other evidences proclaim her with all
        certainty to be the king's daughter. Did you see
        the meeting of the two kings?

Second Gentleman        No.

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

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

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

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, overfond of the shepherd's daughter,
        so he then took her to be, who began to be much
        sea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of
        weather continuing, this mystery remained
        undiscovered. But 'tis all one to me; for had I
        been the finder out of this secret, it would not
        have relished among my other discredits.

        [Enter Shepherd and Clown]

        Here come those I have done good to against my will,
        and already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.

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

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

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

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

Shepherd        And so have I, boy.

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

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

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

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

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

Clown   Thou wilt amend thy life?

AUTOLYCUS       Ay, an it like your good worship.

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

Shepherd        You may say it, but not swear it.

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

Shepherd        How if it be false, son?

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

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

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

        [Exeunt]




        THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT V



SCENE III       A chapel in PAULINA'S house.


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

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

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

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

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

        [PAULINA draws a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE
        standing like a statue]

        I like your silence, it the more shows off
        Your wonder: but yet speak; first, you, my liege,
        Comes it not something near?

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

POLIXENES       O, not by much.

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

LEONTES                   As now she might have done,
        So much to my good comfort, as it is
        Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,
        Even with such life of majesty, warm life,
        As now it coldly stands, when first I woo'd her!
        I am ashamed: does not the stone rebuke me
        For being more stone than it? O royal piece,
        There's magic in thy majesty, which has
        My evils conjured to remembrance and
        From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,
        Standing like stone with thee.

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

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

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

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

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

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 breathed? and that those veins
        Did verily bear blood?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEONTES Proceed:
        No foot shall stir.

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]

        Start not; her actions shall be holy as
        You hear my spell is lawful: do not shun her
        Until you see her die again; for then
        You kill her double. Nay, present your hand:
        When she was young you woo'd her; now in age
        Is she become the suitor?

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

POLIXENES                         She embraces him.

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

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

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

HERMIONE        You gods, look down
        And from your sacred vials pour your graces
        Upon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own.
        Where hast thou been preserved? where lived? how found
        Thy father's court? for thou shalt hear that I,
        Knowing by Paulina that the oracle
        Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserved
        Myself to see the issue.

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

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

        [Exeunt]