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]