THE WINTER’S TALE

In about 1590 the dramatist George Peele wrote a play called The Old Wives’ Tale in which an old woman is asked to tell “a merry winter’s tale” in order to “drive away the time trimly.” “Once upon a time,” she begins, as all traditional storytellers do, “there was a king or a lord or a duke that had a fair daughter, the fairest that ever was, as white as snow and as red as blood: and once upon a time his daughter was stolen away.” An old wives’ or a winter’s tale is like a fairy story: it is not supposed to be realistic and it is bound to have a happy ending. Along the way, there will be magic, dreams, coincidences, children lost and found. This is the style of play to which Shakespeare turned some twenty years after Peele, in the final phase of his career.

Shakespeare’s late plays have come to be known as “romances.” Although neither the dramatist himself nor the compilers of the First Folio used this generic classification, the term is helpful because it gestures toward the origin of such stories in ancient Greek prose romance, which was peopled by wanderers, separated lovers, oracles, shepherds, and heroes who undergo narrow escapes from disaster. The story of Apollonius of Tyre, the ultimate source for Shakespeare’s cowritten play Pericles, is a classic example of the genre. Robert Greene, another dramatist who was prominent in the early 1590s, wrote several prose romances in this tradition, among them Pandosto: The Triumph of Time, the story that is dramatized in The Winter’s Tale. We do not know exactly what led Shakespeare, some time after writing the tragedies of Lear and Macbeth, to turn back to the style of Peele and Greene. Always attuned to changes in the wind, perhaps he sensed that a gentler mode of tragicomedy and pastoral romance, with a distinctly royalist agenda, suited the times: the King’s Men seem to have had notable successes in these years with several dramas of this kind, including a revival of the old anonymous play of Mucedorus, which even featured an encounter with a bear.

The Winter’s Tale does not, however, begin in the world of romance. The Sicilian opening of the story is full of court intrigue in the manner of King Lear and sexual jealousy reminiscent of Othello. There are accusations of conspiracy, a queen is tried for treason, and a king behaves like a tyrant. Only in the second half is there a redemptive movement from court to country: the structure is similar to that of Cymbeline, another Shakespearean tragicomedy written around the same time. In contrast to Sicilia, Bohemia is a place of benign chance, where the flight of a falcon leads a prince to his future bride and a thieving trickster inadvertently helps the plot toward its happy resolution. The arts of the court give way to the harmonies of nature. Though this is to oversimplify: Polixenes relies on “intelligence” and disguise, then threatens physical violence against Perdita. She is a princess assumed to be a shepherdess, who dresses up as a queen and speaks of the need to intermingle art and nature in the grafting of flowers: complex layers of illusion are at work.

Critics have been much exercised by Leontes’ explosion of anger when Hermione succeeds in persuading Polixenes to prolong his visit to Sicilia after Leontes has failed to do so. Why does her courtesy lead instantly to a false accusation of adultery? Has Leontes’ jealousy been festering for a long time? Is he angry because a woman has come between two close male friends (a Shakespearean obsession that runs from the early Two Gentlemen of Verona through the sonnets to his last play, The Two Noble Kinsmen)? Such questions are the prerogative of the reader more than the spectator in the playhouse. An audience watching a play can only work out a limited amount about the events that are imagined to have occurred before the action begins, and in the theatrical experience such events do not exist.

Theatrical attention is concentrated more on Leontes as he is than on how he got there. In a puzzling, tortuous self-analysis concerning the “infection” of his brains, he says that as mental states may be affected by things unreal, such as dreams, so they may also be affected by things that are real:

…Can thy dam, may’t be

Affection?— Thy intention stabs the centre.

Thou dost make possible things not so held,

Communicat’st with dreams — how can this be? —

With what’s unreal thou 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 hard’ning of my brows.

Both syntax and semantics are crabbed. Leontes’ fragmented sentences are symptoms of his mental disintegration. The referent of the key word “affection” is unstable: does it refer to the relationship between Hermione and Polixenes or to Leontes’ own mental state? “Affection” could denote their sexual desire or his strong feeling in response to it, but the word could also signify delusion, sickness. The ambiguity is revelatory precisely because Leontes can no longer distinguish between what is going on in his own mind and the reality observed by everyone else on stage. Hermione speaks truer than she knows when in the trial scene she says, “My life stands in the level of your dreams.”

The logical conclusion of Leontes’ analysis ought to be that the thing that is exercising him, namely the supposed affair between his wife and his best friend, is nothing but a bad dream. But he obstinately draws the opposite conclusion. The irrationality of this move is itself a sign of the “infection” that is afflicting him. Honest Camillo sees this, but, for the very reason that he is “infected,” Leontes himself cannot. His “distraction” makes him misinterpret every action, even as his very language becomes infected with dark sexual double entendre: “stabs,” “nothing” and “co-join” anticipate the subsequent grossness of “no barricado for a belly” and “she has been sluiced in’s absence / And his pond fished by his next neighbour.”

Whatever the origin of Leontes’ suspicion, the dramatic interest is in the effect, the tendency of human beings who have fallen into holes to dig themselves ever deeper. No argument, not even the supposedly divine “truth” of the oracle, will convince Leontes of his error. Accordingly, what does persuade him to change his mind is an effect of emotion rather than reason: the shock, the raw grief, of his son’s and wife’s sudden deaths. The boy Mamillius is the one who has said that “A sad tale’s best for winter” when his mother offers to tell him a story, and he it is who becomes victim of the winter-bound first half of the play. Leontes metaphorically freezes his wife out of his affections, with the unintended result that his son catches a literal chill and dies. Only after this can the action move to the regenerative world of romance. “Thou met’st with things dying, I with things newborn,” remarks the Old Shepherd at the play’s pivotal point when he scoops up the baby Perdita as Antigonus is torn to pieces by the bear.

One of the best ways of discovering Shakespeare’s core concerns in a play is to consider his major additions to his sources: it is a fair assumption that he is most himself when he departs from his originals. As one would expect from Pandosto, Leontes is easily the largest role in the play, twice as long as any other. But the next two most sizeable parts—added together, they equal that of Leontes in length—are Camillo and Paulina. The figure of Leontes’ honest counselor greatly expands the role of the king’s cupbearer in Pandosto, whilst Paulina, Hermione’s preserver and Leontes’ conscience, has no equivalent in the source. The prominence of these roles suggests that in this play Shakespeare is especially interested in the relationship between absolute power, with its potential to turn to tyranny, and the role of the wise counselor. How far can an adviser, or for that matter a playwright whose works are performed at court, go in speaking truths that their rulers might not want to hear? This was a perennial concern in the Elizabethan and Jacobean era.

The court of King James was different from that of Queen Elizabeth not least because there was a royal family. Negotiations to find the right husband for the king’s daughter were ongoing at the time of the play’s composition and first court performance. This should not, however, lead us to read the drama as an allegory of contemporary diplomacy. Leontes is in no sense a representation of King James; besides, one of the things that makes the play a romance is its delightful representation of paternal informality and intimacy in the exchanges with Mamillius in the opening court scene. Real kings did not publicly mix the roles of patriarch and playmate in this way.

In Greene’s Pandosto, when the Perdita figure arrives incognito at court near the climax of the story, the desiring eye of her father falls upon her, raising the spectre of royal incest. One of Paulina’s roles in The Winter’s Tale is to divert Leontes from any thought of this kind: “Your eye hath too much youth in’t,” she remarks, reminding him that even in middle age his dead queen was more beautiful “Than what you look on now.” Earlier in the same scene, Paulina has counseled the king against remarriage, eliciting the response

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 offenders now — appear soul-vexed,

And begin, ‘Why to me?’

These lines brilliantly anticipate the moment when, thanks to the dramaturgical art of Paulina, the “sainted spirit” of Hermione really does appear to have a soul breathed back into it as she walks again on that same “stage.”

In Pandosto the wronged queen does not return to life. The reanimation of what Leontes takes to be Hermione’s statue is Shakespeare’s invention. The wonder-filled final scene puts a seemingly life-giving art into the hands of Paulina. That art dramatizes the magical power of theater itself so that we in the audience, like the characters on stage, awaken our faith. The many-layered quality of the illusion—a boy-actor pretending to be a female character, Hermione, who is herself pretending to be a statue—takes Shakespeare’s art to an extreme level of self-consciousness. Fittingly, the scene is also an allusion to Ovid, the most self-conscious artist among Shakespeare’s literary models.

In book ten of the Metamorphoses, the artist Pygmalion carves an ivory statue so realistic that it seems to be a real girl, so beautiful that he falls in love with it. He desperately wants to believe it is real and there are moments when the perfection of the art is such that the statue does seem to be struggling into life. With a little assistance from the goddess Venus, a kiss then animates the statue in a striking reversal of the usual Ovidian metamorphic pattern in which people are turned into things or animals. At a profound level, Pygmalion is a figure of Ovid himself: the artist who transforms mere words into living forms.

Shakespeare learned from Ovid’s Pygmalion both an idea and a style. If you want something badly enough and you believe in it hard enough, you will eventually get it: though tragedy denies this possibility, comedy affirms it. This is the illusion that theater can foster. Ovid showed Shakespeare that the way to evoke this leap of faith is through pinpricks of sensation. The progression in the animation of Pygmalion’s statue is both precise and sensuous: blood pulses through the veins, the lips respond, the ivory face flushes. Correspondingly, Leontes contrasts the warm life his queen once had with the coldness of the statue, but then he seems to see blood in the veins and warmth upon the lips. And when she descends and embraces him, she is warm.

At the beginning of the play Leontes complains that Hermione’s body-contact with Polixenes is “Too hot, too hot”—he wants her to be frigidly chaste, even though she is pregnant. His jealous look is like that of the basilisk or the gorgon Medusa: he turns his wife to stone. In the final act, this metaphor becomes a metamorphosis as Paulina conjures up the illusion of Hermione’s depetrification. The transformation is triumphantly realized on stage both linguistically and visually. “Does not the stone rebuke me / For being more stone than it?” asks Leontes, when confronted with the statue. The hardened image of his wife forces him to turn his gaze inward upon his own hard heart. The play ends with the melting of that heart and the rekindling of love, with its concordant release of Hermione back into softness, warmth, and life.

We know in our heads that we are not really watching a statue coming to life. Yet in a good production, at the moment of awakening we feel in our hearts that we are. The magic of the drama occurs in a strange but deeply satisfying space between the two poles of reality and illusion. Metamorphosis is a kind of translation that occurs in the passage from one state to another. Ovid’s world, which is also evoked by Perdita’s comparison of herself to Proserpina, goddess of spring, shuttles between human passions and natural phenomena. Shakespeare carried the magic of that world across into the medium of theater, where everything is illusion, but somehow—as he put it in the alternative title of another of his last plays, Henry VIII—”All is True.”

When Perdita, whose name means “lost one,” is restored to her father, the oracle is fulfilled and there is some atonement for the death of Mamillius. Not, however, full restoration, for Mamillius himself will not return. The boy-actor who played the part would almost certainly have doubled as Perdita in the second half of the play, visually transforming the dead son into a living daughter. Polixenes’ son Florizel also stands in for Mamillius: he grows into what Leontes’ son might have become. When he and Perdita are joined in marriage, the two kings and their kingdoms are united. Leontes has to accept that he will only live on through the female line. This is an appropriate punishment, given his earlier rejection of the female for having come between him and his “brother.”

It will perhaps seem harsh to speak of punishment after the delights of the pastoral scene, the benign mischief of Autolycus, and the wonder of the moment when the supposed statue of Hermione is brought back to life. To do so is to resemble the Paulina who browbeats Leontes into maintaining his penance for sixteen years. When she finally softens and lets him into her art gallery, surely we too need to let go of our reason and our moral judgement. “It is required,” as Paulina puts it, that we awake our faith. But can so much suffering evaporate in an instant of theatrical magic? Hermione’s face is scarred with the marks of time, the wrinkles accumulated in her sixteen years’ seclusion. And not even the joys of the impending union of the two houses can bring back the child whose “smutched” nose his father has so tenderly wiped in the first act.

 

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KEY FACTS

PLOT: Polixenes, King of Bohemia, has been on a nine-month visit to the court of his childhood friend Leontes, King of Sicilia, and his wife, Queen Hermione. Groundlessly, Leontes becomes convinced that his heavily pregnant wife has been having an affair with Polixenes. He tries to persuade his most trusted courtier, Camillo, to poison Polixenes. Convinced of the queen’s innocence, Camillo warns Polixenes and they depart for Bohemia together. Another courtier, Antigonus, is ordered to leave Hermione’s newly born daughter on a desert shore. Leontes tries Hermione for treason; when he denies the truth of the god Apollo’s oracular declaration of her innocence, his son Mamillius dies. He is then told that the queen has also died. Antigonus leaves the baby girl on the coast of Bohemia, where he is torn to pieces by a bear. An old shepherd and his clownish son find the baby, bring her up as a member of their family, and name her Perdita. Sixteen years later, she is being courted by Polixenes’ son, Prince Florizel, who has disguised himself as a shepherd, Doricles. The roguish pedlar Autolycus tricks the shepherds out of money. Polixenes and Camillo come in disguise to the countryside; when the king denounces his son for courting a low-born shepherdess, Florizel and Perdita flee to Sicilia, with the assistance of Camillo. The shepherd and clown follow, bringing tokens that reveal Perdita’s true identity. That which was lost having been found, Paulina, the lady most loyal to Hermione, reveals a statue of the dead queen and tells the assembled company to prepare themselves for a great wonder.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentages of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Leontes (20%/ 125/6), Paulina (10%/59/5), Camillo (9%/72/5), Autolycus (9%/67/3), Polixenes (8%/57/4), Florizel (6%/45/2), Hermione (6%/35/4), Clown (5%/64/4), Shepherd (4%/42/3), Perdita (4%/25/3), Antigonus (3%/19/3). An unusually large number of named parts have 20–30 lines, less than 1% of the text: Archidamus, Cleomenes, Dion, the boy Mamillius, Emilia, Dorcas, and Mopsa.

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 75% verse, 25% prose.

DATE: 1611. Performed at the Globe May 1611; dance of satyrs apparently borrows from a court entertainment of January 1611; performed at court November 1611 and again for royal wedding celebrations in early 1613. Some scholars argue for 1609–10 on assumption that satyrs’ dance is a later interpolation, but theaters were closed because of plague for many months of these earlier years.

SOURCES: A dramatization of Robert Greene’s prose romance Pandosto: The Triumph of Time (1588, also known as The History of Dorastus and Fawnia). The survival and revival of the queen is a Shakespearean innovation, influenced by the story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (book ten) in which Pygmalion’s statue comes to life.

TEXT: First Folio of 1623 is only early printed text. Typeset from a transcription by Ralph Crane, professional scribe to the King’s Men, it is very well printed, with remarkably few textual problems.

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THE WINTER’S TALE

LEONTES, King of Sicilia

HERMIONE, his queen

MAMILLIUS, their son, a child

PERDITA, their daughter

PAULINA, a lady, wife to Antigonus

EMILIA, a lady attending upon Hermione

POLIXENES, King of Bohemia

FLORIZEL, his son

ARCHIDAMUS, a lord of Bohemia

OLD SHEPHERD, reputed father of Perdita

CLOWN, his son

AUTOLYCUS, a rogue, formerly in the service of Prince Florizel

Shepherds and Shepherdesses, including MOPSA and DORCAS

Twelve countrymen disguised as satyrs

A MARINER, a jailer, other Lords, Gentlemen, Servants

TIME, as Chorus

Act 1 Scene 1^1.1

running scene 1

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       Enter Camillo and Archidamus

       

ARCHIDAMUS

ARCHIDAMUS     If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia,¹ on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot,² you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia⁴ the visitation which he justly owes him.

       

ARCHIDAMUS

ARCHIDAMUS     Wherein⁶ our entertainment shall shame us, we will be justified in our loves, for indeed—

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Beseech you—

       

ARCHIDAMUS

ARCHIDAMUS     Verily,⁹ I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we cannot with such magnificence — in so rare¹⁰ — I know not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience,¹¹ may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us.

       

CAMILLO

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

       

ARCHIDAMUS

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

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Sicilia¹⁶ 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 branch¹⁸ now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities¹⁹ made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed²⁰ with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies,²¹ that they have seemed to be together, though absent, shook hands, as over a vast,²² and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves.

       

ARCHIDAMUS

ARCHIDAMUS     I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable²⁵ comfort of your young prince Mamillius: it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.²⁶

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     I very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it is a gallant child; one that indeed physics the subject,²⁸ makes old hearts fresh. They that went on crutches ere²⁹ he was born desire yet their life to see him a man.

       

ARCHIDAMUS

ARCHIDAMUS     Would they else³⁰ be content to die?

       

CAMILLO

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

       

ARCHIDAMUS

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

       Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 2

running scene 1 continues

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       Enter Leontes, Hermione, Mamillius, Polixenes, Camillo [and Attendants]

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Nine changes of the wat’ry star¹ hath been

               The shepherd’s note² since we have left our throne

               Without a burden.³ Time as long again

               Would be filled up, my brother, with our thanks.

5

5             And yet we should, for perpetuity,⁵

               Go hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher,⁶

               Yet standing in rich place, I multiply

               With one ‘We thank you’ many thousands moe

               That go before it.

10

10   

LEONTES

LEONTES           Stay¹⁰ your thanks a while,

               And pay them when you part.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Sir, that’s tomorrow.

               I am questioned¹³ by my fears of what may chance

               Or breed upon our absence, that may blow

15

15           No sneaping winds at home, to make us say

               ‘This is put forth too truly’. Besides, I have stayed

               To tire your royalty.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     We are tougher, brother,

               Than you can put us to’t.¹⁹

20

20   

POLIXENES

POLIXENES           No longer stay.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     One sev’nnight²¹ longer.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Very sooth,²² tomorrow.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     We’ll part the time between’s²³ then, and in that

               I’ll no gainsaying.²⁴

25

25   

POLIXENES

POLIXENES           Press me not, beseech you, so.

               There is no tongue that moves, none, none i’th’world

               So soon as yours could win me. So it should now,

               Were there necessity in your request, although

               ’Twere needful²⁹ I denied it. My affairs

30

30           Do even drag me homeward, which to hinder

               Were³¹ in your love a whip to me, my stay

               To you a charge³² and trouble. To save both,

               Farewell, our brother.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Tongue-tied, our queen? Speak you.

35

35   

HERMIONE

HERMIONE           I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until

               You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,

               Charge³⁷ him too coldly. Tell him you are sure

               All in Bohemia’s well: this³⁸ satisfaction

               The bygone day proclaimed. Say³⁹ this to him,

40

40           He’s beat from his best ward.⁴⁰

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Well said, Hermione.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     To tell,⁴² he longs to see his son, were strong.

               But⁴³ let him say so then, and let him go.

               But let him swear so, and he shall not stay,

45

45           We’ll thwack him hence with distaffs.⁴⁵—

               Yet of your royal presence I’ll adventure⁴⁶ To Polixenes

               The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia

               You take⁴⁸ my lord, I’ll give him my commission

               To let him there a month behind⁴⁹ the gest

50

50           Prefixed for’s parting.— Yet, good deed,⁵⁰ Leontes,

               I love thee not a jar⁵¹ o’th’clock behind

               What lady she her lord.— You’ll stay?

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     No, madam.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Nay, but you will?

55

55   

POLIXENES

POLIXENES           I may not, verily.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Verily?

               You put me off with limber vows.⁵⁷ But I,

               Though you would seek t’unsphere the stars⁵⁸ with oaths,

               Should yet say ‘Sir, no going.’ Verily,

60

60           You shall not go; a lady’s ‘Verily’ is

               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 pay⁶³ your fees

               When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?

65

65           My prisoner? Or my guest? By your dread⁶⁵ ‘Verily’,

               One of them you shall be.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Your guest, then, madam.

               To be your prisoner should import offending,⁶⁸

               Which is for me less easy to commit

70

70           Than you to punish.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Not your jailer, then,

               But your kind hostess. Come, I’ll question you

               Of⁷³ my lord’s tricks and yours when you were boys.

               You were pretty lordings⁷⁴ then?

75

75   

POLIXENES

POLIXENES           We were, fair queen,

               Two lads that thought there was no more behind⁷⁶

               But such a day tomorrow as today,

               And to be boy eternal.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Was not my lord

80

80           The verier wag⁸⁰ o’th’two?

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     We were as twinned Iambs that did frisk i’th’sun,

               And bleat the one at th’other. What we changed⁸²

               Was innocence for innocence. We knew not

               The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed

85

85           That any did. Had we pursued that life,

               And our weak⁸⁶ spirits ne’er been higher reared

               With stronger blood, we should have answered heaven

               Boldly ‘Not guilty’, the⁸⁸ imposition cleared

               Hereditary ours.

90

90   

HERMIONE

HERMIONE           By this we gather

               You have tripped⁹¹ since.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     O, my most sacred lady,

               Temptations have since then been born to’s.⁹³ For

               In those unfledged⁹⁴ days was my wife a girl;

95

95           Your precious self had then not crossed the eyes

               Of my young play-fellow.⁹⁶

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Grace to boot!⁹⁷

               Of⁹⁸ this make no conclusion, lest you say

               Your queen and I are devils. Yet go on.

100

100         Th’offences we have made you do we’ll answer,¹⁰⁰

               If you first sinned¹⁰¹ with us, and that with us

               You did continue fault, and that you slipped not

               With any but with us.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Is he won yet?

105

105 

HERMIONE

HERMIONE             He’ll stay, my lord.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     At my request he would not.— Aside?

               Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok’st

               To better purpose.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Never?

110

110 

LEONTES

LEONTES             Never, but once.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     What? Have I twice said well? When was’t before?

               I prithee tell me. Cram’s¹¹² with praise, and make’s

               As fat as tame things.¹¹³ One good deed dying tongueless

               Slaughters¹¹⁴ a thousand waiting upon that.

115

115         Our praises are our wages. You may ride’s¹¹⁵

               With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs¹¹⁶ ere

               With spur we heat an acre. But to th’goal:

               My last good deed was to entreat his stay:

               What was my first? It has an elder sister,¹¹⁹

120

120         Or I mistake you — O, would¹²⁰ her name were Grace! —

               But once before I spoke to th’purpose: when?

               Nay, let me have’t: I long.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Why, that was when

               Three crabbèd¹²⁴ months had soured themselves to death,

125

125         Ere I could make thee open thy white hand

               And clap¹²⁶ thyself my love; then didst thou utter ‘

               I am yours for ever.’

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     ’Tis grace indeed.—

               Why, lo¹²⁹ you now, I have spoke to th’purpose twice: To Polixenes?

130

130         The one forever earned a royal husband;

               Th’other for some while a friend.¹³¹ Takes Polixenes’ hand

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Too hot, too hot! Aside

               To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.¹³³

               I have tremor cordis¹³⁴ on me: my heart dances,

135

135         But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment¹³⁵

               May a free¹³⁶ face put on, derive a liberty

               From heartiness,¹³⁷ from bounty, fertile bosom,

               And well¹³⁸ become the agent. ’T may, I grant.

               But to be paddling¹³⁹ palms and pinching fingers,

140

140         As now they are, and making practised¹⁴⁰ smiles,

               As in a looking-glass, and then to sigh, as ’twere

               The mort¹⁴² o’th’deer — O, that is entertainment

               My bosom likes not, nor my brows.¹⁴³— Mamillius,

               Art thou my boy?

145

145 

MAMILLIUS

MAMILLIUS             Ay, my good lord.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     I’ fecks!¹⁴⁶

               Why, that’s my bawcock.¹⁴⁷ What? Hast smutched thy nose?—

               They say it is a copy out of mine.— Come, captain, Aside?

               We must be neat;¹⁴⁹ not neat, but cleanly, captain.

150

150         And yet the steer,¹⁵⁰ the heifer and the calf

               Are all called neat.— Still virginalling¹⁵¹ Aside

               Upon his palm?— How now, you wanton¹⁵² calf!

               Art thou my calf?

       

MAMILLIUS

MAMILLIUS     Yes, if you will, my lord.

155

155 

LEONTES

LEONTES             Thou want’st¹⁵⁵ a rough pash and the shoots that I have

               To be full¹⁵⁶ like me.— Yet they say we are Aside?

               Almost as like as eggs; women say so,

               That will say anything. But were they false

               As o’er-dyed blacks,¹⁵⁹ as wind, as waters, false

160

160         As dice are to be wished by one that fixes

               No bourn¹⁶¹ ’twixt his and mine, yet were it true

               To say this boy were like me.— Come, sir page, To Mamillius

               Look on me with your welkin¹⁶³ eye. Sweet villain!

               Most dear’st, my collop!¹⁶⁴ Can thy dam, may’t be

165

165         Affection?¹⁶⁵— Thy intention stabs the centre. Aside?

               Thou dost make possible things not so held,¹⁶⁶

               Communicat’st with dreams — how can this be? —

               With what’s unreal thou coactive art,¹⁶⁸

               And fellow’st¹⁶⁹ nothing. Then ’tis very credent

170

170         Thou mayst co-join¹⁷⁰ with something, and thou dost,

               And that beyond commission,¹⁷¹ and I find it,

               And that to the infection of my brains

               And hard’ning¹⁷³ of my brows.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     What means Sicilia?¹⁷⁴

175

175 

HERMIONE

HERMIONE             He something seems¹⁷⁵ unsettled.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     How, my lord?

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     What cheer? How is’t with you, best brother?

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     You look as if you held a brow of much distraction.

               Are you moved,¹⁷⁹ my lord?

180

180 

LEONTES

LEONTES             No, in good earnest.—

               How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Aside?

               Its tenderness, and make¹⁸² itself a pastime

               To harder bosoms!— Looking on the lines

               Of my boy’s face, methoughts I did recoil

185

185         Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreeched,¹⁸⁵

               In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzled,¹⁸⁶

               Lest it should bite its master, and so prove,

               As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.

               How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,

190

190         This squash,¹⁹⁰ this gentleman.— Mine honest friend, To Mamillius

               Will you take¹⁹¹ eggs for money?

       

MAMILLIUS

MAMILLIUS     No, my lord, I’ll fight.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     You will? Why, happy¹⁹³ man be’s dole! My brother,

               Are you so fond of your young prince as we

195

195         Do seem to be of ours?

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     If at home, sir,

               He’s all my exercise,¹⁹⁷ my mirth, my matter;

               Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy;

               My parasite,¹⁹⁹ my soldier, statesman, all.

200

200         He makes a July’s day short as December,

               And with his varying childness²⁰¹ cures in me

               Thoughts²⁰² that would thick my blood.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     So stands this squire

               Officed²⁰⁴ with me. We two will walk, my lord,

205

205         And leave you to your graver²⁰⁵ steps.— Hermione,

               How thou lovest us, show in our brother’s welcome.

               Let what is dear²⁰⁷ in Sicily be cheap.

               Next to thyself and my young rover,²⁰⁸ he’s

               Apparent²⁰⁹ to my heart.

210

210 

HERMIONE

HERMIONE             If you would seek us,

               We are yours i’th’garden: shall’s attend²¹¹ you there?

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     To your own bents²¹² dispose you: you’ll be found,

               Be you beneath the sky.— I am angling now, Aside

               Though you perceive me not how I give line.

215

215         Go to,²¹⁵ go to!

               How she holds up the neb, the bill²¹⁶ to him!

               And arms²¹⁷ 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 forked²¹⁹ one!—

220

220         Go, play, boy, play. Thy mother plays,²²⁰ and I

               Play too, but so²²¹ disgraced a part, whose issue

               Will hiss²²² me to my grave. Contempt and clamour

               Will be my knell.²²³ Go play, boy, play.— There have been,

               Or I am much deceived, cuckolds²²⁴ ere now.

225

225         And many a man there is, even at this present,

               Now while I speak this, holds his wife by th’arm,

               That little thinks she has been sluiced²²⁷ in’s absence

               And his pond²²⁸ fished by his next neighbour, by

               Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there’s comfort in’t

230

230         Whiles other men have gates²³⁰ and those gates opened,

               As mine, against their will. Should all despair

               That have revolted²³² wives, the tenth of mankind

               Would hang themselves. Physic²³³ for’t there’s none:

               It is a bawdy²³⁴ planet, that will strike

235

235         Where ’tis predominant;²³⁵ and ’tis powerful, think it,

               From east, west, north and south. Be it concluded,

               No barricado²³⁷ for a belly. Know’t,

               It will let in and out the enemy

               With bag and baggage.²³⁹ Many thousand on’s

240

240         Have the disease, and feel’t not.— How now, boy?

       

MAMILLIUS

MAMILLIUS     I am like you, they say.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Why that’s some comfort. What, Camillo there?

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Ay, my good lord. Comes forward

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Go play, Mamillius, thou’rt an honest man.—

       [Exit Mamillius]

245

245         Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     You had much ado²⁴⁶ to make his anchor hold:

               When you cast out, it still came home.²⁴⁷

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Didst note it?

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     He would not stay at your petitions,²⁴⁹ made

250

250         His business more material.²⁵⁰

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Didst perceive it?—

               They’re²⁵² here with me already, whisp’ring, rounding Aside

               ‘Sicilia is a so-forth.²⁵³’ ’Tis far gone

               When I shall gust it last.— How came’t, Camillo, To Camillo

255

255         That he did stay?

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     At the good queen’s entreaty.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     At the queen’s be’t. ‘Good’ should be pertinent,²⁵⁷

               But so it is,²⁵⁸ it is not. Was this taken

               By any understanding pate²⁵⁹ but thine?

260

260         For thy conceit is soaking,²⁶⁰ will draw in

               More than the common blocks.²⁶¹ Not noted, is’t,

               But of²⁶² the finer natures? By some severals

               Of head-piece²⁶³ extraordinary? Lower messes

               Perchance are to this business²⁶⁴ purblind? Say.

265

265 

CAMILLO

CAMILLO             Business, my lord? I think most understand

               Bohemia stays here longer.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Ha?

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Stays here longer.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Ay, but why?

270

270 

CAMILLO

CAMILLO             To satisfy your highness and the entreaties

               Of our most gracious mistress.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Satisfy?²⁷²

               Th’entreaties of your mistress? Satisfy?

               Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,

275

275         With all the nearest things to my heart, as well²⁷⁵

               My chamber-councils,²⁷⁶ wherein, priest-like, thou

               Hast cleansed my bosom,²⁷⁷ I from thee departed

               Thy penitent reformed. But we²⁷⁸ have been

               Deceived in thy integrity, deceived

280

280         In that which seems so.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Be it forbid, my lord!

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     To bide²⁸² upon’t, thou art not honest: or,

               If thou inclin’st that way, thou art a coward,

               Which hoxes²⁸⁴ honesty behind, restraining

285

285         From course required: or else thou must be counted²⁸⁵

               A servant grafted²⁸⁶ in my serious trust

               And therein negligent: or else a fool

               That see’st a game²⁸⁸ played home, the rich stake drawn,

               And tak’st it all for jest.

290

290 

CAMILLO

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,

295

295         Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,

               If ever I were wilful-negligent,²⁹⁶

               It was my folly: if industriously

               I played the fool, it was my negligence,

               Not weighing²⁹⁹ well the end: if ever fearful

300

300         To do a thing, where I the issue³⁰⁰ doubted,

               Whereof³⁰¹ the execution did cry out

               Against the non-performance, ’twas a fear

               Which oft infects the wisest. These, my lord,

               Are such allowed infirmities that honesty

305

305         Is never free of. But, beseech your grace,

               Be plainer with me. Let me know my trespass³⁰⁶

               By its own visage;³⁰⁷ if I then deny it,

               ’Tis none of mine.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Ha’ not you seen, Camillo —

310

310         But that’s past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass³¹⁰

               Is thicker than a cuckold’s horn — or heard —

               For to a vision so apparent³¹² rumour

               Cannot be mute — or thought — for cogitation³¹³

               Resides not in that man that does not think —

315

315         My wife is slippery?³¹⁵ If thou wilt confess,

               Or else be³¹⁶ impudently negative,

               To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say

               My wife’s a hobby-horse,³¹⁸ deserves a name

               As rank³¹⁹ as any flax-wench that puts to

320

320         Before her troth-plight: say’t and justify’t.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     I would not be a stander-by to hear

               My sovereign mistress clouded³²² so, without

               My present³²³ vengeance taken. ’Shrew my heart,

               You never spoke what did become³²⁴ you less

325

325         Than this; which to reiterate were³²⁵ sin

               As deep as that, though true.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Is whispering nothing?

               Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?

               Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career³²⁹

330

330         Of laughter with a sigh — a note infallible³³⁰

               Of breaking honesty?³³¹ Horsing foot on foot?

               Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift?

               Hours,³³³ minutes? Noon, midnight? And all eyes

               Blind with the pin and web³³⁴ but theirs, theirs only,

335

335         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,³³⁸ nor nothing have these nothings,

               If this be nothing.

340

340 

CAMILLO

CAMILLO             Good my lord, be cured

               Of this diseased opinion, and betimes.³⁴¹

               For ’tis most dangerous.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Say it be, ’tis true.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     No, no, my lord.

345

345 

LEONTES

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,³⁴⁸ that

               Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,

350

350         Inclining to them both. Were my wife’s liver³⁵⁰

               Infected as her life, she would not live

               The running of one glass.³⁵²

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Who does infect her?

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Why, he that wears her like her medal,³⁵⁴ hanging

355

355         About his neck, Bohemia: who, if I

               Had servants true about me that bare³⁵⁶ eyes

               To see alike mine honour as their profits,

               Their own particular thrifts,³⁵⁸ they would do that

               Which should undo³⁵⁹ more doing. Ay, and thou,

360

360         His cupbearer³⁶⁰ — whom I from meaner form

               Have benched³⁶¹ and reared to worship, who mayst see

               Plainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven,

               How I am galled³⁶³ — mightst bespice a cup

               To give mine enemy a lasting wink,³⁶⁴

365

365         Which draught to me were cordial.³⁶⁵

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Sir, my lord,

               I could do this, and that with no rash³⁶⁷ potion,

               But with a ling’ring dram³⁶⁸ that should not work

               Maliciously³⁶⁹ like poison. But I cannot

370

370         Believe this crack³⁷⁰ to be in my dread mistress,

               So sovereignly being honourable.

               I have loved thee—

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Make³⁷³ that thy question, and go rot!

               Dost think I am so muddy,³⁷⁴ so unsettled,

375

375         To appoint³⁷⁵ myself in this vexation, sully

               The purity and whiteness of my sheets —

               Which to preserve is sleep,³⁷⁷ which being spotted

               Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps —

               Give³⁷⁹ scandal to the blood o’th’prince my son —

380

380         Who I do think is mine and love as mine —

               Without ripe moving to’t?³⁸¹ Would I do this?

               Could man so blench?³⁸²

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     I must believe you, sir.

               I do, and will fetch off³⁸⁴ Bohemia for’t,

385

385         Provided that when he’s removed, your highness

               Will take again your queen as yours at first,

               Even for³⁸⁷ your son’s sake, and thereby for sealing

               The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms

               Known and allied to yours.

390

390 

LEONTES

LEONTES             Thou³⁹⁰ dost advise me

               Even so as I mine own course have set down.

               I’ll give no blemish to her honour, none.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     My lord,

               Go then; and with a countenance³⁹⁴ as clear

395

395         As friendship wears at feasts, keep³⁹⁵ with Bohemia

               And with your queen. I am his cupbearer:

               If from me he have wholesome beverage,

               Account me not your servant.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     This is all.

400

400         Do’t and thou hast the one half of my heart;

               Do’t not, thou splitt’st thine own.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     I’ll do’t, my lord.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     I will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me.

       Exit

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     O miserable⁴⁰⁴ lady! But, for me,

405

405         What case⁴⁰⁵ stand I in? I must be the poisoner

               Of good Polixenes, and my ground⁴⁰⁶ to do’t

               Is the obedience to a master; one

               Who, in⁴⁰⁸ rebellion with himself, will have

               All⁴⁰⁹ that are his so too. To do this deed,

410

410         Promotion follows. If⁴¹⁰ I could find example

               Of thousands that had struck anointed kings

               And flourished after, I’d not do’t. But since

               Nor brass⁴¹³ nor stone nor parchment bears not one,

               Let villainy itself forswear’t. I must

415

415         Forsake the court. To do’t, or no, is certain

               To me a break-neck.⁴¹⁶ Happy star, reign now!

               Here comes Bohemia.

       Enter Polixenes

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     This is strange. Methinks Aside

               My favour here begins to warp.⁴¹⁹ Not speak?—

420

420         Good day, Camillo.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Hail, most royal sir!

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     What is the news i’th’court?

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     None rare,⁴²³ my lord.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     The king hath on him such a countenance

425

425         As⁴²⁵ he had lost some province and a region

               Loved as he loves himself. Even now I met him

               With customary compliment,⁴²⁷ when he,

               Wafting⁴²⁸ his eyes to th’contrary and falling

               A lip of much contempt, speeds from me and

430

430         So leaves me to consider what is breeding

               That changes thus his manners.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     I dare not know, my lord.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     How, dare not? Do not? Do you know, and dare not?

               Be intelligent⁴³⁴ to me. ’Tis thereabouts.

435

435         For, to⁴³⁵ yourself, what you do know, you must,

               And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,

               Your changed complexions⁴³⁷ are to me a mirror

               Which shows me mine changed too, for I must be

               A party in this alteration, finding

440

440         Myself thus altered with’t.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     There is a sickness

               Which puts some of us in distemper,⁴⁴² but

               I cannot name the disease, and it is caught

               Of⁴⁴⁴ you that yet are well.

445

445 

POLIXENES

POLIXENES             How, caught of me?

               Make me not sighted like the basilisk.⁴⁴⁶

               I have looked on thousands who have sped⁴⁴⁷ the better

               By my regard,⁴⁴⁸ but killed none so. Camillo —

               As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto

450

450         Clerk-like⁴⁵⁰ experienced, which no less adorns

               Our gentry⁴⁵¹ than our parents’ noble names,

               In whose success⁴⁵² we are gentle — I beseech you,

               If you know aught⁴⁵³ which does behove my knowledge

               Thereof to be informed, imprison’t not

455

455         In ignorant concealment.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     I may not answer.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     A sickness caught of me, and yet I well?

               I must be answered. Dost thou hear, Camillo,

               I conjure⁴⁵⁹ thee, by all the parts of man

460

460         Which honour does acknowledge, whereof⁴⁶⁰ the least

               Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare

               What incidency⁴⁶² thou dost guess of harm

               Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near,

               Which way to be prevented, if to be.

465

465         If not, how best to bear it.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Sir, I will tell you,

               Since I am charged⁴⁶⁷ in honour and by him

               That I think honourable: therefore mark⁴⁶⁸ my counsel,

               Which must be ev’n⁴⁶⁹ as swiftly followed as

470

470         I mean to utter it; or both yourself and me

               Cry lost, and so goodnight!⁴⁷¹

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     On, good Camillo.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     I am appointed him⁴⁷³ to murder you.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     By whom, Camillo?

475

475 

CAMILLO

CAMILLO             By the king.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     For what?

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     He thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears,

               As he had seen’t or been an instrument

               To vice⁴⁷⁹ you to’t, that you have touched his queen

480

480         Forbiddenly.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     O, then my best blood turn

               To an infected jelly and my name

               Be yoked with his⁴⁸³ that did betray the best!

               Turn then my freshest reputation to

485

485         A savour⁴⁸⁵ that may strike the dullest nostril

               Where I arrive, and my approach be shunned,

               Nay, hated too, worse than the great’st infection

               That e’er was heard or read!

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Swear⁴⁸⁹ his thought over

490

490         By each particular star in heaven and

               By all their influences;⁴⁹¹ you may as well

               Forbid the sea for to⁴⁹² obey the moon

               As or⁴⁹³ by oath remove or counsel shake

               The fabric⁴⁹⁴ of his folly, whose foundation

495

495         Is piled upon his faith and will continue

               The⁴⁹⁶ standing of his body.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     How should this grow?⁴⁹⁷

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     I know not. But I am sure ’tis safer to

               Avoid what’s grown than question how ’tis born.

500

500         If therefore you dare trust my honesty,

               That lies enclosèd in this trunk⁵⁰¹ which you

               Shall bear along impawned,⁵⁰² away tonight!

               Your followers I will whisper to⁵⁰³ the business,

               And will by twos and threes at several posterns⁵⁰⁴

505

505         Clear them⁵⁰⁵ o’th’city. For myself, I’ll put

               My fortunes to your service, which⁵⁰⁶ are here

               By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain,

               For by the honour of my parents, I

               Have uttered truth, which if you seek to prove,⁵⁰⁹

510

510         I dare not stand by;⁵¹⁰ nor shall you be safer

               Than one condemnèd by the king’s own mouth,

               Thereon his execution sworn.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     I do believe thee:

               I saw his heart in’s face. Give me thy hand.

515

515         Be pilot⁵¹⁵ to me and thy places shall

               Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready and

               My people did expect my hence departure⁵¹⁷

               Two days ago. This jealousy

               Is for a precious creature: as she’s rare,

520

520         Must it be great, and as his person’s mighty,

               Must it be violent, and as he does conceive

               He is dishonoured by a man which ever

               Professed⁵²³ to him, why, his revenges must

               In that be made more bitter. Fear o’ershades me.

525

525         Good expedition⁵²⁵ be my friend, and comfort

               The gracious queen, part of his theme,⁵²⁶ but nothing

               Of his ill-ta’en⁵²⁷ suspicion. Come, Camillo.

               I will respect thee as a father if

               Thou bear’st my life off hence. Let us avoid.⁵²⁹

530

530 

CAMILLO

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

Act 2 Scene 1

running scene 2

---

       Enter Hermione, Mamillius, Ladies

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Take the boy to you. He so troubles me,

               ’Tis past enduring.

       

FIRST LADY

FIRST LADY     Come, my gracious lord, Takes Mamillius

               Shall I be your playfellow?

5

5     

MAMILLIUS

MAMILLIUS           No, I’ll none of⁵ you.

       

FIRST LADY

FIRST LADY     Why, my sweet lord?

       

MAMILLIUS

MAMILLIUS     You’ll kiss me hard and speak to me as if

               I were a baby still.— I love you better. To Second Lady

       

SECOND LADY

SECOND LADY     And why so, my lord?

10

10   

MAMILLIUS

MAMILLIUS           Not for because¹⁰

               Your brows are blacker — yet black brows, they say,

               Become so¹²me women best, so that there be not

               Too much hair there, but in a semicircle

               Or a half-moon made with a pen.

15

15   

SECOND LADY

SECOND LADY           Who taught ’this?¹⁵

       

MAMILLIUS

MAMILLIUS     I learned it out of women’s faces. Pray now

               What colour are your eyebrows?

       

FIRST LADY

FIRST LADY     Blue, my lord.

       

MAMILLIUS

MAMILLIUS     Nay, that’s a mock. I have seen a lady’s nose

20

20           That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.

       

FIRST LADY

FIRST LADY     Hark ye.

               The queen your mother rounds apace.²² We shall

               Present our services to a fine new prince

               One of these days, and then you’d wanton with us,²⁴

25

25           If we would have you.

       

SECOND LADY

SECOND LADY     She is spread of late

               Into a goodly bulk. Good²⁷ time encounter her!

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now

               I am for²⁹ you again. Pray you sit by us,

30

30           And tell’s a tale.

       

MAMILLIUS

MAMILLIUS     Merry or sad³¹ shall’t be?

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     As merry as you will.

       

MAMILLIUS

MAMILLIUS     A sad tale’s best for winter. I have one

               Of sprites³⁴ and goblins.

35

35   

HERMIONE

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

MAMILLIUS     There was a man—

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Nay, come, sit down, then on.

40

40   

MAMILLIUS

MAMILLIUS           Dwelt by a churchyard — I will tell it softly. Sits

               Yond crickets⁴¹ shall not hear it.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Come on, then, and give’t me in mine ear. They talk apart

       [Enter Leontes, Antigonus, Lords and others]

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Was he met there? His train? Camillo with him?

       

A LORD

A LORD     Behind the tuft⁴⁴ of pines I met them. Never

45

45           Saw I men scour⁴⁵ so on their way: I eyed them

               Even⁴⁶ to their ships.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     How blest am I

               In my just censure,⁴⁸ in my true opinion!

               Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accursed

50

50           In being so blest! There may be in⁵⁰ the cup

               A spider steeped, and one may drink, depart,

               And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge

               Is not infected: but if one present

               Th’abhorred ingredient to his eye, make known

55

55           How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge,⁵⁵ his sides,

               With violent hefts.⁵⁶ I have drunk, and seen the spider.

               Camillo was his help in this, his pander.⁵⁷

               There is a plot against my life, my crown.

               All’s true that is mistrusted.⁵⁹ That false villain

60

60           Whom I employed was pre-employed by him.

               He has discovered my design, and I

               Remain a pinched⁶² thing; yea, a very trick

               For them to play at will. How came the posterns

               So easily open?

65

65   

A LORD

A LORD           By his great authority,

               Which often hath no less prevailed than so

               On your command.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     I know’t too well.—

               Give me the boy. I am glad you did not nurse⁶⁹ him. To Hermione

70

70           Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you

               Have too much blood in him.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     What is this? Sport?⁷²

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Bear the boy hence. He shall not come about her. To a Lord or Lady

               Away with him, and let her sport⁷⁴ herself

75

75           With that she’s big with,— for ’tis Polixenes To Hermione

               Has made thee swell thus.

       [The Lord or Lady exits with Mamillius]

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     But I’d say he had not;

               And I’ll be sworn you would believe my saying,

               Howe’er⁷⁹ you lean to th’nayward.

80

80   

LEONTES

LEONTES           You, my lords,

               Look on her, mark her well. Be but about

               To say ‘She is a goodly lady’, and

               The justice⁸³ of your hearts will thereto add

               ‘ ’Tis pity she’s not honest,⁸⁴ honourable.’

85

85           Praise her but for this her without-door⁸⁵ form,

               Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight⁸⁶

               The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands⁸⁷

               That calumny⁸⁸ doth use — O, I am out —

               That⁸⁹ mercy does, for calumny will sear

90

90           Virtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha’s,

               When you have said ‘She’s goodly’, come between⁹¹

               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 adultress.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Should a villain say so —

               The most replenished⁹⁶ villain in the world —

               He⁹⁷ were as much more villain. You, my lord,

               Do but mistake.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     You have mistook,⁹⁹ my lady,

100

100         Polixenes for Leontes. O thou thing,

               Which I’ll¹⁰¹ not call a creature of thy place,

               Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,

               Should a like¹⁰³ language use to all degrees

               And mannerly distinguishment¹⁰⁴ leave out

105

105         Betwixt the prince and beggar. I have said

               She’s an adult’ress. I have said with whom.

               More, she’s a traitor and Camillo is

               A federary¹⁰⁸ with her, and one that knows

               What she should shame to know¹⁰⁹ herself

110

110         But with her most vile principal, that she’s

               A bed-swerver,¹¹¹ even as bad as those

               That vulgars¹¹² give bold’st titles; ay, and privy

               To this their late escape.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     No, by my life,

115

115         Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you,

               When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that

               You thus have published¹¹⁷ me. Gentle my lord,

               You scarce can right me throughly¹¹⁸ then to say

               You did mistake.

120

120 

LEONTES

LEONTES             No. If I mistake

               In those foundations which I build upon,

               The centre¹²² is not big enough to bear

               A school-boy’s top.¹²³ Away with her, to prison!

               He who shall speak for her is afar off¹²⁴ guilty

125

125         But¹²⁵ that he speaks.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     There’s some ill¹²⁶ planet reigns:

               I must be patient till the heavens look

               With an aspect¹²⁸ more favourable. Good my lords,

               I am not prone to weeping — as our sex

130

130         Commonly are — the want¹³⁰ of which vain dew

               Perchance¹³¹ shall dry your pities: but I have

               That honourable grief lodged here¹³² which burns

               Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords,

               With thoughts so qualified¹³⁴ as your charities

135

135         Shall best instruct you, measure¹³⁵ me; and so

               The king’s will be performed.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Shall I be heard?¹³⁷

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Who is’t that goes with me? Beseech your highness

               My women may be with me, for you see

140

140         My plight¹⁴⁰ 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.¹⁴⁴— Adieu, my lord. To Leontes

145

145         I never wished to see you sorry, now

               I trust I shall.— My women, come, you have leave.¹⁴⁶

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Go, do our bidding. Hence!

       [Exit Hermione, guarded, with Ladies]

       

A LORD

A LORD     Beseech your highness, call the queen again.

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice

150

150         Prove violence, in the which three great ones suffer:

               Yourself, your queen, your son.

       

A LORD

A LORD     For her, my lord,

               I dare my life lay down and will do’t, sir,

               Please you t’accept it, that the queen is spotless

155

155         I’th’eyes of heaven and to you — I mean,

               In this which you accuse her.

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     If it prove

               She’s otherwise, I’ll keep¹⁵⁸ my stables where

               I lodge my wife, I’ll go in couples¹⁵⁹ with her,

160

160         Than¹⁶⁰ when I feel and see her no further trust her,

               For every inch of woman in the world,

               Ay, every dram¹⁶² of woman’s flesh is false,

               If she be.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Hold your peaces.

165

165 

A LORD

A LORD             Good my lord—

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     It is for you we speak, not for ourselves.

               You are abused and by some putter-on¹⁶⁷

               That will be damned for’t. Would I knew the villain,

               I would land-damn¹⁶⁹ him. Be she honour-flawed,

170

170         I have three daughters — the eldest is eleven

               The second and the third, nine, and some¹⁷¹ five —

               If this prove true, they’ll pay for’t. By mine honour,

               I’ll geld¹⁷³ ’em all: fourteen they shall not see,

               To bring false generations.¹⁷⁴ They are co-heirs,

175

175         And I had rather glib¹⁷⁵ myself than they

               Should not produce fair issue.¹⁷⁶

       

LEONTES

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

180

180         As you feel doing thus,¹⁸⁰ and see withal

               The instruments that feel.¹⁸¹

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     If it be so,

               We need no grave to bury honesty:¹⁸³

               The¹⁸⁴re’s not a grain of it the face to sweeten

185

185         Of the whole dungy earth.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     What? Lack I credit?¹⁸⁶

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     I had rather you did lack than I, my lord,

               Upon this ground.¹⁸⁸ And more it would content me

               To have her honour true than your suspicion,¹⁸⁹

190

190         Be blamed for’t how you might.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Why, what need we

               Commune with you of this, but rather follow

               Our forceful instigation?¹⁹³ Our prerogative

               Calls not your counsels, but our natural goodness

195

195         Imparts this, which if you, or stupefied¹⁹⁵

               Or seeming so in skill,¹⁹⁶ cannot or will not

               Relish¹⁹⁷ a truth like us, inform yourselves

               We need no more of your advice. The matter,

               The loss, the gain, the ord’ring on’t,¹⁹⁹ is all

200

200         Properly²⁰⁰ ours.

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     And I wish, my liege,²⁰¹

               You had only in your silent judgement tried it,

               Without more overture.²⁰³

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     How could that be?

205

205         Either thou art most ignorant by age,²⁰⁵

               Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo’s flight,

               Added to their familiarity —

               Which was as gross²⁰⁸ as ever touched conjecture,

               That lacked sight only, nought for approbation²⁰⁹

210

210         But only seeing, all other circumstances

               Made²¹¹ up to th’deed — doth push on this proceeding.

               Yet, for a greater confirmation —

               For in an act of this importance ’twere

               Most piteous to be wild²¹⁴ — I have dispatched in post

215

215         To sacred Delphos,²¹⁵ to Apollo’s temple,

               Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know

               Of stuffed sufficiency.²¹⁷ Now from the oracle

               They will bring all, whose spiritual counsel had,²¹⁸

               Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well?

220

220 

A LORD

A LORD             Well done, my lord.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Though I am satisfied and need no more

               Than what I know, yet shall the oracle

               Give rest to th’minds of others, such as he²²³

               Whose ignorant credulity will not

225

225         Come up to²²⁵ th’truth. So have we thought it good

               From²²⁶ our free person she should be confined,

               Lest that the treachery²²⁷ of the two fled hence

               Be left her to perform. Come, follow us.

               We are to speak in public, for this business

230

230         Will raise²³⁰ us all.

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     To laughter, as I take it, Aside

               If the good truth were known.

       Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 2

running scene 3

---

       Enter Paulina, a Gentleman [and Attendants]

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     The keeper of the prison, call to him.

               Let him have knowledge who I am. Gentleman goes to the door

               Good lady,

               No court in Europe is too good for thee.

               What dost thou then in prison?

       [Enter the Jailer]

               Now, good sir,

5

5             You know me, do you not?

       

JAILER

JAILER     For a worthy lady,

               And one who much I honour.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Pray you then,

               Conduct me to the queen.

10

10   

JAILER

JAILER           I may not, madam.

               To the contrary I have express commandment.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Here’s ado,¹² to lock up honesty and honour from

               Th’access of gentle¹³ visitors! Is’t lawful, pray you,

               To see her women? Any of them? Emilia?

15

15   

JAILER

JAILER           So please you, madam,

               To put apart¹⁶ these your attendants, I

               Shall bring Emilia forth.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     I pray now call her.—

               Withdraw yourselves.

       [Exeunt Gentleman and Attendants]

20

20   

JAILER

JAILER           And, madam,

               I must be present at your conference.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Well, be’t so, prithee.

       [Exit Jailer]

               Here’s such ado to make no stain a stain

               As passes colouring.²⁴

       Enter Jailer with Emilia]

25

25           Dear gentlewoman,

               How fares our gracious lady?

       

EMILIA

EMILIA     As well as one so great and so forlorn²⁷

               May hold together. On²⁸ her frights and griefs —

               Which never tender lady hath borne greater —

30

30           She is³⁰ something before her time delivered.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     A boy?

       

EMILIA

EMILIA     A daughter, and a goodly babe,

               Lusty³³ and like to live. The queen receives

               Much comfort in’t, says ‘My poor prisoner,

35

35           I am innocent as you.’

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     I dare be sworn.

               These dangerous unsafe lunes³⁷ i’th’king, beshrew them!

               He must be told on’t,³⁸ and he shall. The office

               Becomes³⁹ a woman best. I’ll take’t upon me.

40

40           If I prove honey-mouthed,⁴⁰ let my tongue blister

               And never⁴¹ to my red-looked anger be

               The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia,

               Commend⁴³ my best obedience to the queen.

               If she dares trust me with her little babe,

45

45           I’ll show’t the king and undertake to be

               Her⁴⁶ advocate to th’loud’st. We do not know

               How he may soften at the sight o’th’child:

               The silence often of pure innocence

               Persuades when speaking fails.

50

50   

EMILIA

EMILIA           Most worthy madam,

               Your honour and your goodness is so evident

               That your free⁵² undertaking cannot miss

               A thriving issue. There is no lady living

               So meet⁵⁴ for this great errand. Please your ladyship

55

55           To visit the next room, I’ll presently⁵⁵

               Acquaint the queen of your most noble offer,

               Who but today hammered⁵⁷ of this design,

               But durst⁵⁸ not tempt a minister of honour,

               Lest she should be denied.

60

60   

PAULINA

PAULINA           Tell her, Emilia.

               I’ll use that tongue I have: if wit⁶¹ flow from’t

               As boldness from my bosom, let’t not be doubted

               I shall do good.

       

EMILIA

EMILIA     Now be you blest for it!

65

65           I’ll to the queen.— Please you come something nearer. To Jailer

       

JAILER

JAILER     Madam, if’t please the queen to send the babe,

               I⁶⁷ know not what I shall incur to pass it,

               Having no warrant.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     You need not fear it, sir:

70

70           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.

75

75   

JAILER

JAILER           I do believe it.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Do not you fear. Upon mine honour, I

               Will stand betwixt you and danger.

       Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 3

running scene 4

---

       Enter Leontes

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Nor¹ night nor day no rest. It is but weakness

               To bear the matter thus, mere weakness. If

               The cause were not in being³ — part o’th’cause,

               She, th’adulteress, for the harlot⁴ king

5

5             Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank⁵

               And level⁶ of my brain, plot-proof. But she

               I can hook⁷ to me — say that she were gone,

               Given⁸ to the fire, a moiety of my rest

               Might come to me again. Who’s there?

       [Enter a Servant]

10

10   

SERVANT

SERVANT           My lord?

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     How does the boy?

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     He took good rest tonight.

               ’Tis hoped his sickness is discharged.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     To see his nobleness!

15

15           Conceiving¹⁵ the dishonour of his mother,

               He straight declined, drooped, took it deeply,

               Fastened and fixed the shame on’t in himself,

               Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,

               And downright languished. Leave me solely.¹⁹ Go,

20

20           See how he fares.—

       [Exit Servant]

               Fie, fie! No thought of him.²⁰

               The very thought of my revenges that way

               Recoil upon me — in himself too mighty,

               And in his parties, his alliance.²³ Let him be

               Until a time may serve. For present vengeance,

25

25           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 she²⁸ within my power.

       Enter Paulina, carrying the baby; Antigonus and Lords enter and try to hold her back]

       

A LORD

A LORD     You must not enter.

30

30   

PAULINA

PAULINA           Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to³⁰ me.

               Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,

               Than the queen’s life? A gracious innocent soul,

               More free³³ than he is jealous.

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     That’s enough.

35

35   

SERVANT

SERVANT           Madam, he hath not slept tonight, commanded

               None should come at him.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Not so hot,³⁷ good sir,

               I come to bring him sleep.³⁸ ’Tis such as you,

               That creep like shadows by him and do sigh

40

40           At each his needless heavings,⁴⁰ such as you

               Nourish the cause of his awaking.⁴¹ I

               Do come with words as medicinal as true,

               Honest as either,⁴³ to purge him of that humour

               That presses him from sleep.

45

45   

LEONTES

LEONTES           What noise there, ho?

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     No noise, my lord, but needful conference⁴⁶

               About some gossips⁴⁷ for your highness.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     How?⁴⁸

               Away with that audacious lady! Antigonus,

50

50           I charged thee that she should not come about me.

               I knew she would.

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     I told her so, my lord,

               On⁵³ your displeasure’s peril and on mine,

               She should not visit you.

55

55   

LEONTES

LEONTES           What? Canst not rule⁵⁵ her?

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     From⁵⁶ all dishonesty he can. In this,

               Unless he take the course that you have done —

               Commit⁵⁸ me for committing honour — trust it,

               He shall not rule me.

60

60   

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS           La you now,⁶⁰ you hear.

               When she will take the rein, I let her run.

               But she’ll not stumble.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Good my liege, I come.

               And, I beseech you hear me, who professes

65

65           Myself your loyal servant, your physician,

               Your most obedient counsellor, yet that dares

               Less appear so in⁶⁷ comforting your evils,

               Than such as most seem yours. I say, I come

               From your good queen.

70

70   

LEONTES

LEONTES           Good queen?⁷⁰

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Good queen, my lord, good queen. I say good queen,

               And would by⁷² combat make her good, so were I

               A man, the worst⁷³ about you.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Force her hence. To Lords

75

75   

PAULINA

PAULINA           Let him that makes but trifles⁷⁵ of his eyes

               First hand⁷⁶ 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. Lays down the baby

80

80   

LEONTES

LEONTES           Out!⁸⁰

               A mankind⁸¹ witch! Hence with her, out o’door.

               A most intelligencing bawd!⁸²

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Not so.

               I am as ignorant⁸⁴ in that as you

85

85           In so entitling⁸⁵ me, and no less honest

               Than you are mad, which is enough, I’ll warrant,⁸⁶

               As this world goes, to pass for honest.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Traitors! To Lords

               Will you not push her out?— Give her the bastard. To Antigonus

90

90           Thou dotard,⁹⁰ thou art woman-tired, unroosted

               By thy dame Partlet⁹¹ here. Take up the bastard,

               Take’t up, I say: give’t to thy crone.⁹²

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Forever To Antigonus

               Unvenerable⁹⁴ be thy hands, if thou

95

95           Tak’st up the princess by⁹⁵ that forcèd baseness

               Which he has put upon’t!

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     He dreads⁹⁷ his wife.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     So I would you did. Then ’twere past all doubt

               You’d call your children yours.

100

100 

LEONTES

LEONTES             A nest of traitors!

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     I am none, by this good light.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Nor I, nor any

               But one that’s here, and that’s himself, for he

               The sacred honour of himself, his queen’s,

105

105         His hopeful son’s, his babe’s, betrays to slander,

               Whose sting is sharper than the sword’s; and will not —

               For, as¹⁰⁷ the case now stands, it is a curse

               He cannot be compelled to’t — once remove

               The root of his opinion, which is rotten

110

110         As ever oak or stone was sound.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     A callat¹¹¹

               Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband

               And now baits¹¹³ me! This brat is none of mine.

               It is the issue of Polixenes.

115

115         Hence with it, and together with the dam¹¹⁵

               Commit them to the fire!

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     It is yours.

               And, might we lay¹¹⁸ th’old proverb to your charge,

               So like you, ’tis the worse.¹¹⁹ Behold, my lords,

120

120         Although the print¹²⁰ be little, the whole matter

               And copy of the father: eye, nose, lip,

               The trick¹²² 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.

125

125         And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it

               So like to him that got¹²⁶ it, if thou hast

               The ordering¹²⁷ of the mind too, ’mongst all colours

               No yellow¹²⁸ in’t, lest she suspect, as he does,

               Her children not her husband’s!

130

130 

LEONTES

LEONTES             A gross hag.¹³⁰

               And, lozel,¹³¹ thou art worthy to be hanged, To Antigonus

               That wilt not stay her tongue.¹³²

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     Hang all the husbands

               That cannot do that feat, you’ll leave yourself

135

135         Hardly one subject.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Once more, take her hence.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     A most unworthy and unnatural lord

               Can do no more.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     I’ll ha’ thee burnt.

140

140 

PAULINA

PAULINA             I care not:

               It¹⁴¹ 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

145

145         Than your own weak-hinged fancy¹⁴⁵ — something savours

               Of tyranny and will ignoble make you,

               Yea, scandalous to the world.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     On your allegiance, To Antigonus

               Out of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant,

150

150         Where¹⁵⁰ were her life? She durst not call me so,

               If she did know me one. Away with her!

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     I pray you do not push me. I’ll be gone.

               Look to your babe, my lord, ’tis yours. Jove¹⁵³ send her

               A better guiding spirit! What¹⁵⁴ needs these hands?

155

155         You¹⁵⁵ 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

LEONTES     Thou, traitor, hast set on¹⁵⁸ thy wife to this. To Antigonus

               My child? Away with’t! Even thou, that hast

160

160         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.¹⁶²

               Within this hour bring me word ’tis done,

               And by good testimony,¹⁶⁴ or I’ll seize thy life,

165

165         With what thou else call’st thine. If thou refuse

               And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so;

               The bastard brains with these my proper¹⁶⁷ hands

               Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire,

               For thou set’st on thy wife.

170

170 

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS             I did not, sir.

               These lords, my noble fellows, if they please,

               Can clear me in’t.

       

LORDS

LORDS     We can. My royal liege,

               He is not guilty of her coming hither.

175

175 

LEONTES

LEONTES             You’re liars all.

       

A LORD

A LORD     Beseech your highness, give us better credit.¹⁷⁶

               We have always truly served you, and beseech’¹⁷⁷

               So to esteem of us, and on our knees we beg,

               As recompense of our dear¹⁷⁹ services

180

180         Past and to come, that you do change this purpose,

               Which being so horrible, so bloody, must

               Lead on to some foul issue.¹⁸² We all kneel.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     I¹⁸³ am a feather for each wind that blows.

               Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel

185

185         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. To Antigonus

               You that have been so tenderly officious

               With Lady Margery,¹⁸⁹ your midwife there,

190

190         To save this bastard’s life — for ’tis a bastard,

               So sure as this beard’s grey¹⁹¹ — what will you adventure

               To save this brat’s life?

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     Anything, my lord,

               That my ability may undergo

195

195         And nobleness impose. At least thus much:

               I’ll pawn the little blood which I have left

               To save the innocent. Anything possible.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     It shall be possible. Swear by this sword Holds out sword

               Thou wilt perform my bidding.

200

200 

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS             I will, my lord.

       

LEONTES

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-tongued²⁰³ wife,

               Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin²⁰⁴ thee,

205

205         As thou art liege-man²⁰⁵ to us, that thou carry

               This female bastard hence and that thou bear it

               To some remote and desert²⁰⁷ place quite out

               Of our dominions; and that there thou leave it,

               Without more mercy, to it²⁰⁹ own protection

210

210         And favour of the climate. As by strange fortune²¹⁰

               It came to us, I do in justice charge thee,

               On thy soul’s peril and thy body’s torture,

               That thou commend²¹³ it strangely to some place

               Where chance may nurse²¹⁴ or end it. Take it up.

215

215 

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS             I swear to do this, though a present²¹⁵ death

               Had been more merciful. Come on, poor babe. Takes up baby

               Some powerful spirit instruct the kites²¹⁷ and ravens

               To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say,

               Casting their savageness aside, have done

220

220         Like²²⁰ offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous

               In more²²¹ than this deed does require; — and blessing

               Against this cruelty fight on thy²²² side,

               Poor thing, condemned to loss!

       Exit [with the baby]

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     No, I’ll not rear

225

225         Another’s issue.

       Enter a Servant

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     Please your highness, posts²²⁶

               From those you sent to th’oracle are come

               An hour since: Cleomenes and Dion,

               Being well arrived from Delphos, are both landed,

230

230         Hasting to th’court.

       

FIRST LORD

FIRST LORD     So please you, sir, their speed

               Hath been beyond account.²³²

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Twenty-three days

               They have been absent: ’tis good speed, foretells

235

235         The great Apollo suddenly²³⁵ will have

               The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords.

               Summon a session,²³⁷ that we may arraign

               Our most disloyal lady, for, as she hath

               Been publicly accused, so shall she have

240

240         A just and open trial. While she lives

               My heart will be a burden to me. Leave me,

               And think upon my bidding.

       Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 1^3.1

running scene 5

---

       Enter Cleomenes and Dion

       

CLEOMENES

CLEOMENES     The climate’s delicate,¹ the air most sweet,

               Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing

               The common praise it bears.

       

DION

DION     I shall report,

5

5             For most it caught⁵ me, the celestial habits,

               Methinks I so should term them, and the reverence

               Of the grave⁷ wearers. O, the sacrifice!

               How ceremonious, solemn and unearthly

               It was i’th’off’ring!

10

10   

CLEOMENES

CLEOMENES           But of all, the burst

               And the ear-deaf’ning voice o’th’oracle,

               Kin¹² to Jove’s thunder, so surprised my sense

               That I was nothing.

       

DION

DION     If th’event¹⁴ o’th’journey

15

15           Prove as successful to the queen — O, be’t so! —

               As it hath been to us rare,¹⁶ pleasant, speedy,

               The time is worth¹⁷ the use on’t.

       

CLEOMENES

CLEOMENES     Great Apollo

               Turn all to th’best! These proclamations,

20

20           So forcing faults upon Hermione,

               I little like.

       

DION

DION     The violent²² carriage of it

               Will clear or end the business: when the oracle,

               Thus by Apollo’s great divine²⁴ sealed up,

25

25           Shall the contents discover,²⁵ something rare

               Even then will rush to knowledge. Go, fresh horses!

               And gracious be the issue!

       Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 2^3.2

running scene 6

---

       Enter Leontes, Lords, Officers

       

LEONTES

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

               Of⁴ us too much beloved. Let us be cleared

5

5             Of being tyrannous, since we so openly

               Proceed in justice, which shall have due course,

               Even⁷ to the guilt or the purgation.

               Produce the prisoner.

       

OFFICER

OFFICER     It is his highness’ pleasure that the queen

10

10           Appear in person here in court. Silence!

       Enter Hermione as to her trial, Paulina and Ladies attending]

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Read the indictment.

       

OFFICER

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 pretence¹⁵ whereof being by circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of a true subject, didst counsel¹⁷ and aid them, for their better safety, to fly away by night.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Since what I am to say must be but that

20

20           Which contradicts my accusation and

               The testimony on my part no other

               But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot²² me

               To say ‘Not guilty’: mine²³ integrity

               Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,

25

25           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.²⁹ You, my lord, best know,

30

30           Whom least will seem to do so, my past life

               Hath been as continent,³¹ as chaste, as true,

               As I am now unhappy, which is more

               Than history³³ can pattern, though devised

               And played to take spectators.³⁴ For behold me

35

35           A fellow of the royal bed, which owe³⁵

               A moiety³⁶ of the throne, a great king’s daughter,

               The mother to a hopeful prince, here standing

               To prate³⁸ and talk for life and honour ’fore

               Who please to come and hear. For³⁹ life, I prize it

40

40           As I weigh grief, which I would spare: for⁴⁰ honour,

               ’Tis a derivative from me to mine,

               And only that I stand for. I appeal

               To your own conscience,⁴³ sir, before Polixenes

               Came to your court, how I was in your grace,⁴⁴

45

45           How merited⁴⁵ to be so. Since he came,

               With⁴⁶ what encounter so uncurrent I

               Have strained t’appear thus: if one jot beyond

               The bound of honour, or in act or will

               That way inclining, hardened be the hearts

50

50           Of all that hear me, and my near’st of kin

               Cry fie⁵¹ upon my grave!

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     I⁵² ne’er heard yet

               That any of these bolder vices wanted

               Less impudence to gainsay what they did

55

55           Than to perform it first.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     That’s true enough.

               Though ’tis a saying, sir, not due to me.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     You will not own it.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     More⁵⁹ than mistress of

60

60           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

65

65           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,⁶⁹ whose love had spoke,

70

70           Even since it could speak, from an infant, freely

               That it was yours. Now, for⁷¹ conspiracy,

               I know not how it tastes, though it be dished⁷²

               For me to try how: all I know of it

               Is that Camillo was an honest man.

75

75           And why he left your court, the gods themselves —

               Wotting⁷⁶ no more than I — are ignorant.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     You knew of his departure, as you know

               What you have underta’en to do in’s absence.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Sir,

80

80           You speak a language that I understand not:

               My life stands in the level⁸¹ of your dreams,

               Which⁸² I’ll lay down.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Your actions are my dreams.

               You had a bastard by Polixenes,

85

85           And I but dreamed it. As you were past all shame —

               Those of your fact⁸⁶ are so — so past all truth,

               Which to deny concerns⁸⁷ more than avails, for as

               Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,⁸⁸

               No father owning it — which is indeed

90

90           More criminal in thee than it — so thou

               Shalt feel our justice, in⁹¹ whose easiest passage

               Look for no less than death.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     Sir, spare your threats.

               The bug⁹⁴ which you would fright me with, I seek.

95

95           To me can life be no commodity;⁹⁵

               The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,

               I do give⁹⁷ 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

100

100         I am barred, like one infectious. My third comfort

               Starred most unluckily,¹⁰¹ is from my breast —

               The innocent milk in it¹⁰² most innocent mouth —

               Haled¹⁰³ out to murder. Myself on every post

               Proclaimed a strumpet,¹⁰⁴ with immodest hatred

105

105         The child-bed privilege¹⁰⁵ denied, which ’longs

               To women of all fashion.¹⁰⁶ Lastly, hurried

               Here to this place, i’th’open air, before

               I have got strength of limit.¹⁰⁸ Now, my liege,

               Tell me what blessings I have here alive,

110

110         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 free¹¹³ — if I shall be condemned

               Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else¹¹⁴

115

115         But what your jealousies awake,¹¹⁵ I tell you

               ’Tis rigour¹¹⁶ and not law. Your honours all,

               I do refer me to the oracle:

               Apollo be my judge!

       

A LORD

A LORD     This your request

120

120         Is altogether just: therefore bring forth,

               And in Apollo’s name, his oracle.

       [Exeunt some Officers]

       

HERMIONE

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

125

125         The flatness¹²⁵ of my misery; yet with eyes

               Of pity, not revenge!

       Enter Officers, with Cleomenes and Dion]

       

OFFICER

OFFICER     You here shall swear upon this sword of justice, Holds sword

               That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have

               Been both at Delphos, and from thence have brought

130

130         This sealed-up oracle, by the hand delivered

               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 and DION

CLEOMENES and DION     All this we swear.

135

135 

LEONTES

LEONTES             Break up the seals and read.

       

OFFICER

OFFICER      Reads Hermione is chaste, Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant, his innocent babe truly begotten,¹³⁷ and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found.

       

LORDS

LORDS     Now blessèd be the great Apollo!

140

140 

HERMIONE

HERMIONE             Praised!

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Hast thou read truth?

       

OFFICER

OFFICER     Ay, my lord, even so as it is here set down.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     There is no truth at all i’th’oracle:

               The sessions¹⁴⁴ shall proceed: this is mere falsehood.

       Enter a Servant]

145

145 

SERVANT

SERVANT             My lord the king, the king!

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     What is the business?

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     O sir, I shall be hated to report it!

               The prince your son, with mere conceit¹⁴⁸ and fear

               Of the queen’s speed,¹⁴⁹ is gone.

150

150 

LEONTES

LEONTES             How? Gone?

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     Is dead.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Apollo’s angry, and the heavens themselves

               Do strike at my injustice. Hermione faints

               How now there!

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     This news is mortal¹⁵⁴ to the queen. Look down

155

155         And see what death is doing.

       

LEONTES

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

160

160         Some remedies for life.

       [Exeunt Ladies, carrying 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.

165

165         For, being transported¹⁶⁵ 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 tardied¹⁶⁹

170

170         My swift command, though I with death and with

               Reward did threaten and encourage him,

               Not¹⁷² doing it and being done. He, most humane

               And filled with honour, to my kingly guest

               Unclasped my practice,¹⁷⁴ quit his fortunes here —

175

175         Which you knew great — and to the hazard

               Of all incertainties himself commended,¹⁷⁶

               No richer than¹⁷⁷ his honour. How he glisters

               Through my rust! And how his piety

               Does my deeds make the blacker!

180

180 

PAULINA

PAULINA             Woe the while!

               O, cut my lace,¹⁸¹ lest my heart, cracking it,

               Break too.

       

A LORD

A LORD     What fit is this, good lady?

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     What studied¹⁸⁴ torments, tyrant, hast for me?

185

185         What wheels?¹⁸⁵ 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 —

190

190         Fancies¹⁹⁰ 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 bygone fooleries¹⁹³ were but spices of it.

               That thou betrayed’st Polixenes, ’twas nothing:

195

195         That did but show thee, of¹⁹⁵ a fool, inconstant

               And damnable ingrateful. Nor was’t much,

               Thou wouldst have poisoned good Camillo’s honour,

               To have him kill a king. Poor trespasses.¹⁹⁸

               More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon

200

200         The casting forth to crows thy baby-daughter

               To be or²⁰¹ none or little; though a devil

               Would have shed²⁰² water out of fire ere done’t.

               Nor is’t directly laid to thee, the death

               Of the young prince, whose honourable thoughts —

205

205         Thoughts high for one so tender²⁰⁵ — cleft the heart

               That could conceive²⁰⁶ a gross and foolish sire

               Blemished his gracious dam: this is not, no,

               Laid²⁰⁸ to thy answer. But the last — O, lords,

               When I have said,²⁰⁹ cry woe! The queen, the queen,

210

210         The sweet’st, dear’st creature’s dead, and vengeance for’t

               Not dropped down²¹¹ yet.

       

A LORD

A LORD     The higher powers forbid!

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     I say she’s dead. I’ll swear’t. If word nor oath

               Prevail not, go and see. If you can bring

215

215         Tincture or lustre²¹⁵ 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 heavier²¹⁸

               Than all thy woes can stir: therefore betake thee²¹⁹

220

220         To nothing but despair. A thousand knees

               Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,

               Upon a barren mountain and still²²² winter

               In storm perpetual, could not move the gods

               To look²²⁴ that way thou wert.

225

225 

LEONTES

LEONTES             Go on, go on.

               Thou canst not speak too much. I have deserved

               All tongues to talk their bitt’rest.

       

A LORD

A LORD     Say no more.

               Howe’er²²⁹ the business goes, you have made fault To Paulina

230

230         I’th’boldness of your speech.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     I am sorry for’t;

               All faults I make, when I shall come to know them,

               I do repent. Alas, I have showed too much

               The rashness of a woman. He is touched

235

235         To th’noble heart. What’s gone and what’s past help

               Should be past grief. Do not receive affliction

               At my petition;²³⁷ I beseech you, rather

               Let me be punished, that have minded²³⁸ you

               Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege,

240

240         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 remember²⁴³ you of my own lord,

               Who is lost too. Take your patience²⁴⁴ to you,

245

245         And I’ll say nothing.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Thou²⁴⁶ didst speak but well

               When most the truth, which I receive much better

               Than to be pitied of²⁴⁸ thee. Prithee bring me

               To the dead bodies of my queen and son.

250

250         One grave shall be for both: upon them²⁵⁰ 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 nature²⁵⁴

255

255         Will bear up with this exercise, so long

               I daily vow to use²⁵⁶ it. Come and lead me

               To these sorrows.

       Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 3^3.3

running scene 7

---

       Enter Antigonus [carrying the] babe, [and] a Mariner

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     Thou¹ art perfect then, our ship hath touched upon

               The deserts² of Bohemia?

       

MARINER

MARINER     Ay, my lord, and fear

               We have landed in ill time. The skies look grimly

5

5             And threaten present blusters.⁵ In my conscience,

               The heavens with that⁶ we have in hand are angry

               And frown upon’s.

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     Their sacred wills be done! Go, get aboard.

               Look to thy bark.⁹ I’ll not be long before

10

10           I call upon thee.

       

MARINER

MARINER     Make your best haste, and go not

               Too far i’th’land: ’tis like to be loud¹² weather.

               Besides, this place is famous for the creatures

               Of prey that keep upon’t.

15

15   

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS           Go thou away. I’ll follow instantly.

       

MARINER

MARINER     I am glad at heart

               To be so rid o’th’business.

       Exit

       

ANTIGONUS

ANTIGONUS     Come, poor babe.

               I have heard, but not believed, the spirits o’th’dead

20

20           May walk again. If such thing be, thy mother

               Appeared to me last night, for ne’er was dream

               So like a waking. To me comes a creature,²²

               Sometimes her head on one side, some another.²³

               I never saw a vessel²⁴ of like sorrow,

25

25           So filled²⁵ and so becoming. In pure white robes,

               Like very sanctity,²⁶ she did approach

               My cabin where I lay, thrice bowed before me,

               And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes

               Became two spouts; the fury²⁹ spent, anon

30

30           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.

35

35           There weep and leave it crying. And, for³⁵ the babe

               Is counted lost forever, Perdita,³⁶

               I prithee call’t. For this ungentle³⁷ business

               Put on thee by my lord, thou ne’er shalt see

               Thy wife Paulina more.’ And so, with shrieks³⁹

40

40           She melted into air. Affrighted much,

               I did in time collect myself and thought

               This was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys,⁴²

               Yet for this once, yea superstitiously,

               I will be squared⁴⁴ by this. I do believe

45

45           Hermione hath suffered 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, speed⁴⁹ thee well. Lays down the baby with a box and bundle

50

50           There lie, and there thy character:⁵⁰ there these,

               Which may, if fortune please, both breed⁵¹ thee, pretty,

               And still rest thine. The storm begins. Poor wretch, Thunder

               That for thy mother’s fault⁵³ art thus exposed

               To loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot,

55

55           But my heart bleeds. And most accursed am I

               To be by oath enjoined⁵⁶ 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!⁵⁹

60

60           Well may I get aboard. This is the chase!⁶⁰

               I am gone forever.

       Exit, pursued by a bear

       Enter a Shepherd]

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     I would there were no age between ten 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,⁶⁴ stealing, fighting — Hark you now! Would any but these boiled-brains⁶⁵ 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 anywhere I have them, ’tis by the seaside, browsing of⁶⁸ ivy. Good luck, an’t be thy will. Sees the baby What have we here? Mercy on’s, a bairn?⁶⁹ A very pretty bairn! A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one, a very pretty one. Sure, some scape.⁷⁰ Though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work,⁷¹ some trunk-work, some behind-door-work: they were warmer⁷² that got this than the poor thing is here. I’ll take it up for pity — yet I’ll tarry⁷³ till my son come. He hallooed but even now. Whoa, ho, hoa!

       Enter Clown

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Hilloa, loa!

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     What? Art so near? If thou’lt see a thing to talk on⁷⁶ when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ailest⁷⁷ thou, man?

       

CLOWN

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 firmament⁷⁹ and it you cannot thrust a bodkin’s⁸⁰ point.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Why, boy, how is it?

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     I would you did but see how it chafes,⁸² how it rages, how it takes up the shore! But that’s not to the point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! Sometimes to see ’em, and not to see ’em. Now the ship boring⁸⁴ the moon with her main-mast, and anon⁸⁵ swallowed with yeast and froth, as you’d thrust a cork into a hogshead.⁸⁶ 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 make⁸⁸ 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

SHEPHERD     Name of mercy, when was this, boy?

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Now, now. I have not winked⁹³ 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

SHEPHERD     Would I had been by,⁹⁵ to have helped the old man!

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her; there your⁹⁶ charity would have lacked footing.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Heavy⁹⁸ matters, heavy matters! But look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself. Thou met’st⁹⁹ with things dying, I with things newborn. Here’s a sight for thee: look thee, a bearing-cloth¹⁰⁰ 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.¹⁰² Open’t. What’s within, boy?

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     You’re¹⁰³ a made old man. Opens the box If the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you’re well to live. Gold, all gold!

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     This is fairy gold,¹⁰⁵ boy, and ’twill prove so. Up with’t, keep it close. Home, home, the next¹⁰⁶ 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

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 curst¹⁰⁹ but when they are hungry. If there be any of him left, I’ll bury it.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     That’s a good deed. If thou mayst discern by that which is left of him what¹¹¹ he is, fetch me to th’sight of him.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Marry,¹¹³ will I. And you shall help to put him i’th’ground.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     ’Tis a lucky day, boy, and we’ll do good deeds on’t.

       Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 1^4.1

running scene 8

---

       Enter Time, the Chorus

       

TIME

TIME     I, that please some, try¹ all, both joy and terror

               Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds² error,

               Now take upon me, in the name of Time,

               To use my wings.⁴ Impute it not a crime

5

5             To me or my swift passage, that I slide

               O’er sixteen years and leave the growth untried⁶

               Of that wide gap, since it is in my power

               To o’erthrow law and in one self-born⁸ hour

               To plant and o’erwhelm⁹ custom. Let me pass

10

10           The same I am, ere¹⁰ ancient’st order was

               Or what is now received. I witness¹¹ to

               The times that brought them¹² in, so shall I do

               To th’freshest things now reigning and make stale¹³

               The glistering of this present, as my tale

15

15           Now seems to it.¹⁵ Your patience this allowing,

               I turn my glass¹⁶ and give my scene such growing

               As¹⁷ you had slept between. Leontes leaving —

               Th’effects of his fond jealousies so grieving

               That he shuts up himself — imagine me,

20

20           Gentle²⁰ spectators, that I now may be

               In fair Bohemia, and remember well,

               I mentioned a son o’th’king’s,²² which Florizel

               I now name to you, and with speed so pace²³

               To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace

25

25           Equal with wond’ring.²⁵ What of her ensues

               I list not prophesy,²⁶ but let Time’s news

               Be known when ’tis brought forth. A shepherd’s daughter

               And what to her adheres,²⁸ which follows after,

               Is th’argument²⁹ of Time. Of this allow,

30

30           If ever you have spent time worse ere now.

               If never, yet³¹ that Time himself doth say

               He wishes earnestly you never may.

       Exit

Act 4 Scene 2^4.2

running scene 9

---

       Enter Polixenes and Camillo

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate:¹ ’tis a sickness denying thee anything, a death to grant this.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     It is fifteen³ years since I saw my country. Though I have for the most part been aired⁴ abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me, to whose feeling⁵ sorrows I might be some allay, or I o’erween⁶ to think so, which is another spur to my departure.

       

POLIXENES

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 want⁹ 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,¹² as too much I cannot, to be more thankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit therein the heaping friendships.¹³ Of that fatal country, Sicilia, prithee speak no more, whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou call’st him, and reconciled¹⁵ 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,¹⁸ their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved¹⁹ their virtues.

       

CAMILLO

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,²¹ he is of late much retired from court and is less frequent to his princely exercises²² than formerly he hath appeared.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care — so far that I have eyes²⁵ 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.²⁸

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note.²⁹ The report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin³⁰ from such a cottage.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     That’s likewise part of my intelligence: but, I fear, the angle³¹ that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place where we will, not appearing what we are, have some question³³ with the shepherd, from whose simplicity I think it not uneasy³⁴ to get the cause of my son’s resort thither. Prithee be my present³⁵ partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     I willingly obey your command.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     My best Camillo, we must disguise ourselves.

       Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 3^4.3

running scene 10

---

       Enter Autolycus singing

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     When daffodils begin to peer,¹

                                    With hey, the doxy² over the dale,

                                    Why then comes in the sweet o’³ the year,

                                    For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.⁴

5

5                                  The white sheet⁵ bleaching on the hedge,

                                    With hey, the sweet birds, O, how they sing!

                                    Doth set⁷ my pugging tooth an edge.

                                    For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

                                    The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,

10

10                                With hey, the thrush and the jay,

                                    Are summer songs for me and my aunts,¹¹

                                    While we lie tumbling¹² in the hay.

               I have served Prince Florizel and in my time wore three-pile,¹³ but now I am out of service.

15

15                                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 tinkers¹⁹ may have leave to live,

20

20                                And bear the sow-skin budget,²⁰

                                    Then my account I well may give,

                                    And in²² the stocks avouch it.

               My traffic²³ is sheets. When the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus, who being, as I am, littered under²⁴ Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered²⁵ trifles. With die and drab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is the silly cheat.²⁶ Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway. Beating and hanging are terrors to me. For²⁷ the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it. He sees the Clown approaching A prize, a prize!

       Enter Clown

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Let me see, every ’leven wether tods,²⁹ every tod yields pound and odd shilling. Fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     If the springe³¹ hold, the cock’s mine. Aside

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     I cannot do’t without counters.³² 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.³⁵ She hath made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers — three-man-song-men³⁶ all, and very good ones — but they are most of them means³⁷ and basses; but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.³⁸ I must have saffron to colour the warden pies. Mace, dates? — none, that’s out of my note.³⁹ Nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I may beg. Four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o’th’sun.⁴⁰

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     O, that ever I was born! Grovels on the ground

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     I’th’name of me.⁴²

       

AUTOLYCUS

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

       

CLOWN

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

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     O, sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more than the stripes⁴⁶ I have received, which are mighty ones and millions.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Alas, poor man, a million of beating may come to a great matter.⁴⁸

       

AUTOLYCUS

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

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     What, by a horseman,⁵¹ or a footman?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     A footman, sweet sir, a footman.

       

CLOWN

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.⁵⁴ Lend me thy hand, I’ll help thee. Come, lend me thy hand. Helps him to his feet

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     O, good sir, tenderly, O!

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Alas, poor soul!

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     O, good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my shoulder-blade is out.⁵⁸

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     How now? Canst stand?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Softly, dear sir. Good sir, softly. You ha’ done me a charitable office. Picks his pocket

       

CLOWN

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

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     No, good sweet sir. No, I beseech you, sir. I have a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going. I shall there have money, or anything I want. Offer me no money, I pray you. That kills my heart.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with troll-my-dames.⁶⁶ 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

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.⁷⁰

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well. He hath been since an ape-bearer,⁷¹ then a process-server,⁷² a bailiff, then he compassed a motion of the prodigal son, and married a tinker’s wife within a mile where my land and living⁷³ lies, and, having flown over⁷⁴ many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue. Some call him Autolycus.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Out upon him! Prig,⁷⁶ for my life, prig. He haunts wakes, fairs and bearbaitings.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Very true, sir. He, sir, he. That’s the rogue that put me into this apparel.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but looked big and spit at him, he’d have run.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter. I am false of heart⁸¹ that way, and that he knew, I warrant him.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     How do you now?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Sweet sir, much better than I was. I can stand and walk. I will even take my leave of you, and pace softly⁸⁵ towards my kinsman’s.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Shall I bring thee on the way?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     No, good-faced⁸⁷ sir. No, sweet sir.

       

CLOWN

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

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Prosper you, sweet sir! Your purse is not hot⁸⁹ enough to purchase your spice. I’ll be with you at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat⁹⁰ bring out another and the shearers prove sheep,⁹¹ let me be unrolled and my name put in the book of virtue!

                                    [Sings] song Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,

                                    And merrily hent⁹⁴ the stile-a:

95

95                                A merry heart goes all the day,

                                    Your sad tires in a mile-a.

       Exit

Act 4 Scene 4

running scene 11

---

       Enter Florizel [wearing shepherd’s clothing, and] Perdita

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     These your unusual weeds¹ to each part of you

               Does give a life: no shepherdess, but Flora²

               Peering³ in April’s front. This your sheep-shearing

               Is as a meeting of the petty⁴ gods,

5

5             And you the queen on’t.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     Sir, my gracious lord,

               To chide⁷ at your extremes it not becomes me —

               O, pardon, that I name them! Your high self,

               The gracious mark o’th’land,⁹ you have obscured

10

10           With a swain’s wearing,¹⁰ and me, poor lowly maid,

               Most goddess-like pranked up.¹¹ But that our feasts

               In every mess¹² have folly and the feeders

               Digest¹³ it with a custom, I should blush

               To see you so attired, swoon, I think,

15

15           To show¹⁵ myself a glass.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     I bless the time

               When my good falcon made her flight across

               Thy father’s ground.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     Now Jove afford you cause!

20

20           To me the difference²⁰ forges dread. Your greatness

               Hath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble

               To think your father, by some accident,²²

               Should pass this way as you did. O, the Fates!

               How would he look, to see his work so noble

25

25           Vilely bound up?²⁵ What would he say? Or how

               Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts,²⁶ behold

               The sternness²⁷ of his presence?

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Apprehend²⁸

               Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,

30

30           Humbling their deities to love, have taken

               The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter³¹

               Became a bull, and bellowed: the green Neptune³²

               A ram, and bleated: and the fire-robed god,

               Golden Apollo,³⁴ a poor humble swain,

35

35           As I seem now. Their transformations

               Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,

               Nor in a way³⁷ so chaste, since my desires

               Run not before³⁸ mine honour, nor my lusts

               Burn hotter than my faith.

40

40   

PERDITA

PERDITA           O, but, sir,

               Your resolution cannot hold, when ’tis

               Opposed, as it must be, by th’power of the king.

               One of these two must be necessities,

               Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose,

45

45           Or I my life.⁴⁵

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Thou dearest Perdita,

               With these forced⁴⁷ thoughts, I prithee darken not

               The mirth o’th’feast. Or⁴⁸ I’ll be thine, my fair,

               Or not my father’s. For I cannot be

50

50           Mine own, nor anything to any, if

               I be not thine. To this I am most constant,

               Though⁵² destiny say no. Be merry, gentle.

               Strangle such thoughts as these with⁵³ anything

               That you behold the while. Your guests are coming:

55

55           Lift up your countenance, as⁵⁵ it were the day

               Of celebration of that nuptial which

               We two have sworn shall come.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     O lady Fortune,

               Stand you⁵⁹ auspicious!

60

60   

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL           See, your guests approach.

               Address⁶¹ 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

SHEPHERD     Fie, daughter! When my old wife lived, upon

               This day she was both pantler,⁶⁴ butler, cook,

65

65           Both dame⁶⁵ and servant, welcomed all, served all,

               Would sing her song and dance her turn: now here,

               At upper end o’th’table, now i’th’middle,

               On his⁶⁸ shoulder, and his, her face o’fire

               With labour and the thing she took to quench it,

70

70           She would to⁷⁰ 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.

75

75           Come, quench your blushes and present yourself

               That which you are, mistress o’th’feast. Come on,

               And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,

               As your good flock shall prosper.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     Sir, welcome. To Polixenes

80

80           It is my father’s will I should take on me

               The hostess-ship o’th’day.— You’re welcome, sir.— To Camillo

               Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.— Reverend sirs,

               For you there’s rosemary⁸³ and rue. These keep Gives flowers

               Seeming and savour⁸⁴ all the winter long.

85

85           Grace and remembrance be to you both,

               And welcome to our shearing!

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Shepherdess,

               A fair one are you — well you fit⁸⁸ our ages

               With flowers of winter.

90

90   

PERDITA

PERDITA           Sir, the year⁹⁰ growing ancient,

               Not yet on summer’s death, nor on the birth

               Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o’th’season

               Are our carnations and streaked gillyvors,⁹³

               Which some call nature’s bastards.⁹⁴ Of that kind

95

95           Our rustic garden’s barren, and I care not

               To get slips⁹⁶ of them.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Wherefore,⁹⁷ gentle maiden,

               Do you neglect⁹⁸ them?

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     For⁹⁹ I have heard it said

100

100         There is an¹⁰⁰ art which in their piedness shares

               With great creating nature.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Say there be.

               Yet nature is made better by no mean¹⁰³

               But nature makes that mean, so over¹⁰⁴ that art,

105

105         Which you say adds to nature, is an art

               That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry

               A gentler scion¹⁰⁷ to the wildest stock,

               And make conceive a bark of baser kind

               By bud of nobler race.¹⁰⁹ This is an art

110

110         Which does mend¹¹⁰ nature, change it rather, but

               The art itself is nature.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     So it is.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,

               And do not call them bastards.

115

115 

PERDITA

PERDITA             I’ll not put

               The dibble¹¹⁶ in earth to set one slip of them.

               No more than were I painted¹¹⁷ I would wish

               This youth should say ’twere well and only therefore

               Desire to breed by me. Here’s flowers for you: Gives flowers

120

120         Hot¹²⁰ lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,

               The marigold, that goes¹²¹ to bed wi’th’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.

125

125 

CAMILLO

CAMILLO             I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,

               And only live by gazing.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     Out, alas!¹²⁷

               You’d be so lean that blasts of January

               Would blow you through and through.—

130

130         Now, my fair’st friend, To Fiorizel

               I would I had some flowers o’th’spring that might

               Become your time of day,— and yours, and yours, To Shepherdesses

               That wear upon your virgin branches yet

               Your maidenheads¹³⁴ growing.— O Proserpina,

135

135         For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let’st fall

               From Dis’s wagon! Daffodils,

               That come before the swallow dares,¹³⁷ and take

               The winds of March with beauty: violets, dim,¹³⁸

               But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s¹³⁹ eyes

140

140         Or Cytherea’s¹⁴⁰ breath: pale primroses

               That die unmarried, ere they can behold

               Bright Phoebus¹⁴² in his strength — a malady

               Most incident to maids: bold oxlips and

               The crown imperial:¹⁴⁴ lilies of all kinds,

145

145         The flower-de-luce¹⁴⁵ being one. O, these I lack,

               To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,

               To strew him o’er and o’er!

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     What, like a corpse?

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     No, like a bank for love to lie and play on.

150

150         Not like a corpse. Or if,¹⁵⁰ not to be buried,

               But quick¹⁵¹ and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers.

               Methinks I play as I have seen them do

               In Whitsun pastorals.¹⁵³ Sure this robe of mine

               Does change my disposition.

155

155 

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL             What you do

               Still¹⁵⁶ betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,

               I’d have you do it ever: when you sing,

               I’d have you buy and sell so, so give alms,¹⁵⁸

               Pray so, and, for the ord’ring¹⁵⁹ your affairs,

160

160         To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you

               A wave o’th’sea, that you might ever do

               Nothing but that. Move still,¹⁶² still so,

               And own¹⁶³ no other function. Each your doing,

               So singular¹⁶⁴ in each particular,

165

165         Crowns what¹⁶⁵ you are doing in the present deeds,

               That all your acts are queens.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     O Doricles,¹⁶⁷

               Your praises are too large. But that your youth,

               And the true¹⁶⁹ blood which peeps fairly through’t,

170

170         Do plainly give you out¹⁷⁰ an unstained shepherd,

               With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,

               You wooed me the false way.¹⁷²

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     I think you have

               As little skill¹⁷⁴ to fear as I have purpose

175

175         To put you to’t. But come, our dance, I pray.

               Your hand, my Perdita. So turtles¹⁷⁶ pair,

               That never mean to part.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     I’ll swear for ’em. They stand aside

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever To Camillo

180

180         Ran on the greensward.¹⁸⁰ Nothing she does or seems

               But smacks of something greater than herself,

               Too noble for this place.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     He tells her something

               That makes her blood look out.¹⁸⁴ Good sooth, she is

185

185         The queen of curds and cream.¹⁸⁵

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Come on, strike up!

       

DORCAS

DORCAS     Mopsa must be your mistress.¹⁸⁷ Marry, garlic,

               To mend¹⁸⁸ her kissing with!

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     Now, in good time!¹⁸⁹

190

190 

CLOWN

CLOWN             Not a word, a word. We stand upon¹⁹⁰ our manners.

               Come, strike up! Music

       Here a dance of Shepherds and Shepherdesses

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this

               Which dances with your daughter?

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     They call him Doricles, and boasts¹⁹⁴ himself

195

195         To have a worthy feeding;¹⁹⁵ but I have it

               Upon his own report and I believe it.

               He looks like sooth.¹⁹⁷ He says he loves my daughter.

               I think so too, for never gazed the moon

               Upon the water as he’ll stand and read,

200

200         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

POLIXENES     She dances featly.²⁰³

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     So she does anything, though I report it,

205

205         That should be silent. If young Doricles

               Do light upon²⁰⁶ her, she shall bring him that

               Which he not dreams of.

       Enter Servant

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     O, master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor²⁰⁹ and pipe. No, the bagpipe could not move you. He sings several tunes faster than you’ll tell²¹⁰ money. He utters them as he had eaten ballads and all men’s ears grew²¹¹ to his tunes.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     He could never come better.²¹² 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

SERVANT     He hath songs for man or woman, of all sizes. No milliner²¹⁵ can so fit his customers with gloves. He has the prettiest love-songs for maids, so without bawdry,²¹⁷ which is strange, with such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings, ‘jump her and thump her’. And where some stretch-mouthed²¹⁸ rascal would, as it were, mean mischief and break²¹⁹ a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer ‘Whoop,²²⁰ do me no harm, good man’, puts him off, slights him, with ‘Whoop, do me no harm, good man’.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     This is a brave²²² fellow.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited²²³ fellow. Has he any unbraided²²⁴ wares?

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     He hath ribbons of all the colours i’th’rainbow; points²²⁵ more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by th’gross:²²⁶ inkles,²²⁷ caddisses, cambrics, lawns. Why, he sings ’em over as they were gods or goddesses. You would think a smock²²⁸ were a she-angel, he so chants to the sleeve-hand²²⁹ and the work about the square on’t.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Prithee bring him in, and let him approach singing.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in’s tunes. Servant goes to door

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     You have²³² of these pedlars, that have more in them than you’d think, sister.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     Ay, good brother, or go about²³³ to think.

       Enter Autolycus, singing He wears a false beard and carries a pack

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Lawn as white as driven snow,

       Song

                                    Cypress²³⁵ black as e’er was crow,

                                    Gloves as sweet²³⁶ as damask roses,

                                    Masks²³⁷ for faces and for noses,

                                    Bugle²³⁸ bracelet, necklace amber,

                                    Perfume for a lady’s chamber,

240

                                    Golden quoifs²⁴⁰ and stomachers,

                                    For my lads to give their dears,

                                    Pins and poking-sticks²⁴² of steel,

                                    What maids lack from head to heel.

                                    Come buy of me, come. Come buy, come buy.

245

                                    Buy lads, or else your lasses cry. Come buy!

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me, but being enthralled²⁴⁷ as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     I was promised them against²⁴⁸ the feast, but they come not too late now.

       

DORCAS

DORCAS     He hath promised you more than that,²⁴⁹ or there be liars.

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     He hath paid you²⁵⁰ all he promised you. Maybe he has paid you more, which will shame you to give him again.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Is there no manners left among maids? Will they wear their plackets²⁵² where they should bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole,²⁵⁴ to whistle of these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guests? ’Tis well they are whisp’ring. Clamour²⁵⁵ your tongues, and not a word more.

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     I have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry-lace²⁵⁷ and a pair of sweet gloves.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Have I not told thee how I was cozened²⁵⁹ by the way and lost all my money?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad:²⁶⁰ therefore it behoves men to be wary.

       

CLOWN

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

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     I hope so, sir, for I have about me many parcels of charge.²⁶³

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     What hast here? Ballads?

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     Pray now, buy some. I love a ballad in print alife,²⁶⁵ for then we are sure they are true.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Here’s one to a very doleful tune, how a usurer’s²⁶⁷ wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden²⁶⁸ and how she longed to eat adders’ heads and toads carbonadoed.²⁶⁹

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     Is it true, think you?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Very true, and but a month old.

       

DORCAS

DORCAS     Bless me from marrying a usurer!

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Here’s the midwife’s name to’t, one Mistress Tale-porter,²⁷³ and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I carry lies abroad?

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     Pray you now, buy it.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Come on, lay it by,²⁷⁶ and let’s first see more ballads. We’ll buy the other things anon.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Here’s another ballad of a fish that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the fourscore²⁷⁹ 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 flesh²⁸¹ with one that loved her. The ballad is very pitiful and as true.

       

DORCAS

DORCAS     Is it true too, think you?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Five justices’²⁸⁴ hands at it, and witnesses more than my pack will hold.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Lay it by too; another.

       

AUTOLYCUS

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

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     Let’s have some merry ones.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Why, this is a passing²⁸⁸ 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,²⁸⁹ I can tell you.

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     We can both sing it. If thou’lt bear a part,²⁹¹ thou shalt hear. ’Tis in three parts.

       

DORCAS

DORCAS     We had the tune on’t²⁹³ a month ago.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     I can bear my part. You must know ’tis my occupation. Have²⁹⁴ at it with you.

       [They sing the] song

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Get you hence, for I must go

                                    Where it fits not you to know.

       

DORCAS

DORCAS     Whither?

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     O, whither?

       

DORCAS

DORCAS     Whither?

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     It becomes thy oath full well,

                                    Thou to me thy secrets tell.

       

DORCAS

DORCAS     Me too, let me go thither.

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     Or³⁰⁴ thou goest to th’grange or mill.

       

DORCAS

DORCAS     If to either, thou dost ill.³⁰⁵

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Neither.

       

DORCAS

DORCAS     What, neither?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Neither.

       

DORCAS

DORCAS     Thou hast sworn my love to be.

       

MOPSA

MOPSA     Thou hast sworn it more to me.

                                    Then whither goest? Say, whither?

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     We’ll have³¹² this song out anon by ourselves. My father and the gentlemen are in sad³¹³ 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

AUTOLYCUS     And you shall pay well for ’em.

       Song

                                    Will you buy any tape, Follows them, singing

                                    Or lace for your cape,

                                    My dainty duck, my dear-a?

320

320 

                                    Any silk, any thread,

                                    Any toys³²¹ for your head,

                                    Of the new’st and finest, finest wear-a?

                                    Come to the pedlar.

                                    Money’s a meddler.

325

325 

                                    That doth utter³²⁵ all men’s ware-a.

       Exit

       [Enter Servant]

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     Master, there is three carters,³²⁶ three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made³²⁷ themselves all men of hair. They call themselves Saltiers,³²⁸ 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’th’mind, if it be not too rough for some that know little but bowling,³³⁰ it will please plentifully.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Away! We’ll none on’t; here has been too much homely³³¹ foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     You weary those that refresh us. Pray let’s see these four threes³³³ of herdsmen.

       

SERVANT

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 th’square.³³⁶

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Leave your prating.³³⁷ Since these good men are pleased, let them come in. But quickly now.

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     Why, they stay³³⁹ at door, sir. Goes to the door

       Here a dance of twelve Satyrs

340

340 

POLIXENES

POLIXENES             O, father,³⁴⁰ you’ll know more of that hereafter.— To Shepherd

               Is it not too far gone? ’Tis time to part them. To Camillo

               He’s simple³⁴² and tells much.—

                                    How now, fair shepherd! To Fiorizel

               Your heart is full of something that does take

               Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young

345

345         And handed³⁴⁵ love as you do, I was wont

               To load my she with knacks.³⁴⁶ I would have ransacked

               The pedlar’s silken treasury and have poured it

               To her acceptance. You have let him go

               And nothing marted³⁴⁹ with him. If your lass

350

350         Interpretation should abuse³⁵⁰ and call this

               Your lack of love or bounty,³⁵¹ you were straited

               For a reply, at least if you make³⁵² a care

               Of happy holding her.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Old sir, I know

355

355         She prizes not such trifles as these are.

               The gifts she looks³⁵⁶ from me are packed and locked

               Up in my heart, which I have given already,

               But not delivered.³⁵⁸ O, hear me breathe my life

               Before this ancient sir, whom, it should seem,

360

360         Hath sometime³⁶⁰ loved.— I take thy hand, this hand, To Perdita

               As soft as dove’s down and as white as it,

               Or Ethiopian’s tooth, or the fanned snow that’s bolted³⁶²

               By th’northern blasts³⁶³ twice o’er. Takes her hand

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     What follows this?

365

365         How prettily th’young swain seems to wash³⁶⁵

               The hand was³⁶⁶ fair before! I have put you out.

               But to³⁶⁷ your protestation: let me hear

               What you profess.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Do, and be witness to’t.

370

370 

POLIXENES

POLIXENES             And this my neighbour too?

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     And he, and more

               Than he, and men, the earth, the heavens, and all;

               That were I crowned the most imperial monarch,

               Thereof³⁷⁴ most worthy, were I the fairest youth

375

375         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,

               Commend³⁷⁸ them and condemn them to her service

               Or to their own perdition.

380

380 

POLIXENES

POLIXENES             Fairly offered.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     This shows a sound affection.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     But, my daughter,

               Say you the like to him?

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     I cannot speak

385

385         So well, nothing so well. No, nor mean better.

               By³⁸⁶ th’pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out

               The purity of his.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Take hands, a bargain!

               And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to’t.

390

390         I give my daughter to him, and will make

               Her portion³⁹¹ equal his.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     O, that must be

               I’th’virtue of your daughter: one being dead,³⁹³

               I shall have more than you can dream of yet,

395

395         Enough then for your wonder. But come on,

               Contract³⁹⁶ us ’fore these witnesses.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Come, your hand.

               And, daughter, yours.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Soft,³⁹⁹ swain, awhile, beseech you.

400

400         Have you a father?

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     I have, but what of him?

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Knows he of this?

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     He neither does nor shall.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Methinks a father

405

405         Is at the nuptial of his son a guest

               That best becomes⁴⁰⁶ the table. Pray you once more,

               Is not your father grown incapable⁴⁰⁷

               Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid

               With age and alt’ring rheums?⁴⁰⁹ Can he speak? Hear?

410

410         Know man from man? Dispute⁴¹⁰ his own estate?

               Lies he not bed-rid? And again does⁴¹¹ nothing

               But what he did being childish?

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     No, good sir.

               He has his health and ampler strength indeed

415

415         Than most have of his age.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     By my white beard,

               You offer him, if this be so, a wrong

               Something unfilial.⁴¹⁸ Reason my son

               Should choose himself a wife, but as good reason

420

420         The father, all whose joy is nothing else

               But fair posterity,⁴²¹ should hold some counsel

               In such a business.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     I yield⁴²³ all this.

               But for some other reasons, my grave sir,

425

425         Which ’tis not fit you know, I not acquaint

               My father of this business.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Let him know’t.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     He shall not.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Prithee let him.

430

430 

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL             No, he must not.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Let him, my son. He shall not need to grieve

               At knowing of thy choice.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Come, come, he must not.

               Mark⁴³⁴ our contract.

435

435 

POLIXENES

POLIXENES             Mark your divorce, young sir, Takes off disguise

               Whom son I dare not call. Thou art too base

               To be acknowledged. Thou a sceptre’s heir,

               That thus affects⁴³⁸ a sheep-hook!— Thou, old traitor, To Shepherd

               I am sorry that by hanging thee I can

440

440         But shorten thy life one week.— And thou, fresh piece To Perdita

               Of excellent⁴⁴¹ witchcraft, who of force must know

               The royal fool thou cop’st with⁴⁴²—

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     O, my heart!

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     I’ll have thy beauty scratched with briers and made

445

445         More homely⁴⁴⁵ than thy state.— For thee, fond boy, To Fiorizel

               If I may ever know thou dost but sigh

               That thou no more shalt see this knack,⁴⁴⁷ as never

               I mean thou shalt, we’ll bar thee from succession,⁴⁴⁸

               Not⁴⁴⁹ hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,

450

450         Far⁴⁵⁰ than Deucalion off. Mark thou my words.

               Follow us to the court.— Thou churl,⁴⁵¹ for this time, To Shepherd

               Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee

               From the dead⁴⁵³ blow of it.— And you, enchantment,— To Perdita

               Worthy enough a herdsman — yea, him⁴⁵⁴ too,

455

455         That⁴⁵⁵ makes himself, but for our honour therein,

               Unworthy thee — if ever henceforth thou

               These rural latches⁴⁵⁷ to his entrance open,

               Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,

               I will devise a death as cruel for thee

460

460         As thou art tender⁴⁶⁰ to’t.

       Exit

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     Even here undone!⁴⁶¹

               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

465

465         Hides not his visage⁴⁶⁵ from our cottage but

               Looks on alike.⁴⁶⁶— Will’t please you, sir, be gone? To Fiorizel

               I told you what would come of this. Beseech you

               Of your own state take care. This dream of mine —

               Being now awake, I’ll queen it no inch further,

470

470         But milk my ewes and weep.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Why, how now, father!

               Speak ere thou diest.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     I cannot speak, nor think

               Nor dare to know that which I know.— O, sir, To Fiorizel

475

475         You have undone a man of fourscore three,⁴⁷⁵

               That thought to fill⁴⁷⁶ 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

480

480         Where no⁴⁸⁰ priest shovels in dust.— O cursèd wretch, To Perdita

               That knew’st this was the prince, and wouldst adventure⁴⁸¹

               To mingle faith⁴⁸² with him! Undone, undone!

               If I might die within this hour, I have lived

               To die when I desire.

       Exit

485

485 

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL             Why look you so upon me?

               I am but sorry, not afeard. Delayed,

               But nothing altered. What I was, I am.

               More straining⁴⁸⁸ on for plucking back, not following

               My leash unwillingly.

490

490 

CAMILLO

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 purpose⁴⁹³ to him — and as hardly

               Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear.

495

495         Then, till the fury of his highness settle,

               Come not before him.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     I not purpose it.

               I think, Camillo?⁴⁹⁸

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Even he, my lord. May remove his disguise

500

500 

PERDITA

PERDITA             How often have I told you ’twould be thus!

               How often said, my dignity⁵⁰¹ would last

               But⁵⁰² till ’twere known!

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     It cannot fail but by

               The violation⁵⁰⁴ of my faith, and then

505

505         Let nature crush the sides o’th’earth together

               And mar the seeds⁵⁰⁶ within! Lift up thy looks.

               From my succession wipe⁵⁰⁷ me, father. I

               Am heir to my affection.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Be advised.⁵⁰⁹

510

510 

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL             I am, and by my fancy.⁵¹⁰ If my reason

               Will thereto be obedient, I have reason.

               If not, my senses, better pleased with madness,

               Do bid it welcome.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     This is desperate,⁵¹⁴ sir.

515

515 

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL             So call it, but it does fulfil my vow.

               I needs must think it honesty.⁵¹⁶ Camillo,

               Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp⁵¹⁷ that may

               Be thereat gleaned, for all the sun sees or

               The close⁵¹⁹ earth wombs or the profound seas hides

520

520         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 honoured friend,

               When he shall miss me — as, in faith, I mean not

               To see him any more — cast your good counsels

525

525         Upon his passion.⁵²⁵ Let myself and fortune

               Tug⁵²⁶ for the time to come. This you may know,

               And so deliver,⁵²⁷ I am put to sea

               With her whom here I cannot hold on shore.

               And most opportune to her need, I have

530

530         A vessel rides fast by,⁵³⁰ but not prepared

               For this design. What⁵³¹ course I mean to hold

               Shall⁵³² nothing benefit your knowledge, nor

               Concern me the reporting.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     O, my lord,

535

535         I would your spirit were easier for advice,⁵³⁵

               Or stronger for your need.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Hark, Perdita.— Takes her aside

               I’ll hear you by and by. To Camillo

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     He’s irremovable,⁵³⁹ Aside

540

540         Resolved for flight. Now were I happy, if

               His going I could frame⁵⁴¹ to serve my turn,

               Save him from danger, do him love and honour,

               Purchase⁵⁴³ the sight again of dear Sicilia

               And that unhappy king, my master, whom

545

545         I so much thirst to see.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Now, good Camillo,

               I am so fraught⁵⁴⁷ with curious business that

               I leave out ceremony.⁵⁴⁸

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Sir, I think

550

550         You have heard of my poor⁵⁵⁰ services, i’th’love

               That I have borne your father?

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Very nobly

               Have you deserved. It is my father’s music

               To speak your deeds, not⁵⁵⁴ little of his care

555

555         To have them recompensed as thought on.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Well, my lord,

               If you may please to think I love the king

               And through him what’s nearest to him, which is

               Your gracious self, embrace⁵⁵⁹ but my direction,

560

560         If your more ponderous⁵⁶⁰ and settled project

               May suffer alteration.⁵⁶¹ On mine honour,

               I’ll point you where you shall have such receiving⁵⁶²

               As shall become your highness, where you may

               Enjoy⁵⁶⁴ your mistress, from the whom I see,

565

565         There’s no disjunction⁵⁶⁵ to be made, but by —

               As heavens forfend!⁵⁶⁶ — your ruin. Marry her,

               And, with my best endeavours in your absence,

               Your discontenting⁵⁶⁸ father strive to qualify

               And bring him up to liking.⁵⁶⁹

570

570 

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL             How, Camillo,

               May this, almost a miracle, be done?

               That I may call thee something more than man

               And after⁵⁷³ that trust to thee.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Have you thought on⁵⁷⁴

575

575         A place whereto you’ll go?

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Not any yet,

               But as th’unthought-on⁵⁷⁷ accident is guilty

               To what we wildly do, so we profess

               Ourselves to be the slaves of chance and flies⁵⁷⁹

580

580         Of every wind that blows.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Then list⁵⁸¹ 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,

585

585         For so I see she must be, ’fore Leontes;

               She shall be habited⁵⁸⁶ as it becomes

               The partner of your bed. Methinks I see

               Leontes opening his free arms and weeping

               His welcomes forth, asks thee there ‘Son, forgiveness’,

590

590         As⁵⁹⁰ ’twere i’th’father’s person, kisses the hands

               Of your fresh princess; o’er and o’er divides⁵⁹¹ him

               ’Twixt his unkindness and his kindness. Th’one

               He chides to hell and bids the other grow

               Faster than thought or time.

595

595 

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL             Worthy Camillo,

               What colour⁵⁹⁶ for my visitation shall I

               Hold up before him?

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Sent by the king your father

               To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,

600

600         The manner of your bearing⁶⁰⁰ towards him, with

               What you as⁶⁰¹ from your father shall deliver —

               Things known betwixt us three — I’ll write you down,

               The which shall point⁶⁰³ you forth at every sitting

               What you must say, that he shall not perceive

605

605         But that you have your father’s bosom⁶⁰⁵ there

               And speak his very heart.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     I am bound to you.

               There is some sap⁶⁰⁸ in this.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     A course more promising

610

610         Than a wild dedication of yourselves

               To unpathed⁶¹¹ waters, undreamed shores, most certain

               To miseries enough, no hope to help you,

               But as you shake off one⁶¹³ to take another.

               Nothing⁶¹⁴ so certain as your anchors, who

615

615         Do their best office if they can but stay⁶¹⁵ you

               Where you’ll be loath to be. Besides, you know

               Prosperity’s⁶¹⁷ the very bond of love,

               Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together

               Affliction alters.⁶¹⁹

620

620 

PERDITA

PERDITA             One of these is true:

               I think affliction may subdue the cheek,⁶²¹

               But not take in⁶²² the mind.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Yea? Say you so?

               There shall not at your father’s house these seven years⁶²⁴

625

625         Be born another such.⁶²⁵

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     My good Camillo,

               She’s as⁶²⁷ forward of her breeding as

               She is i’th’rear our birth.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     I cannot say ’tis pity

630

630         She lacks instructions,⁶³⁰ for she seems a mistress

               To most that teach.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     Your pardon, sir. For this

               I’ll blush you thanks.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     My prettiest Perdita!

635

635         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 furnished⁶³⁸ like Bohemia’s son,

               Nor shall appear⁶³⁹ in Sicilia.

640

640 

CAMILLO

CAMILLO             My lord,

               Fear none of this. I think you know my fortunes⁶⁴¹

               Do all lie there. It shall be so my care

               To have you royally appointed⁶⁴³ as if

               The scene you play were mine.⁶⁴⁴ For instance, sir,

645

645         That you may know you shall not want,⁶⁴⁵ one word. They talk apart

       Enter Autolycus

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Ha, ha! What a fool honesty is! And trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman. I have sold all my trumpery:⁶⁴⁷ not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass,⁶⁴⁸ pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring,⁶⁴⁹ to keep my pack from fasting. They throng who should buy                first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed⁶⁵⁰ and brought a benediction to the buyer, by which means I saw whose purse was best in picture,⁶⁵¹ and what I saw, to my good use⁶⁵² I remembered. My clown, who wants but something to be a reasonable man, grew⁶⁵³ 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.⁶⁵⁵ You might have pinched a placket, it was senseless; ’twas nothing to geld⁶⁵⁶ a codpiece of a purse. I would have filed keys off that hung in chains. No hearing, no feeling, but my sir’s⁶⁵⁷ song, and admiring the nothing⁶⁵⁸ 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-bub⁶⁵⁹ against his daughter and the king’s son and scared my choughs⁶⁶⁰ from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army. Camillo, Florizel and Perdita come forward

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Nay, but my letters, by this means being there

               So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     And those that you’ll procure from King Leontes—

665

665 

CAMILLO

CAMILLO             Shall satisfy⁶⁶⁵ your father.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     Happy be you!

               All that you speak shows fair.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Who have we here? Sees Autolycus

               We’ll make an instrument of this, omit

670

670         Nothing⁶⁷⁰ may give us aid.

       

AUTOLYCUS

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

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     How now, good fellow? Why shakest thou so? Fear not, man. Here’s no harm intended to thee.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     I am a poor fellow, sir.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Why, be so still. Here’s nobody will steal that from thee. Yet for the outside⁶⁷⁵ of thy poverty we must make an exchange: therefore discase⁶⁷⁶ thee instantly — thou must think⁶⁷⁷ there’s a necessity in’t — and change garments with this gentleman. Though the pennyworth⁶⁷⁸ on his side be the worst, yet hold thee, there’s some boot.⁶⁷⁹ Gives money

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     I am a poor fellow, sir.— I know ye well enough. Aside

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     Nay, prithee, dispatch:⁶⁸¹ the gentleman is half flayed already.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Are you in earnest,⁶⁸² sir? I smell the trick on’t. Aside

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Dispatch, I prithee.

       

AUTOLYCUS

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

685

685 

CAMILLO

CAMILLO             Unbuckle, unbuckle. Florizel and Autolycus exchange clothes

               Fortunate mistress — let my prophecy

               Come⁶⁸⁷ home to ye! — you must retire yourself

               Into some covert;⁶⁸⁸ take your sweetheart’s hat

               And pluck⁶⁸⁹ it o’er your brows, muffle your face,

690

690         Dismantle you,⁶⁹⁰ and, as you can, disliken

               The truth of your own seeming,⁶⁹¹ that you may —

               For I do fear eyes over⁶⁹² — to shipboard

               Get undescried.⁶⁹³

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     I see the play so lies⁶⁹⁴

695

695         That I must bear a part.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     No remedy.⁶⁹⁶

               Have you done there?

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Should I now meet my father,

               He would not call me son.

700

700 

CAMILLO

CAMILLO             Nay, you shall have no hat. Gives hat to Perdita

               Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Adieu, sir.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     O Perdita, what have we twain⁷⁰³ forgot!

               Pray you a word.

705

705 

CAMILLO

CAMILLO             What I do next, shall be to tell the king Aside

               Of this escape and whither they are bound.

               Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail

               To force him after,⁷⁰⁸ in whose company

               I shall review⁷⁰⁹ Sicilia, for whose sight

710

710         I have a woman’s⁷¹⁰ longing.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Fortune speed⁷¹¹ us!

               Thus we set on, Camillo, to th’seaside.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     The swifter speed the better.

       Exeunt [Florizel, Perdita and Camillo]

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     I understand the business, I hear it. To have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cutpurse;⁷¹⁵ a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for th’other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth thrive. What an exchange⁷¹⁷ had this been without boot? What a boot is here with this exchange? Sure, the gods do this year connive at⁷¹⁸ us, and we may do anything extempore.⁷¹⁹ The prince himself is about a piece of iniquity, stealing away from his father with his clog⁷²⁰ at his heels. If I thought it were a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal,⁷²¹ I would not do’t. I hold it the more knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant⁷²² to my profession.

       Enter Clown and Shepherd Carrying fardel and box

               Aside, aside. He stands aside Here is more matter for a hot⁷²³ brain. Every lane’s end, every shop, church, session,⁷²⁴ hanging, yields a careful man work.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     See, see. What a man you are now! There is no other way but to tell the king she’s a changeling⁷²⁶ and none of your flesh and blood.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Nay, but hear me.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Nay, but hear me.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Go to,⁷²⁹ then.

       

CLOWN

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

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

CLOWN     Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have been to him and then your blood had been the dearer by I⁷³⁸ know how much an ounce.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS      Aside Very wisely, puppies!⁷³⁹

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Well, let us to the king. There is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS      Aside I know not what impediment this complaint⁷⁴² may be to the flight of my master.⁷⁴³

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Pray heartily he be at palace.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance: Aside let me pocket up⁷⁴⁶ my pedlar’s excrement.— Takes off his false beard How now, rustics! Whither are you bound?

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     To th’palace, an it like⁷⁴⁷ your worship.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Your affairs there? What? With whom? The condition⁷⁴⁸ of that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages, of what having,⁷⁴⁹ breeding, and any

               thing that is fitting to be known, discover.⁷⁵⁰

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     We are but plain⁷⁵¹ fellows, sir.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     A lie; you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give⁷⁵³ 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

CLOWN     Your worship had like to have given us one,⁷⁵⁵ if you had not taken yourself with the manner.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Are you a courtier, an’t like you, sir?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. See’st thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings?⁷⁵⁹ Hath not my gait in it the measure of the court?

               Receives not thy nose court-odour from me? Reflect I not on thy baseness⁷⁶⁰ court-contempt? Think’st thou, for that⁷⁶¹ I insinuate or toaze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-a-pe;⁷⁶² and one that will either push on or pluck back thy business there: whereupon I command thee to open thy affair.⁷⁶³

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     My business, sir, is to the king.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     What advocate⁷⁶⁵ hast thou to him?

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     I know not, an’t like you.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Advocate’s the court-word for a pheasant.⁷⁶⁷ Aside to the Shepherd Say you have none.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     None, sir. I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     How blessed are we that are not simple men! Aside Yet nature might have

               made me as these are, therefore I will not disdain.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     This cannot be but⁷⁷¹ a great courtier. To Shepherd

       

SHEPHERD

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

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical.⁷⁷³ A great man, I’ll warrant; I know by the picking on’s teeth.⁷⁷⁴

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     The fardel there? What’s i’th’fardel? Wherefore that box?

       

SHEPHERD

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 th’speech of him.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Age,⁷⁷⁹ thou hast lost thy labour.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Why, sir?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     The king is not at the palace. He is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy and air himself, for, if thou be’st⁷⁸² capable of things serious, thou must know the king is full of grief.

       

SHEPHERD

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

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     If that shepherd be not in hand-fast,⁷⁸⁶ let him fly; the curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Think you so, sir?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Not he alone shall suffer what wit⁷⁸⁹ can make heavy and vengeance bitter, but those that are germane⁷⁹⁰ 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 rogue⁷⁹² a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace!⁷⁹³ Some say he shall be stoned, but that death is too soft for him, say I. Draw our throne into a sheep-cote?⁷⁹⁴ All deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.

       

CLOWN

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

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     He has a son, who shall be flayed alive, then ’nointed⁷⁹⁶ over with honey, set on the head of a wasp’s nest, then stand till he be three quarters and a dram⁷⁹⁷ dead, then recovered again with aqua-vitae⁷⁹⁸ or some other hot infusion, then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims,⁷⁹⁹ shall he be set against a brick wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he is to behold him with flies blown⁸⁰¹ to death. But what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at, their offences being so capital?⁸⁰² Tell me, for you seem to⁸⁰³ be honest plain men, what you have to the king. Being something gently considered, I’ll bring you where he is aboard, tender⁸⁰⁴ your persons to his presence, whisper him⁸⁰⁵ in your behalfs; and if it be in man besides the king to effect your suits, here is man shall do it.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     He seems to be of great authority.To Shepherd Close⁸⁰⁷ 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

SHEPHERD     An’t please you, sir, to undertake the business for us, here is that⁸¹¹ gold I have. Offers gold I’ll make it as much more and leave this young man in pawn⁸¹² till I bring it you.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     After I have done what I promised?

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Ay, sir.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Well, give me the moiety.⁸¹⁶—Takes gold/To Clown Are you a party in this business?

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     In some sort, sir. But though my case⁸¹⁷ be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     O, that’s the case of the shepherd’s son. Hang him, he’ll be made an example.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Comfort, good comfort!To Shepherd 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.⁸²² 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

AUTOLYCUS     I will trust you. Walk before⁸²⁵ toward the seaside. Go on the right hand, I will but look⁸²⁶ upon the hedge and follow you.

       

CLOWN

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

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Let’s before as he bids us. He was provided to do us good.

       [Exeunt Shepherd and Clown]

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     If I had a mind to be honest, I see fortune would not suffer⁸²⁹ me. She drops booties⁸³⁰ 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.⁸³² If he think it fit to shore them⁸³³ again and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far officious,⁸³⁴ for I am proof against⁸³⁵ that title and what shame else belongs to’t. To him will I present them. There may be matter⁸³⁶ in it.

       Exit

Act 5 Scene 1^5.1

running scene 12

---

       Enter Leontes, Cleomenes, Dion, Paulina [and] Servants

       

CLEOMENES

CLEOMENES     Sir, you have done enough, and have performed

               A saint-like sorrow.² No fault could you make,

               Which you have not redeemed; indeed, paid³ down

               More penitence than done trespass. At the last,

5

5             Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil.

               With them forgive yourself.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Whilst I remember

               Her and her virtues, I cannot forget

               My blemishes in them,⁹ and so still think of

10

10           The wrong I did myself, which was so much

               That heirless it hath made my kingdom and

               Destroyed the sweet’st companion that e’er man

               Bred his hopes out of. True?

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Too true, my lord.

15

15           If, one by one, you wedded all the world,

               Or from the¹⁶ all that are took something good

               To make a perfect woman, she you killed

               Would be unparalleled.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     I think so. Killed?

20

20           She I killed? I did so: but thou strik’st me

               Sorely, to say I did. It is as bitter

               Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,²²

               Say so but seldom.

       

CLEOMENES

CLEOMENES     Not at all, good lady.

25

25           You might have spoken a thousand things that would

               Have done²⁶ the time more benefit and graced

               Your kindness better.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     You are one of those

               Would have him wed again.

30

       

DION

DION     If you would not so,

               You pity not the state, nor the remembrance

               Of his most sovereign name,³² consider little

               What dangers by his highness’ fail of issue³³

               May drop upon his kingdom and devour

35

35           Incertain lookers on.³⁵ What were more holy

               Than to rejoice the former queen is well?³⁶

               What holier than, for royalty’s repair,

               For present comfort and for future good,

               To bless the bed of majesty again

40

40           With a sweet fellow to’t?

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     There is none worthy,

               Respecting⁴² her that’s gone. Besides, the gods

               Will have fulfilled their secret purposes.

               For has not the divine Apollo said?

45

45           Is’t not the tenor⁴⁵ of his oracle,

               That King Leontes shall not have an heir

               Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall

               Is all as monstrous⁴⁸ to our human reason

               As my Antigonus to break his grave

50

50           And come again to me, who, on my life,⁵⁰

               Did perish with the infant. ’Tis your counsel⁵¹

               My lord should to the heavens be contrary,

               Oppose against their wills.— Care not for issue. To Leontes

               The crown will find an heir. Great⁵⁴ Alexander

55

55           Left his to th’worthiest, so his successor

               Was like to be the best.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Good Paulina,

               Who hast the memory of Hermione,

               I know, in honour — O, that ever I

60

60           Had squared me⁶⁰ to thy counsel! Then, even now,

               I might have looked upon my queen’s full⁶¹ eyes,

               Have taken treasure from her lips—

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     And left them

               More rich for what they yielded.

65

65   

LEONTES

LEONTES           Thou speak’st truth.

               No more such wives: therefore, no wife. One⁶⁶ worse,

               And better used, would make her⁶⁷ sainted spirit

               Again possess her corpse, and⁶⁸ on this stage —

               Where we offenders now⁶⁹ — appear soul-vexed,

70

70           And begin, ‘Why⁷⁰ to me?’

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Had she such power,

               She had⁷² just such cause.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     She had, and would incense me

               To murder her I married.

75

75   

PAULINA

PAULINA           I should so.⁷⁵

               Were I the ghost that walked, I’d bid you mark⁷⁶

               Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in’t

               You chose her. Then I’d shriek, that even your ears

               Should rift⁷⁹ to hear me and the words that followed

80

80           Should be ‘Remember mine.⁸⁰’

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Stars, stars,

               And all eyes else⁸² dead coals! Fear thou no wife;

               I’ll have no wife, Paulina.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Will you swear

85

85           Never to marry but by my free leave?⁸⁵

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Never, Paulina, so be blest my spirit!

       

PAULINA

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

       

CLEOMENES

CLEOMENES     You tempt⁸⁸ him over-much.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Unless another,

90

90           As like Hermione as is her picture,

               Affront⁹¹ his eye.

       

CLEOMENES

CLEOMENES     Good madam—

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     I have done.

               Yet, if my lord will marry — if you will, sir,

95

95           No remedy, but you will — give me the office⁹⁵

               To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young

               As was your former, but she shall be such

               As, walked⁹⁸ your first queen’s ghost, it should take joy

               To see her in your arms.

100

100 

LEONTES

LEONTES             My true Paulina,

               We shall not marry till thou bid’st us.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     That

               Shall be when your first queen’s again in breath.

               Never till then.

       Enter a Servant

105

105 

SERVANT

SERVANT             One that gives out himself¹⁰⁵ Prince Florizel,

               Son of Polixenes, with his princess, she

               The fairest I have yet beheld, desires access

               To your high presence.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     What¹⁰⁹ with him? He comes not

110

110         Like to his father’s greatness. His approach,

               So out of circumstance¹¹¹ and sudden, tells us

               ’Tis not a visitation framed,¹¹² but forced

               By need and accident.¹¹³ What train?

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     But few,

115

115         And those but mean.¹¹⁵

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     His princess, say you, with him?

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     Ay, the most peerless¹¹⁷ piece of earth, I think,

               That e’er the sun shone bright on.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     O, Hermione,

120

120         As¹²⁰ every present time doth boast itself

               Above a better gone, so must thy grave

               Give way to what’s seen now! Sir, you yourself To Servant

               Have said and writ so, but your writing now

               Is colder than that theme:¹²⁴ ‘She had not been,

125

125         Nor was not to be equalled.’ Thus your verse

               Flowed with her beauty once; ’tis shrewdly ebbed,¹²⁶

               To say you have seen a better.

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     Pardon, madam.

               The one¹²⁹ I have almost forgot — your pardon —

130

130         The other, when she has obtained your eye,

               Will have your tongue¹³¹ too. This is a creature,

               Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal

               Of all professors else,¹³³ make proselytes

               Of who¹³⁴ she but bid follow.

135

135 

PAULINA

PAULINA             How? Not women?

       

SERVANT

SERVANT     Women will love her that she is a woman

               More worth than any man: men that she is

               The rarest of all women.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Go, Cleomenes.

140

140         Yourself, assisted with your honoured friends,

               Bring them to our embracement.— Still, ’tis strange To Paulina

               He thus should steal upon us.

       [Exeunt Cleomenes and others]

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Had our prince,¹⁴³

               Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had paired

145

145         Well with this lord, there was not full a¹⁴⁵ month

               Between their births.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Prithee no more; cease. Thou know’st

               He dies to me again when talked of. Sure,

               When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches

150

150         Will bring me to consider that which may

               Unfurnish¹⁵¹ me of reason. They are come.

       Enter Cleomenes and others, [with] Florizel and Perdita

               Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince, To Florizel

               For she did print¹⁵³ your royal father off,

               Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,

155

155         Your father’s image is so hit¹⁵⁵ in you,

               His very air, that I should call you brother,

               As I did him, and speak of something wildly

               By us performed before. Most dearly welcome!

               And your fair princess — goddess! — O, alas!

160

160         I lost a couple, that ’twixt heaven and earth

               Might thus have stood begetting¹⁶¹ wonder as

               You, gracious couple, do. And then I lost —

               All mine own folly — the society,¹⁶³

               Amity¹⁶⁴ too, of your brave father, whom,

165

165         Though¹⁶⁵ bearing misery, I desire my life

               Once more to look on him.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     By his command

               Have I here touched¹⁶⁸ Sicilia and from him

               Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,¹⁶⁹

170

170         Can send his brother, and but¹⁷⁰ infirmity,

               Which waits¹⁷¹ upon worn times hath something seized

               His wished ability, he had himself

               The lands and waters ’twixt your throne and his

               Measured¹⁷⁴ to look upon you, whom he loves —

175

175         He bade me say so — more than all the sceptres¹⁷⁵

               And those that bear them living.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     O, my brother —

               Good gentleman! — the wrongs I have done thee stir

               Afresh within me, and these thy offices,¹⁷⁹

180

180         So rarely¹⁸⁰ kind, are as interpreters

               Of my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither,

               As is the spring to th’earth. And hath he too

               Exposed this paragon¹⁸³ to th’fearful usage,

               At least ungentle,¹⁸⁴ of the dreadful Neptune,

185

185         To greet a man not worth her pains,¹⁸⁵ much less

               Th’adventure¹⁸⁶ of her person?

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Good my lord,

               She came from Libya.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Where the warlike Smalus,¹⁸⁹

190

190         That noble honoured lord, is feared and loved?

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Most royal sir, from thence, from him whose daughter

               His tears proclaimed¹⁹² his, parting with her: thence,

               A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have crossed,

               To execute¹⁹⁴ the charge my father gave me

195

195         For visiting your highness. My best train

               I have from your Sicilian shores dismissed,

               Who for Bohemia bend,¹⁹⁷ to signify

               Not only my success in Libya, sir,

               But my arrival and my wife’s in safety

200

200         Here where we are.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     The blessèd gods

               Purge all infection from our air whilst you

               Do climate²⁰³ here! You have a holy father,

               A graceful²⁰⁴ gentleman, against whose person,

205

205         So sacred as it is, I have done sin,

               For which the heavens, taking angry note,

               Have left me issueless.²⁰⁷ And your father’s blest,

               As he from heaven merits it, with you,

               Worthy his²⁰⁹ goodness. What might I have been,

210

210         Might I a son and daughter now have looked on,

               Such goodly things as you.

       Enter a Lord

       

LORD

LORD     Most noble sir,

               That which I shall report will bear no credit,²¹³

               Were not the proof so nigh.²¹⁴ Please you, great sir,

215

215         Bohemia greets you from himself by me.

               Desires you to attach²¹⁶ his son, who has —

               His dignity and duty²¹⁷ both cast off —

               Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with

               A shepherd’s daughter.

220

220 

LEONTES

LEONTES             Where’s Bohemia? Speak.

       

LORD

LORD     Here in your city. I now came from him.

               I speak amazedly,²²² and it becomes

               My marvel and my message. To your court

               Whiles he was hast’ning, in the chase, it seems,

225

225         Of this fair couple, meets he on the way

               The father of this seeming²²⁶ lady and

               Her brother, having both their country quitted

               With this young prince.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Camillo has betrayed me,

230

230         Whose honour and whose honesty till now

               Endured all weathers.

       

LORD

LORD     Lay’t²³² so to his charge:

               He’s with the king your father.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Who? Camillo?

235

235 

LORD

LORD             Camillo, sir. I spake with him, who now

               Has²³⁶ these poor men in question. Never saw I

               Wretches so quake. They kneel, they kiss the earth,

               Forswear themselves²³⁸ as often as they speak.

               Bohemia stops²³⁹ his ears, and threatens them

240

240         With divers²⁴⁰ deaths in death.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     O, my poor father!

               The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have

               Our contract²⁴³ celebrated.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     You are married?

245

245 

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL             We are not, sir, nor are we like to be.

               The stars, I see, will kiss²⁴⁶ the valleys first:

               The²⁴⁷ odds for high and low’s alike.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     My lord,

               Is this the daughter of a king?

250

250 

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL             She is,

               When once she is my wife.

       

LEONTES

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

255

255         Where you were tied in duty, and as sorry

               Your choice is not so rich in worth²⁵⁶ as beauty,

               That you might well enjoy her.

       

FLORIZEL

FLORIZEL     Dear, look up.²⁵⁸ To Perdita

               Though Fortune, visible an enemy,

260

260         Should chase us with my father, power no jot

               Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,

               Remember since²⁶² you owed no more to time

               Than I do now. With thought of such affections,

               Step²⁶⁴ forth mine advocate. At your request

265

265         My father will grant precious things as trifles.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Would he do so, I’d beg your precious mistress,

               Which he counts but a trifle.²⁶⁷

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Sir, my liege,

               Your eye hath too much youth in’t. Not a month

270

270         ’Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes

               Than what you look on now.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     I thought of her,

               Even in these looks I made.— But your petition²⁷³ To Fiorizel

               Is yet unanswered. I will to your father.

275

275         Your²⁷⁵ 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 what²⁷⁸ way I make. Come, good my lord.

       Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 2

running scene 13

---

       Enter Autolycus and a Gentleman

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?¹

       

FIRST GENTLEMAN

FIRST GENTLEMAN     I was by² 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.⁴ Only this, methought I heard the shepherd say, he found the child.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     I would most gladly know the issue⁶ of it.

       

FIRST GENTLEMAN

FIRST GENTLEMAN     I make a broken delivery⁷ of the business; but the changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were very notes of admiration.⁸ They seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases⁹ of their eyes. There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture. They looked as¹⁰ 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 th’importance¹³ were joy or sorrow, but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be.

       Enter another Gentleman

               Here comes a gentleman that happily¹⁵ knows more. The news, Rogero?

       

SECOND GENTLEMAN

SECOND GENTLEMAN     Nothing but bonfires.¹⁶ The oracle is fulfilled. The king’s daughter is found. Such a deal of wonder is broken out within this hour that ballad-makers¹⁷ cannot be able to express it.

       Enter another 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 verity²⁰ of it is in strong suspicion. Has the king found his heir?

       

THIRD GENTLEMAN

THIRD GENTLEMAN     Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance.²² That which you hear you’ll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle²⁴ 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,²⁵ the majesty of the creature in resemblance of the mother, the affection of²⁶ 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

SECOND GENTLEMAN     No.

       

THIRD GENTLEMAN

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 countenance³³ of such distraction³⁴ 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 he³⁷ his daughter with clipping³⁸ 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 lames⁴⁰ report to follow it and undoes description to do it.

       

SECOND GENTLEMAN

SECOND GENTLEMAN     What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child?

       

THIRD GENTLEMAN

THIRD GENTLEMAN     Like an old tale still, which will have matter to rehearse,⁴³ though credit⁴⁴ be asleep and not an ear open: he was torn to pieces with a bear. This avouches⁴⁵ 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

FIRST GENTLEMAN     What became of his bark⁴⁷ and his followers?

       

THIRD GENTLEMAN

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 one⁵¹ 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.⁵⁴

       

FIRST GENTLEMAN

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

       

THIRD GENTLEMAN

THIRD GENTLEMAN     One of the prettiest touches⁵⁷ of all and that which angled for mine eyes, caught the water⁵⁸ 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 attentiveness⁶⁰ wounded his daughter, till, from one sign of dolour⁶¹ to another, she did, with an ‘Alas’, I would fain say, bleed tears, for I am sure my heart wept blood. Who was most marble⁶² there changed colour, some swooned, all sorrowed. If all the world could have seen’t, the woe had been universal.

       

FIRST GENTLEMAN

FIRST GENTLEMAN     Are they returned to the court?

       

THIRD GENTLEMAN

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 performed⁶⁷ by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano,⁶⁸ who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would beguile⁶⁹ nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape.⁷⁰ 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

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 removèd⁷⁵ house. Shall we thither and with our company piece the rejoicing?

       

FIRST GENTLEMAN

FIRST GENTLEMAN     Who would be thence⁷⁶ that has the benefit of access? Every wink of an eye some new grace⁷⁷ will be born. Our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let’s along.

       Exeunt [Gentlemen]

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Now, had I not the dash⁷⁹ of my former life in me, would preferment drop on my head. I brought the⁸⁰ 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 relished⁸⁵ among my other discredits.

       Enter Shepherd and Clown

               Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already appearing in the blossoms⁸⁷ of their fortune.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Come, boy. I am past more children, but thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me this⁹⁰ 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. Give⁹³ me the lie, do, and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.

       

AUTOLYCUS

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

       

CLOWN

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

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     And so have I, boy.

       

CLOWN

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

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

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Ay, or else ’twere hard luck, being in so preposterous¹⁰³ estate as we are.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I have committed to your worship and to give¹⁰⁵ me your good report to the prince my master.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     Prithee, son, do, for we must be gentle,¹⁰⁶ now we are gentlemen.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Thou wilt amend thy life?

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     Ay, an it like your good worship.

       

CLOWN

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

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     You may say it, but not swear it.

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors¹¹² and franklins say it, I’ll swear it.

       

SHEPHERD

SHEPHERD     How if it be false, son?

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     If it be ne’er so false,¹¹⁵ a true gentleman may swear it in the behalf of his friend, and I’ll swear to the prince thou art a tall¹¹⁶ 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 would¹¹⁸ thou wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands.

       

AUTOLYCUS

AUTOLYCUS     I will prove so, sir, to my power.¹²⁰

       

CLOWN

CLOWN     Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow. If I do not wonder how thou dar’st 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.¹²³ Come, follow us. We’ll be thy good masters.

       Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 3

running scene 14

---

       Enter Leontes, Polixenes. Florizel, Perdita, Camillo, Paulina, Lords and Attendants

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     O grave¹ and good Paulina, the great comfort

               That I have had of thee!

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     What,³ sovereign sir,

               I did not well I meant well. All my services

5

5             You have paid home.⁵ But that you have vouchsafed,

               With your crowned brother and these your contracted⁶

               Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,

               It is a surplus of your grace, which⁸ never

               My life may last to answer.

10

10   

LEONTES

LEONTES           O Paulina,

               We honour you with trouble.¹¹ But we came

               To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery¹²

               Have we passed through, not without much content¹³

               In many singularities,¹⁴ but we saw not

15

15           That which my daughter came to look upon,

               The statue of her mother.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     As she lived peerless,

               So her dead likeness, I do well believe,

               Excels whatever yet you looked upon

20

20           Or hand of man hath done: therefore I keep it

               Lonely,²¹ apart. But here it is. Prepare

               To see the life as lively mocked²² as ever

               Still²³ sleep mocked death. Behold, and say ’tis well. Paulina draws a curtain and reveals Hermione standing like a statue

               I like your silence, it the more shows off

25

25           Your wonder. But yet speak. First, you, my liege,

               Comes it not something near?²⁶

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Her natural posture!

               Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed

               Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she

30

30           In thy not chiding, for she was as tender

               As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina,

               Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing

               So agèd as this seems.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     O, not by much.

35

35   

PAULINA

PAULINA           So much the more our carver’s excellence.

               Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her

               As³⁷ she lived now.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     As now she might have done,

               So much to my good comfort, as it is

40

40           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 wooed her!

               I am ashamed. Does not the stone rebuke me

               For being more stone⁴⁴ than it? O royal piece,

45

45           There’s magic in thy majesty, which has

               My evils conjured to remembrance and

               From thy admiring⁴⁷ daughter took the spirits,

               Standing like stone with thee.

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     And give me leave,

50

50           And do not say ’tis superstition,⁵⁰ that

               I kneel and then implore her blessing.— Lady, Kneels before the statue

               Dear queen, that ended when I but began,

               Give me that hand of yours to kiss.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     O, patience! Prevents Perdita from touching

55

55           The statue is but newly fixed;⁵⁵ the colour’s not dry. Perdita stands?

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     My lord, your sorrow was too sore⁵⁶ laid on,

               Which sixteen winters cannot blow away,

               So⁵⁸ many summers dry. Scarce any joy

               Did ever so long live; no sorrow

60

60           But killed itself much sooner.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Dear my brother,

               Let him that was the cause⁶² of this have power

               To take off so much grief from you as he

               Will piece up in⁶⁴ himself.

65

65   

PAULINA

PAULINA           Indeed, my lord,

               If I had thought the sight of my poor image

               Would thus have wrought⁶⁷ you — for the stone is mine —

               I’d not have showed it.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Do not draw the curtain.

70

70   

PAULINA

PAULINA           No longer shall you gaze on’t, lest your fancy⁷⁰

               May think anon it moves.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Let be, let be.

               Would I were dead, but that methinks already —

               What was he that did make it?— See, my lord,

75

75           Would you not deem it breathed? And that those veins

               Did verily⁷⁶ bear blood?

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Masterly done.

               The very life seems warm upon her lip.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     The fixture⁷⁹ of her eye has motion in’t,

80

80           As we are mocked with art.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     I’ll draw the curtain.

               My lord’s almost so far transported⁸² that

               He’ll think anon it lives.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     O, sweet Paulina,

85

85           Make me to think so twenty years together!

               No settled senses⁸⁶ of the world can match

               The pleasure of that madness. Let’t⁸⁷ alone.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirred you, but

               I could afflict you farther.

90

90   

LEONTES

LEONTES           Do, Paulina,

               For this affliction has a taste as sweet

               As any cordial⁹² comfort. Still, methinks

               There is an air⁹³ comes from her. What fine chisel

               Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,

95

95           For I will kiss her.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Good my lord, forbear:

               The ruddiness⁹⁷ upon her lip is wet.

               You’ll mar⁹⁸ it if you kiss it, stain your own

               With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?

100

100 

LEONTES

LEONTES             No, not these twenty years

       

PERDITA

PERDITA     So long could I

               Stand by, a looker-on.

       

PAULINA

PAULINA     Either forbear,¹⁰³

               Quit presently¹⁰⁴ the chapel, or resolve you

105

105         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.¹⁰⁹

110

110 

LEONTES

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

PAULINA     It is required

115

115         You do awake your faith. Then all stand still.

               On:¹¹⁶ those that think it is unlawful business

               I am about, let them depart.

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     Proceed:

               No foot shall stir.

120

120 

PAULINA

PAULINA             Music; awake her: strike!¹²⁰ Music

               ’Tis time: descend: be stone no more: approach: To Hermione

               Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come,

               I’ll fill¹²³ your grave up. Stir. Nay, come away.

               Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him¹²⁴

125

125         Dear life redeems you.— You perceive she stirs.

               Start not. Her actions shall be holy as Hermione comes down

               You hear my spell is lawful. Do not shun her

               Until you see her die again, for¹²⁸ then

               You kill her double. Nay, present your hand:

130

130         When she was young you wooed her, now in age

               Is¹³¹ she become the suitor?

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     O, she’s warm! Touches her

               If this be magic, let it be an art

               Lawful as eating.

135

135 

POLIXENES

POLIXENES             She embraces him.

       

CAMILLO

CAMILLO     She hangs about his neck.

               If she pertain to life¹³⁷ let her speak too.

       

POLIXENES

POLIXENES     Ay, and make it manifest¹³⁸ where she has lived,

               Or how stol’n from the dead.

140

140 

PAULINA

PAULINA             That she is living,

               Were it but told you, should be hooted¹⁴¹ 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 To Perdita

145

145         And pray your mother’s blessing.— Turn, good lady, To Hermione

               Our Perdita is found.

       

HERMIONE

HERMIONE     You gods, look down

               And from your sacred vials pour your graces

               Upon my daughter’s head!— Tell me, mine own.

150

150         Where hast thou been preserved?¹⁵⁰ 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,¹⁵³ have preserved

               Myself to see the issue.¹⁵⁴

155

155 

PAULINA

PAULINA             There’s time enough for that,

               Lest they¹⁵⁶ desire upon this push to trouble

               Your joys with like relation. Go together,

               You precious winners all. Your exultation

               Partake¹⁵⁹ to every one. I, an old turtle,

160

160         Will wing me to some withered bough and there

               My mate,¹⁶¹ that’s never to be found again,

               Lament till I am lost.¹⁶²

       

LEONTES

LEONTES     O, peace, Paulina!

               Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,

165

165         As I by thine a wife. This is a match,¹⁶⁵

               And made between’s¹⁶⁶ by vows. Thou hast found mine —

               But how, is to be questioned, for I saw her,

               As I thought, dead, and have in vain said many

               A prayer upon her grave. I’ll not seek far —

170

170         For¹⁷⁰ 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 justified¹⁷³

               By us, a pair of kings.— Let’s from this place.—

175

175         What? Look upon my brother.— Both your pardons, To Hermione, then also Polixenes

               That e’er I put between your holy looks

               My ill suspicion. This your son-in-law,

               And son unto the king, whom, heavens directing,

               Is troth-plight¹⁷⁹ to your daughter.— Good Paulina,

180

180         Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely

               Each one demand,¹⁸¹ and answer to his part

               Performed in this wide gap of time since first

               We were dissevered.¹⁸³ Hastily, lead away.

       Exeunt

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

F includes list of parts (“The Names of the Actors”) at end of text

1.2.3 burden spelled Burthen in F 126 And = F2. F = A 188 do = Ed. F = do’s 241 they say = F2. F = say 318 hobby-horse = Ed. F = Holy-Horse

2.1.6 SH FIRST LADY = Ed. F = Lady

2.3.45 What = F2. F = Who

3.2.10 Silence = Ed. F prints as a stage direction

3.3.69 bairn spelled barne in F 103 made = Ed. F = mad

4.3.1 SH AUTOLYCUS = Ed. Not in F 32 counters spelled Compters in F 46 offends = F2. F = offend

4.4.13 Digest it = F2. F = Digest 14 swoon = Ed. F = sworne 113 your = F2. F = you 184 out = Ed. F = on’t

4.4.234 SH AUTOLYCUS = Ed. Not in F 254 kiln spelled kill in F 336 square spelled squire in F 437 acknowledged = F2. F = acknowledge 441 who = F2. F = whom 447 shalt see = Ed. F = shalt neuer see 458 hoop = Ed. F = hope 528 whom = F2. F = who 681 flayed spelled fled in F 761 or = F2. F = at

5.1.93 SH PAULINA = Ed. Assigned to Cleomenes in F

5.3.21 lonely = Ed. F = Louely

This engraving, the frontispiece to Francis Kirkman’s The Wits (1672–73), depicts a number of famous dramatic characters, with Sir John Falstaff and the Hostess in the foreground, but it is most interesting for showing what a curtained “discovery space” at the back of the stage may have looked like: Hermione posed as the statue would have been revealed when Paulina drew the curtain. The space would also have been used when Prospero “discovers” Miranda and Ferdinand playing chess at the climax of The Tempest.