The Winter’s Tale

By William Shakespeare

Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine

  with Michael Poston and Rebecca Niles

Folger Shakespeare Library

https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/the-winters-tale/

Created on Apr 23, 2016, from FDT version 0.9.2.2.

Characters in the Play

LEONTES, King of Sicilia

HERMIONE, Queen of Sicilia

MAMILLIUS, their son

PERDITA, their daughter

POLIXENES, King of Bohemia

FLORIZELL, his son

CAMILLO, a courtier, friend to Leontes and then to Polixenes

ANTIGONUS, a Sicilian courtier

PAULINA, his wife and lady-in-waiting to Hermione

Courtiers in Sicilia:

        CLEOMENES

        DION

EMILIA, a lady-in-waiting to Hermione

SHEPHERD, foster father to Perdita

SHEPHERD’S SON

AUTOLYCUS, former servant to Florizell, now a rogue

ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian courtier

TIME, as Chorus

TWO LADIES attending on Hermione

LORDS, SERVANTS, and GENTLEMEN attending on Leontes

An OFFICER of the court

A MARINER

A JAILER

Shepherdesses in Bohemia:

        MOPSA

        DORCAS

SERVANT to the Shepherd

SHEPHERDS and SHEPHERDESSES

Twelve COUNTRYMEN disguised as satyrs

ACT 1

Scene 1

Enter Camillo and Archidamus.

ARCHIDAMUS  If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia

on the like occasion whereon my services

are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great

difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.

CAMILLO  I think this coming summer the King of                                    5

Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which

he justly owes him.

ARCHIDAMUS  Wherein our entertainment shall shame

us; we will be justified in our loves. For indeed—

CAMILLO  Beseech you—                                                                             10

ARCHIDAMUS  Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my

knowledge. We cannot with such magnificence—in

so rare—I know not what to say. We will give you

sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our

insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as                         15

little accuse us.

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

freely.

ARCHIDAMUS  Believe me, I speak as my understanding

instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to                                          20

utterance.

CAMILLO  Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia.

They were trained together in their childhoods,

and there rooted betwixt them then such an

affection which cannot choose but branch now.                                25

Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities

made separation of their society, their encounters,

though not personal, hath been royally

attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving

embassies, that they have seemed to be together                               30

though absent, shook hands as over a vast, and

embraced as it were from the ends of opposed

winds. The heavens continue their loves.

ARCHIDAMUS  I think there is not in the world either

malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable                      35

comfort of your young Prince Mamillius. It is a

gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came

into my note.

CAMILLO  I very well agree with you in the hopes of

him. It is a gallant child—one that indeed physics                              40

the subject, makes old hearts fresh. They that went

on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to

see him a man.

ARCHIDAMUS  Would they else be content to die?

CAMILLO  Yes, if there were no other excuse why they                          45

should desire to live.

ARCHIDAMUS  If the King had no son, they would desire

to live on crutches till he had one.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Leontes, Hermione, Mamillius, Polixenes, Camillo,
and Attendants.

POLIXENES

Nine changes of the wat’ry star hath been

The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne

Without a burden. Time as long again

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

And yet we should for perpetuity                                                                 5

Go hence in debt. And therefore, like a cipher,

Yet standing in rich place, I multiply

With one “We thank you” many thousands more

That go before it.

LEONTES  Stay your thanks awhile,                                                            10

And pay them when you part.

POLIXENES  Sir, that’s tomorrow.

I am questioned by my fears of what may chance

Or breed upon our absence, that may blow

No sneaping winds at home to make us say                                            15

“This is put forth too truly.” Besides, I have stayed

To tire your Royalty.

LEONTES  We are tougher, brother,

Than you can put us to ’t.

POLIXENES  No longer stay.                                                                          20

LEONTES

One sev’nnight longer.

POLIXENES  Very sooth, tomorrow.

LEONTES

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

I’ll no gainsaying.

POLIXENES  Press me not, beseech you, so.                                               25

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 needful I denied it. My affairs                                                      30

Do even drag me homeward, which to hinder

Were in your love a whip to me, my stay

To you a charge and trouble. To save both,

Farewell, our brother.

LEONTES  Tongue-tied, our queen?                                                             35

Speak you.

HERMIONE

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

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

Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure

All in Bohemia’s well. This satisfaction                                                    40

The bygone day proclaimed. Say this to him,

He’s beat from his best ward.

LEONTES  Well said, Hermione.

HERMIONE

To tell he longs to see his son were strong.

But let him say so then, and let him go.                                                    45

But let him swear so and he shall not stay;

We’ll thwack him hence with distaffs.

To Polixenes. Yet of your royal presence I’ll

adventure

The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia                                               50

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

To let him there a month behind the gest

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

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

What lady she her lord.—You’ll stay?                                                      55

POLIXENES  No, madam.

HERMIONE

Nay, but you will?

POLIXENES  I may not, verily.

HERMIONE  Verily?

You put me off with limber vows. But I,                                                  60

Though you would seek t’ unsphere the stars with

oaths,

Should yet say “Sir, no going.” Verily,

You shall not go. A lady’s “verily” is

As potent as a lord’s. Will you go yet?                                                      65

Force me to keep you as a prisoner,

Not like a guest, so you shall pay your fees

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

My prisoner or my guest? By your dread “verily,”

One of them you shall be.                                                                           70

POLIXENES  Your guest, then, madam.

To be your prisoner should import offending,

Which is for me less easy to commit

Than you to punish.

HERMIONE  Not your jailer, then,                                                                75

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

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

You were pretty lordings then?

POLIXENES  We were, fair queen,

Two lads that thought there was no more behind                                   80

But such a day tomorrow as today,

And to be boy eternal.

HERMIONE  Was not my lord

The verier wag o’ th’ two?

POLIXENES

We were as twinned lambs that did frisk i’ th’ sun                                 85

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

Was innocence for innocence. We knew not

The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed

That any did. Had we pursued that life,

And our weak spirits ne’er been higher reared                                         90

With stronger blood, we should have answered

heaven

Boldly “Not guilty,” the imposition cleared

Hereditary ours.

HERMIONE  By this we gather                                                                      95

You have tripped since.

POLIXENES  O my most sacred lady,

Temptations have since then been born to ’s, for

In those unfledged days was my wife a girl;

Your precious self had then not crossed the eyes                                 100

Of my young playfellow.

HERMIONE  Grace to boot!

Of this make no conclusion, lest you say

Your queen and I are devils. Yet go on.

Th’ offenses we have made you do we’ll answer,                                105

If you first sinned with us, and that with us

You did continue fault, and that you slipped not

With any but with us.

LEONTES  Is he won yet?

HERMIONE

He’ll stay, my lord.                                                                                     110

LEONTES  At my request he would not.

Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok’st

To better purpose.

HERMIONE  Never?

LEONTES  Never but once.                                                                          115

HERMIONE

What, have I twice said well? When was ’t before?

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

As fat as tame things. One good deed dying

tongueless

Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.                                              120

Our praises are our wages. You may ride ’s

With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere

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

My last good deed was to entreat his stay.

What was my first? It has an elder sister,                                               125

Or I mistake you. O, would her name were Grace!

But once before I spoke to th’ purpose? When?

Nay, let me have ’t; I long.

LEONTES  Why, that was when

Three crabbèd months had soured themselves to                                130

death

Ere I could make thee open thy white hand

And clap thyself my love; then didst thou utter

“I am yours forever.”

HERMIONE  ’Tis grace indeed.                                                                   135

Why, lo you now, I have spoke to th’ purpose twice.

The one forever earned a royal husband,

Th’ other for some while a friend.

She gives Polixenes her hand.

LEONTES, aside  Too hot, too hot!

To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.                                          140

I have tremor cordis on me. My heart dances,

But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment

May a free face put on, derive a liberty

From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,

And well become the agent. ’T may, I grant.                                        145

But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,

As now they are, and making practiced smiles

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

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

My bosom likes not, nor my brows.—Mamillius,                                 150

Art thou my boy?

MAMILLIUS  Ay, my good lord.

LEONTES  I’ fecks!

Why, that’s my bawcock. What, hast smutched thy

nose?                                                                                                          155

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

We must be neat—not neat, but cleanly, captain.

And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf

Are all called neat.—Still virginalling

Upon his palm?—How now, you wanton calf?                                    160

Art thou my calf?

MAMILLIUS  Yes, if you will, my lord.

LEONTES

Thou want’st a rough pash and the shoots that I

have

To be full like me; yet they say we are                                                   165

Almost as like as eggs. Women say so,

That will say anything. But were they false

As o’erdyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false

As dice are to be wished by one that fixes

No bourn ’twixt his and mine, yet were it true                                       170

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

Look on me with your welkin eye. Sweet villain,

Most dear’st, my collop! Can thy dam?—may ’t

be?—

Affection, thy intention stabs the center.                                               175

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 may’st co-join with something; and thou dost,                          180

And that beyond commission, and I find it,

And that to the infection of my brains

And hard’ning of my brows.

POLIXENES  What means Sicilia?

HERMIONE

He something seems unsettled.                                                                185

POLIXENES  How, my lord?

LEONTES

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

HERMIONE  You look

As if you held a brow of much distraction.

Are you moved, my lord?                                                                         190

LEONTES  No, in good earnest.

How sometimes nature will betray its folly,

Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime

To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines

Of my boy’s face, methoughts I did recoil                                            195

Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreeched,

In my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled

Lest it should bite its master and so prove,

As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.

How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,                                    200

This squash, this gentleman.—Mine honest friend,

Will you take eggs for money?

MAMILLIUS  No, my lord, I’ll fight.

LEONTES

You will? Why, happy man be ’s dole!—My brother,

Are you so fond of your young prince as we                                         205

Do seem to be of ours?

POLIXENES  If at home, sir,

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

Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy,

My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.                                                 210

He makes a July’s day short as December,

And with his varying childness cures in me

Thoughts that would thick my blood.

LEONTES  So stands this

squire                                                                                                         215

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

And leave you to your graver steps.—Hermione,

How thou lov’st us show in our brother’s welcome.

Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap.

Next to thyself and my young rover, he’s                                              220

Apparent to my heart.

HERMIONE  If you would seek us,

We are yours i’ th’ garden. Shall ’s attend you there?

LEONTES

To your own bents dispose you. You’ll be found,

Be you beneath the sky. Aside. I am angling now,                              225

Though you perceive me not how I give line.

Go to, go to!

How she holds up the neb, the bill to him,

And arms her with the boldness of a wife

To her allowing husband!                                                                          230

Exit Hermione, Polixenes, and Attendants.

Gone already.

Inch thick, knee-deep, o’er head and ears a forked

one!—

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

Play too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue                                       235

Will hiss me to my grave. Contempt and clamor

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

been,

Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now;

And many a man there is, even at this present,                                    240

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

That little thinks she has been sluiced in ’s absence,

And his pond fished by his next neighbor, by

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

Whiles other men have gates and those gates                                       245

opened,

As mine, against their will. Should all despair

That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind

Would hang themselves. Physic for ’t there’s none.

It is a bawdy planet, that will strike                                                         250

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

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

No barricado for a belly. Know ’t,

It will let in and out the enemy

With bag and baggage. Many thousand on ’s                                      255

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

MAMILLIUS

I am like you, they say.

LEONTES  Why, that’s some comfort.—

What, Camillo there?

CAMILLO, coming forward  Ay, my good lord.                                      260

LEONTES

Go play, Mamillius. Thou ’rt an honest man.

Mamillius exits.

Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.

CAMILLO

You had much ado to make his anchor hold.

When you cast out, it still came home.

LEONTES  Didst note it?                                                                               265

CAMILLO

He would not stay at your petitions, made

His business more material.

LEONTES  Didst perceive it?

Aside. They’re here with me already, whisp’ring,

rounding:                                                                                                   270

“Sicilia is a so-forth.” ’Tis far gone

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

That he did stay?

CAMILLO  At the good queen’s entreaty.

LEONTES

“At the queen’s” be ’t. “Good” should be pertinent,                            275

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

By any understanding pate but thine?

For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in

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

But of the finer natures, by some severals                                             280

Of headpiece extraordinary? Lower messes

Perchance are to this business purblind? Say.

CAMILLO

Business, my lord? I think most understand

Bohemia stays here longer.

LEONTES

Ha?                                                                                                                    285

CAMILLO  Stays here longer.

LEONTES  Ay, but why?

CAMILLO

To satisfy your Highness and the entreaties

Of our most gracious mistress.

LEONTES  Satisfy?                                                                                        290

Th’ entreaties of your mistress? Satisfy?

Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,

With all the nearest things to my heart, as well

My chamber-counsels, wherein, priestlike, thou

Hast cleansed my bosom; I from thee departed                                  295

Thy penitent reformed. But we have been

Deceived in thy integrity, deceived

In that which seems so.

CAMILLO  Be it forbid, my lord!

LEONTES

To bide upon ’t: thou art not honest; or,                                                300

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

Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining

From course required; or else thou must be

counted

A servant grafted in my serious trust                                                      305

And therein negligent; or else a fool

That seest a game played home, the rich stake

drawn,

And tak’st it all for jest.

CAMILLO  My gracious lord,                                                                      310

I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful.

In every one of these no man is free,

But that his negligence, his folly, fear,

Among the infinite doings of the world,

Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,                                     315

If ever I were willful-negligent,

It was my folly; if industriously

I played the fool, it was my negligence,

Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful

To do a thing where I the issue doubted,                                                320

Whereof 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

Is never free of. But, beseech your Grace,                                             325

Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass

By its own visage. If I then deny it,

’Tis none of mine.

LEONTES  Ha’ not you seen, Camillo—

But that’s past doubt; you have, or your eyeglass                               330

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

For to a vision so apparent, rumor

Cannot be mute—or thought—for cogitation

Resides not in that man that does not think—

My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess—                                            335

Or else be impudently negative

To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought—then say

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

As rank as any flax-wench that puts to

Before her troth-plight. Say ’t, and justify ’t.                                        340

CAMILLO

I would not be a stander-by to hear

My sovereign mistress clouded so without

My present vengeance taken. ’Shrew my heart,

You never spoke what did become you less

Than this, which to reiterate were sin                                                      345

As deep as that, though true.

LEONTES  Is whispering nothing?

Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?

Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career

Of laughter with a sigh?—a note infallible                                             350

Of breaking honesty. Horsing foot on foot?

Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift?

Hours minutes? Noon midnight? And all eyes

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

That would unseen be wicked? Is this nothing?                                    355

Why, then the world and all that’s in ’t is nothing,

The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing,

My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings,

If this be nothing.

CAMILLO  Good my lord, be cured                                                           360

Of this diseased opinion, and betimes,

For ’tis most dangerous.

LEONTES  Say it be, ’tis true.

CAMILLO

No, no, my lord.

LEONTES  It is. You lie, you lie.                                                                  365

I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee,

Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,

Or else a hovering temporizer that

Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,

Inclining to them both. Were my wife’s liver                                         370

Infected as her life, she would not live

The running of one glass.

CAMILLO  Who does infect her?

LEONTES

Why, he that wears her like her medal, hanging

About his neck—Bohemia, who, if I                                                      375

Had servants true about me, that bare eyes

To see alike mine honor as their profits,

Their own particular thrifts, they would do that

Which should undo more doing. Ay, and thou,

His cupbearer—whom I from meaner form                                         380

Have benched and reared to worship, who mayst see

Plainly as heaven sees Earth and Earth sees heaven

How I am galled—mightst bespice a cup

To give mine enemy a lasting wink,

Which draft to me were cordial.                                                               385

CAMILLO  Sir, my lord,

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

But with a ling’ring dram that should not work

Maliciously like poison. But I cannot

Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress,                                       390

So sovereignly being honorable. I have loved thee—

LEONTES  Make that thy question, and go rot!

Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled,

To appoint myself in this vexation, sully

The purity and whiteness of my sheets—                                              395

Which to preserve is sleep, which being spotted

Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps—

Give scandal to the blood o’ th’ Prince, my son,

Who I do think is mine and love as mine,

Without ripe moving to ’t? Would I do this?                                         400

Could man so blench?

CAMILLO  I must believe you, sir.

I do, and will fetch off Bohemia for ’t—

Provided that, when he’s removed, your Highness

Will take again your queen as yours at first,                                         405

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

The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms

Known and allied to yours.

LEONTES  Thou dost advise me

Even so as I mine own course have set down.                                      410

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

CAMILLO  My lord,

Go then, and with a countenance as clear

As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia

And with your queen. I am his cupbearer.                                             415

If from me he have wholesome beverage,

Account me not your servant.

LEONTES  This is all.

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

Do ’t not, thou splitt’st thine own.                                                           420

CAMILLO  I’ll do ’t, my lord.

LEONTES

I will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me.

He exits.

CAMILLO

O miserable lady! But, for me,

What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner

Of good Polixenes, and my ground to do ’t                                           425

Is the obedience to a master, one

Who in rebellion with himself will have

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

Promotion follows. If I could find example

Of thousands that had struck anointed kings                                       430

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

Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment bears not one,

Let villainy itself forswear ’t. I must

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

To me a breakneck. Happy star reign now!                                          435

Here comes Bohemia.

Enter Polixenes.

POLIXENES, aside  This is strange. Methinks

My favor here begins to warp. Not speak?—

Good day, Camillo.

CAMILLO  Hail, most royal sir.                                                                   440

POLIXENES

What is the news i’ th’ court?

CAMILLO  None rare, my lord.

POLIXENES

The King hath on him such a countenance

As he had lost some province and a region

Loved as he loves himself. Even now I met him                                  445

With customary compliment, when he,

Wafting his eyes to th’ contrary and falling

A lip of much contempt, speeds from me, and

So leaves me to consider what is breeding

That changes thus his manners.                                                               450

CAMILLO  I dare not know, my

lord.

POLIXENES

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

Be intelligent to me—’tis thereabouts;

For to yourself what you do know, you must,                                      455

And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,

Your changed complexions are to me a mirror

Which shows me mine changed too, for I must be

A party in this alteration, finding

Myself thus altered with ’t.                                                                       460

CAMILLO  There is a sickness

Which puts some of us in distemper, but

I cannot name the disease, and it is caught

Of you that yet are well.

POLIXENES  How caught of me?                                                               465

Make me not sighted like the basilisk.

I have looked on thousands who have sped the

better

By my regard, but killed none so. Camillo,

As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto                                             470

Clerklike experienced, which no less adorns

Our gentry than our parents’ noble names,

In whose success we are gentle, I beseech you,

If you know aught which does behoove my

knowledge                                                                                                 475

Thereof to be informed, imprison ’t not

In ignorant concealment.

CAMILLO  I may not answer.

POLIXENES

A sickness caught of me, and yet I well?

I must be answered. Dost thou hear, Camillo?                                     480

I conjure thee by all the parts of man

Which honor does acknowledge, whereof the least

Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare

What incidency thou dost guess of harm

Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near;                                     485

Which way to be prevented, if to be;

If not, how best to bear it.

CAMILLO  Sir, I will tell you,

Since I am charged in honor and by him

That I think honorable. Therefore mark my counsel,                         490

Which must be e’en as swiftly followed as

I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me

Cry lost, and so goodnight.

POLIXENES  On, good Camillo.

CAMILLO

I am appointed him to murder you.                                                        495

POLIXENES

By whom, Camillo?

CAMILLO  By the King.

POLIXENES  For what?

CAMILLO

He thinks, nay with all confidence he swears,

As he had seen ’t or been an instrument                                                500

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

Forbiddenly.

POLIXENES  O, then my best blood turn

To an infected jelly, and my name

Be yoked with his that did betray the Best!                                           505

Turn then my freshest reputation to

A savor 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.                                                                     510

CAMILLO  Swear his thought over

By each particular star in heaven and

By all their influences, you may as well

Forbid the sea for to obey the moon

As or by oath remove or counsel shake                                                 515

The fabric of his folly, whose foundation

Is piled upon his faith and will continue

The standing of his body.

POLIXENES  How should this grow?

CAMILLO

I know not. But I am sure ’tis safer to                                                    520

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

If therefore you dare trust my honesty,

That lies enclosèd in this trunk which you

Shall bear along impawned, away tonight!

Your followers I will whisper to the business,                                        525

And will by twos and threes at several posterns

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

My fortunes to your service, which are here

By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain,

For, by the honor of my parents, I                                                          530

Have uttered truth—which if you seek to prove,

I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer

Than one condemned by the King’s own mouth,

thereon

His execution sworn.                                                                                  535

POLIXENES  I do believe thee.

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

Be pilot to me and thy places shall

Still neighbor mine. My ships are ready and

My people did expect my hence departure                                           540

Two days ago. This jealousy

Is for a precious creature. As she’s rare,

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

Must it be violent; and as he does conceive

He is dishonored by a man which ever                                                   545

Professed to him, why, his revenges must

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

Good expedition be my friend, and comfort

The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing

Of his ill-ta’en suspicion. Come, Camillo,                                              550

I will respect thee as a father if

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

CAMILLO

It is in mine authority to command

The keys of all the posterns. Please your Highness

To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.                                             555

They exit.

scene

ACT 2

Scene 1

Enter Hermione, Mamillius, and Ladies.

HERMIONE

Take the boy to you. He so troubles me

’Tis past enduring.

FIRST LADY  Come, my gracious lord,

Shall I be your playfellow?

MAMILLIUS

No, I’ll none of you.                                                                                        5

FIRST LADY  Why, my sweet lord?

MAMILLIUS

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

I were a baby still.—I love you better.

SECOND LADY

And why so, my lord?

MAMILLIUS  Not for because                                                                      10

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

Become some women best, so that there be not

Too much hair there, but in a semicircle,

Or a half-moon made with a pen.

SECOND LADY  Who taught this?                                                                15

MAMILLIUS

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

What color are your eyebrows?

FIRST LADY  Blue, my lord.

MAMILLIUS

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

That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.                                               20

FIRST LADY  Hark ye,

The Queen your mother rounds apace. We shall

Present our services to a fine new prince

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

If we would have you.                                                                                 25

SECOND LADY  She is spread of late

Into a goodly bulk. Good time encounter her!

HERMIONE

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

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

And tell ’s a tale.                                                                                            30

MAMILLIUS  Merry or sad shall ’t be?

HERMIONE  As merry as you will.

MAMILLIUS

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

Of sprites and goblins.

HERMIONE  Let’s have that, good sir.                                                        35

Come on, sit down. Come on, and do your best

To fright me with your sprites. You’re powerful at it.

MAMILLIUS

There was a man—

HERMIONE  Nay, come sit down, then on.

MAMILLIUS

Dwelt by a churchyard. I will tell it softly,                                                40

Yond crickets shall not hear it.

HERMIONE

Come on then, and give ’t me in mine ear.

They talk privately.

Enter Leontes, Antigonus, and Lords.

LEONTES

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

LORD

Behind the tuft of pines I met them. Never

Saw I men scour so on their way. I eyed them                                        45

Even to their ships.

LEONTES  How blest am I

In my just censure, in my true opinion!

Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accursed

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

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

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

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

Camillo was his help in this, his pander.

There is a plot against my life, my crown.

All’s true that is mistrusted. That false villain

Whom I employed was pre-employed by him.                                       60

He has discovered my design, and I

Remain a pinched thing, yea, a very trick

For them to play at will. How came the posterns

So easily open?

LORD  By his great authority,                                                                        65

Which often hath no less prevailed than so

On your command.

LEONTES  I know ’t too well.

To Hermione. Give me the boy. I am glad you did

not nurse him.                                                                                             70

Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you

Have too much blood in him.

HERMIONE  What is this? Sport?

LEONTES, to the Ladies

Bear the boy hence. He shall not come about her.

Away with him, and let her sport herself                                                  75

With that she’s big with, (to Hermione) for ’tis

Polixenes

Has made thee swell thus.

A Lady exits with Mamillius.

HERMIONE  But I’d say he had not,

And I’ll be sworn you would believe my saying,                                     80

Howe’er you lean to th’ nayward.

LEONTES  You, my lords,

Look on her, mark her well. Be but about

To say “She is a goodly lady,” and

The justice of your hearts will thereto add                                               85

“’Tis pity she’s not honest, honorable.”

Praise her but for this her without-door form,

Which on my faith deserves high speech, and

straight

The shrug, the “hum,” or “ha,” these petty brands                                 90

That calumny doth use—O, I am out,

That mercy does, for calumny will sear

Virtue itself—these shrugs, these “hum”s and “ha”s,

When you have said she’s goodly, come between

Ere you can say she’s honest. But be ’t known,                                      95

From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,

She’s an adult’ress.

HERMIONE  Should a villain say so,

The most replenished villain in the world,

He were as much more villain. You, my lord,                                       100

Do but mistake.

LEONTES  You have mistook, my lady,

Polixenes for Leontes. O thou thing,

Which I’ll not call a creature of thy place

Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,                                            105

Should a like language use to all degrees,

And mannerly distinguishment leave out

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                                                       110

A federary with her, and one that knows

What she should shame to know herself

But with her most vile principal: that she’s

A bed-swerver, even as bad as those

That vulgars give bold’st titles; ay, and privy                                       115

To this their late escape.

HERMIONE  No, by my life,

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

When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that

You thus have published me! Gentle my lord,                                      120

You scarce can right me throughly then to say

You did mistake.

LEONTES  No. If I mistake

In those foundations which I build upon,

The center is not big enough to bear                                                       125

A schoolboy’s top.—Away with her to prison.

He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty

But that he speaks.

HERMIONE  There’s some ill planet reigns.

I must be patient till the heavens look                                                    130

With an aspect more favorable. Good my lords,

I am not prone to weeping, as our sex

Commonly are, the want of which vain dew

Perchance shall dry your pities. But I have

That honorable grief lodged here which burns                                      135

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

With thoughts so qualified as your charities

Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so

The King’s will be performed.

LEONTES  Shall I be heard?                                                                        140

HERMIONE

Who is ’t that goes with me? Beseech your Highness

My women may be with me, for you see

My plight requires it.—Do not weep, good fools;

There is no cause. When you shall know your

mistress                                                                                                      145

Has deserved prison, then abound in tears

As I come out. This action I now go on

Is for my better grace.—Adieu, my lord.

I never wished to see you sorry; now

I trust I shall.—My women, come; you have leave.                            150

LEONTES  Go, do our bidding. Hence!

Hermione exits, under guard, with her Ladies.

LORD

Beseech your Highness, call the Queen again.

ANTIGONUS

Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice

Prove violence, in the which three great ones suffer:

Yourself, your queen, your son.                                                               155

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

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

In this which you accuse her.                                                                   160

ANTIGONUS  If it prove

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

I lodge my wife. I’ll go in couples with her;

Than when I feel and see her, no farther trust her.

For every inch of woman in the world,                                                   165

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

If she be.

LEONTES  Hold your peaces.

LORD  Good my lord—

ANTIGONUS

It is for you we speak, not for ourselves.                                                170

You are abused, and by some putter-on

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

villain!

I would land-damn him. Be she honor-flawed,

I have three daughters—the eldest is eleven;                                        175

The second and the third, nine and some five;

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

I’ll geld ’em all; fourteen they shall not see

To bring false generations. They are co-heirs,

And I had rather glib myself than they                                                  180

Should not produce fair issue.

LEONTES  Cease. No more.

You smell this business with a sense as cold

As is a dead man’s nose. But I do see ’t and feel ’t,

As you feel doing thus, and see withal                                                    185

The instruments that feel.

ANTIGONUS  If it be so,

We need no grave to bury honesty.

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

Of the whole dungy Earth.                                                                        190

LEONTES  What? Lack I credit?

LORD

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

Upon this ground. And more it would content me

To have her honor true than your suspicion,

Be blamed for ’t how you might.                                                             195

LEONTES  Why, what need we

Commune with you of this, but rather follow

Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative

Calls not your counsels, but our natural goodness

Imparts this, which if you—or stupefied                                                200

Or seeming so in skill—cannot or will not

Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves

We need no more of your advice. The matter,

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

Properly ours.                                                                                               205

ANTIGONUS  And I wish, my liege,

You had only in your silent judgment tried it,

Without more overture.

LEONTES  How could that be?

Either thou art most ignorant by age,                                                     210

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

Added to their familiarity—

Which was as gross as ever touched conjecture,

That lacked sight only, naught for approbation

But only seeing, all other circumstances                                                215

Made up to th’ deed—doth push on this

proceeding.

Yet, for a greater confirmation—

For in an act of this importance ’twere

Most piteous to be wild—I have dispatched in post                            220

To sacred Delphos, to Apollo’s temple,

Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know

Of stuffed sufficiency. Now from the oracle

They will bring all, whose spiritual counsel had

Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well?                                               225

LORD  Well done,

my lord.

LEONTES

Though I am satisfied and need no more

Than what I know, yet shall the oracle

Give rest to th’ minds of others, such as he                                           230

Whose ignorant credulity will not

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

From our free person she should be confined,

Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence

Be left her to perform. Come, follow us.                                                235

We are to speak in public, for this business

Will raise us all.

ANTIGONUS, aside  To laughter, as I take it,

If the good truth were known.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Paulina, a Gentleman, and Paulina’s Attendants.

PAULINA, to Gentleman

The keeper of the prison, call to him.

Let him have knowledge who I am.

Gentleman exits.

Good lady,

No court in Europe is too good for thee.

What dost thou then in prison?                                                                     5

Enter Jailer, with the Gentleman.

Now, good sir,

You know me, do you not?

JAILER  For a worthy lady

And one who much I honor.

PAULINA  Pray you then,                                                                               10

Conduct me to the Queen.

JAILER  I may not, madam.

To the contrary I have express commandment.

PAULINA

Here’s ado, to lock up honesty and honor from

Th’ access of gentle visitors. Is ’t lawful, pray you,                                15

To see her women? Any of them? Emilia?

JAILER  So please you, madam,

To put apart these your attendants, I

Shall bring Emilia forth.

PAULINA  I pray now, call her.—                                                                 20

Withdraw yourselves.

Attendants and Gentleman exit.

JAILER

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

PAULINA  Well, be ’t so, prithee.                                                   Jailer exits.

Here’s such ado to make no stain a stain

As passes coloring.                                                                                        25

Enter Emilia with Jailer.

Dear gentlewoman,

How fares our gracious lady?

EMILIA

As well as one so great and so forlorn

May hold together. On her frights and griefs,

Which never tender lady hath borne greater,                                           30

She is something before her time delivered.

PAULINA

A boy?

EMILIA  A daughter, and a goodly babe,

Lusty and like to live. The Queen receives

Much comfort in ’t, says “My poor prisoner,                                          35

I am innocent as you.”

PAULINA  I dare be sworn.

These dangerous unsafe lunes i’ th’ King, beshrew

them!

He must be told on ’t, and he shall. The office                                       40

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

If I prove honey-mouthed, let my tongue blister

And never to my red-looked anger be

The trumpet anymore. Pray you, Emilia,

Commend my best obedience to the Queen.                                           45

If she dares trust me with her little babe,

I’ll show ’t the King and undertake to be

Her advocate to th’ loud’st We do not know

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

The silence often of pure innocence                                                          50

Persuades when speaking fails.

EMILIA  Most worthy madam,

Your honor and your goodness is so evident

That your free undertaking cannot miss

A thriving issue. There is no lady living                                                     55

So meet for this great errand. Please your Ladyship

To visit the next room, I’ll presently

Acquaint the Queen of your most noble offer,

Who but today hammered of this design,

But durst not tempt a minister of honor                                                   60

Lest she should be denied.

PAULINA  Tell her, Emilia,

I’ll use that tongue I have. If wit flow from ’t

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

I shall do good.                                                                                              65

EMILIA  Now be you blest for it!

I’ll to the Queen. Please you come something

nearer.

JAILER, to Paulina

Madam, if ’t please the Queen to send the babe,

I know not what I shall incur to pass it,                                                    70

Having no warrant.

PAULINA  You need not fear it, sir.

This child was prisoner to the womb, and is

By law and process of great nature thence

Freed and enfranchised, not a party to                                                     75

The anger of the King, nor guilty of,

If any be, the trespass of the Queen.

JAILER  I do believe it.

PAULINA

Do not you fear. Upon mine honor, I

Will stand betwixt you and danger.                                                           80

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Leontes.

LEONTES

Nor night nor day no rest. It is but weakness

To bear the matter thus, mere weakness. If

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

She th’ adult’ress, for the harlot king

Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank                                               5

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

I can hook to me. Say that she were gone,

Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest

Might come to me again.—Who’s there?

Enter a Servant.

SERVANT  My lord.                                                                                         10

LEONTES  How does the boy?

SERVANT  He took good rest tonight. ’Tis hoped

His sickness is discharged.

LEONTES  To see his nobleness,

Conceiving the dishonor of his mother.                                                    15

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. Go,

See how he fares.                                                                Servant exits.  20

Fie, fie, no thought of him.

The very thought of my revenges that way

Recoil upon me—in himself too mighty,

And in his parties, his alliance. Let him be

Until a time may serve. For present vengeance,                                      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 she within my power.

Enter Paulina, carrying the baby, with Servants,
Antigonus, and Lords.

LORD  You must not enter.                                                                             30

PAULINA

Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me.

Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,

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

More free than he is jealous.

ANTIGONUS  That’s enough.                                                                        35

SERVANT

Madam, he hath not slept tonight, commanded

None should come at him.

PAULINA  Not so hot, good sir.

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

That creep like shadows by him and do sigh                                           40

At each his needless heavings, such as you

Nourish the cause of his awaking. I

Do come with words as medicinal as true,

Honest as either, to purge him of that humor

That presses him from sleep.                                                                      45

LEONTES  What noise there, ho?

PAULINA

No noise, my lord, but needful conference

About some gossips for your Highness.

LEONTES  How?—

Away with that audacious lady. Antigonus,                                            50

I charged thee that she should not come about me.

I knew she would.

ANTIGONUS  I told her so, my lord,

On your displeasure’s peril and on mine,

She should not visit you.                                                                              55

LEONTES  What, canst not rule her?

PAULINA

From all dishonesty he can. In this,

Unless he take the course that you have done—

Commit me for committing honor—trust it,

He shall not rule me.                                                                                     60

ANTIGONUS  La you now, you hear.

When she will take the rein I let her run,

But she’ll not stumble.

PAULINA  Good my liege, I come—

And I beseech you hear me, who professes                                             65

Myself your loyal servant, your physician,

Your most obedient counselor, yet that dares

Less appear so in comforting your evils

Than such as most seem yours—I say I come

From your good queen.                                                                                70

LEONTES  Good queen?

PAULINA

Good queen, my lord, good queen, I say “good

queen,”

And would by combat make her good, so were I

A man, the worst about you.                                                                      75

LEONTES  Force her hence.

PAULINA

Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes

First hand me. On mine own accord I’ll off,

But first I’ll do my errand.—The good queen,

For she is good, hath brought you forth a                                                80

daughter—

Here ’tis—commends it to your blessing.

She lays down the baby.

LEONTES  Out!

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

A most intelligencing bawd.                                                                        85

PAULINA  Not so.

I am as ignorant in that as you

In so entitling me, and no less honest

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

As this world goes, to pass for honest.                                                       90

LEONTES  Traitors,

Will you not push her out? To Antigonus. Give her

the bastard,

Thou dotard; thou art woman-tired, unroosted

By thy Dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard,                                     95

Take ’t up, I say. Give ’t to thy crone.

PAULINA, to Antigonus  Forever

Unvenerable be thy hands if thou

Tak’st up the Princess by that forced baseness

Which he has put upon ’t.                                                                         100

LEONTES  He dreads his wife.

PAULINA

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

You’d call your children yours.

LEONTES  A nest of traitors!

ANTIGONUS

I am none, by this good light.                                                                   105

PAULINA  Nor I, nor any

But one that’s here, and that’s himself. For he

The sacred honor of himself, his queen’s,

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

Whose sting is sharper than the sword’s; and will                                 110

not—

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

He cannot be compelled to ’t—once remove

The root of his opinion, which is rotten

As ever oak or stone was sound.                                                              115

LEONTES  A callet

Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her

husband

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

It is the issue of Polixenes.                                                                        120

Hence with it, and together with the dam

Commit them to the fire.

PAULINA  It is yours,

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

So like you ’tis the worse.—Behold, my lords,                                      125

Although the print be little, the whole matter

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

The trick of ’s frown, his forehead, nay, the valley,

The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek, his

smiles,                                                                                                        130

The very mold and frame of hand, nail, finger.

And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it

So like to him that got it, if thou hast

The ordering of the mind too, ’mongst all colors

No yellow in ’t, lest she suspect, as he does,                                          135

Her children not her husband’s.

LEONTES  A gross hag!—

And, losel, thou art worthy to be hanged

That wilt not stay her tongue.

ANTIGONUS  Hang all the husbands                                                         140

That cannot do that feat, you’ll leave yourself

Hardly one subject.

LEONTES  Once more, take her hence.

PAULINA

A most unworthy and unnatural lord

Can do no more.                                                                                         145

LEONTES  I’ll ha’ thee burnt.

PAULINA  I care not.

It is an heretic that makes the fire,

Not she which burns in ’t. I’ll not call you tyrant;

But this most cruel usage of your queen,                                               150

Not able to produce more accusation

Than your own weak-hinged fancy, something

savors

Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you,

Yea, scandalous to the world.                                                                  155

LEONTES, to Antigonus  On your allegiance,

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

Where were her life? She durst not call me so

If she did know me one. Away with her!

PAULINA, to Lords

I pray you do not push me; I’ll be gone.—                                            160

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

A better guiding spirit.—What needs these hands?

You that are thus so tender o’er his follies

Will never do him good, not one of you.

So, so. Farewell, we are gone.                                                She exits.  165

LEONTES, to Antigonus

Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this.

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

A heart so tender o’er it, take it hence,

And see it instantly consumed with fire.

Even thou, and none but thou. Take it up straight.                              170

Within this hour bring me word ’tis done,

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

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

And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so.

The bastard brains with these my proper hands                                   175

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

For thou sett’st on thy wife.

ANTIGONUS  I did not, sir.

These lords, my noble fellows, if they please,

Can clear me in ’t.                                                                                      180

LORDS  We can, my royal liege.

He is not guilty of her coming hither.

LEONTES  You’re liars all.

LORD

Beseech your Highness, give us better credit.

We have always truly served you, and beseech                                   185

So to esteem of us. And on our knees we beg,

As recompense of our dear services

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

Which being so horrible, so bloody, must

Lead on to some foul issue. We all kneel.                                              190

LEONTES

I am a feather for each wind that blows.

Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel

And call me father? Better burn it now

Than curse it then. But be it; let it live.

It shall not neither. To Antigonus. You, sir, come                                 195

you hither,

You that have been so tenderly officious

With Lady Margery, your midwife there,

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

So sure as this beard’s gray. What will you                                            200

adventure

To save this brat’s life?

ANTIGONUS  Anything, my lord,

That my ability may undergo

And nobleness impose. At least thus much:                                          205

I’ll pawn the little blood which I have left

To save the innocent. Anything possible.

LEONTES

It shall be possible. Swear by this sword

Thou wilt perform my bidding.

ANTIGONUS, his hand on the hilt  I will, my lord.                                  210

LEONTES

Mark, and perform it, seest thou; for the fail

Of any point in ’t shall not only be

Death to thyself but to thy lewd-tongued wife,

Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,

As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry                                           215

This female bastard hence, and that thou bear it

To some remote and desert place quite out

Of our dominions, and that there thou leave it,

Without more mercy, to it own protection

And favor of the climate. As by strange fortune                                  220

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

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

That thou commend it strangely to some place

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

ANTIGONUS

I swear to do this, though a present death                                             225

Had been more merciful.—Come on, poor babe.

He picks up the baby.

Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens

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

Casting their savageness aside, have done

Like offices of pity. To Leontes. Sir, be prosperous                              230

In more than this deed does require.—And blessing

Against this cruelty fight on thy side,

Poor thing, condemned to loss.

He exits, carrying the baby.

LEONTES  No, I’ll not rear

Another’s issue.                                                                                           235

Enter a Servant.

SERVANT  Please your Highness, posts

From those you sent to th’ oracle are come

An hour since. Cleomenes and Dion,

Being well arrived from Delphos, are both landed,

Hasting to th’ court.                                                                                   240

LORD, to Leontes  So please you, sir, their speed

Hath been beyond account.

LEONTES  Twenty-three days

They have been absent. ’Tis good speed, foretells

The great Apollo suddenly will have                                                       245

The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords.

Summon a session, that we may arraign

Our most disloyal lady; for, as she hath

Been publicly accused, so shall she have

A just and open trial. While she lives,                                                     250

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

And think upon my bidding.

They exit.

ACT 3

Scene 1

Enter Cleomenes and Dion.

CLEOMENES

The climate’s delicate, the air most sweet,

Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing

The common praise it bears.

DION  I shall report,

For most it caught me, the celestial habits—                                             5

Methinks I so should term them—and the reverence

Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice,

How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly

It was i’ th’ off’ring!

CLEOMENES  But of all, the burst                                                               10

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

Kin to Jove’s thunder, so surprised my sense

That I was nothing.

DION  If th’ event o’ th’ journey

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

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

The time is worth the use on ’t.

CLEOMENES  Great Apollo

Turn all to th’ best! These proclamations,

So forcing faults upon Hermione,                                                              20

I little like.

DION  The violent carriage of it

Will clear or end the business when the oracle,

Thus by Apollo’s great divine sealed up,

Shall the contents discover. Something rare                                            25

Even then will rush to knowledge. Go. Fresh horses;

And gracious be the issue.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Leontes, Lords, and Officers.

LEONTES

This sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,

Even pushes ’gainst our heart: the party tried

The daughter of a king, our wife, and one

Of us too much beloved. Let us be cleared

Of being tyrannous, since we so openly                                                      5

Proceed in justice, which shall have due course

Even to the guilt or the purgation.

Produce the prisoner.

OFFICER

It is his Highness’ pleasure that the Queen

Appear in person here in court.                                                                   10

Enter Hermione, as to her trial, Paulina, and Ladies.

Silence!

LEONTES  Read the indictment.

OFFICER reads  Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes,

King of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned

of high treason, in committing adultery with Polixenes,                   15

King of Bohemia, and conspiring with Camillo

to take away the life of our sovereign lord the King, thy

royal husband; the pretense whereof being by circumstances

partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to

the faith and allegiance of a true subject, didst counsel                  20

and aid them, for their better safety, to fly away by

night.

HERMIONE

Since what I am to say must be but that

Which contradicts my accusation, and

The testimony on my part no other                                                           25

But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me

To say “Not guilty.” Mine integrity,

Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,

Be so received. But thus: if powers divine

Behold our human actions, as they do,                                                    30

I doubt not then but innocence shall make

False accusation blush and tyranny

Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know,

Whom least will seem to do so, my past life

Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,                                              35

As I am now unhappy; which is more

Than history can pattern, though devised

And played to take spectators. For behold me,

A fellow of the royal bed, which owe

A moiety of the throne, a great king’s daughter,                                     40

The mother to a hopeful prince, here standing

To prate and talk for life and honor fore

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

As I weigh grief, which I would spare. For honor,

’Tis a derivative from me to mine,                                                            45

And only that I stand for. I appeal

To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes

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

How merited to be so; since he came,

With what encounter so uncurrent I                                                          50

Have strained t’ appear thus; if one jot beyond

The bound of honor, or in act or will

That way inclining, hardened be the hearts

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

Cry fie upon my grave.                                                                                55

LEONTES  I ne’er heard yet

That any of these bolder vices wanted

Less impudence to gainsay what they did

Than to perform it first.

HERMIONE  That’s true enough,                                                                  60

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

LEONTES

You will not own it.

HERMIONE  More than mistress of

Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not

At all acknowledge. For Polixenes,                                                            65

With whom I am accused, I do confess

I loved him as in honor he required,

With such a kind of love as might become

A lady like me, with a love even such,

So and no other, as yourself commanded,                                              70

Which not to have done, I think, had been in me

Both disobedience and ingratitude

To you and toward your friend, whose love had

spoke,

Even since it could speak, from an infant, freely                                   75

That it was yours. Now, for conspiracy,

I know not how it tastes, though it be dished

For me to try how. All I know of it

Is that Camillo was an honest man;

And why he left your court, the gods themselves,                                  80

Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.

LEONTES

You knew of his departure, as you know

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

HERMIONE  Sir,

You speak a language that I understand not.                                         85

My life stands in the level of your dreams,

Which I’ll lay down.

LEONTES  Your actions are my dreams.

You had a bastard by Polixenes,

And I but dreamed it. As you were past all shame—                             90

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

Which to deny concerns more than avails; for as

Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,

No father owning it—which is indeed

More criminal in thee than it—so thou                                                     95

Shalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage

Look for no less than death.

HERMIONE  Sir, spare your threats.

The bug which you would fright me with I seek.

To me can life be no commodity.                                                           100

The crown and comfort of my life, your favor,

I do give lost, for I do feel it gone,

But know not how it went. My second joy

And first fruits of my body, from his presence

I am barred like one infectious. My third comfort,                              105

Starred most unluckily, is from my breast,

The innocent milk in it most innocent mouth,

Haled out to murder; myself on every post

Proclaimed a strumpet; with immodest hatred

The childbed privilege denied, which longs                                            110

To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried

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

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

Tell me what blessings I have here alive,

That I should fear to die? Therefore proceed.                                       115

But yet hear this (mistake me not: no life,

I prize it not a straw, but for mine honor,

Which I would free), if I shall be condemned

Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else

But what your jealousies awake, I tell you                                            120

’Tis rigor, and not law. Your Honors all,

I do refer me to the oracle.

Apollo be my judge.

LORD  This your request

Is altogether just. Therefore bring forth,                                                 125

And in Apollo’s name, his oracle.                                            Officers exit.

HERMIONE

The Emperor of Russia was my father.

O, that he were alive and here beholding

His daughter’s trial, that he did but see

The flatness of my misery, yet with eyes                                               130

Of pity, not revenge.

Enter Cleomenes, Dion, with Officers.

OFFICER, presenting a sword

You here shall swear upon this sword of justice

That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have

Been both at Delphos, and from thence have

brought                                                                                                      135

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, DION  All this we swear.                                                    140

LEONTES  Break up the seals and read.

OFFICER reads  Hermione is chaste, Polixenes blameless,

Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant,

his innocent babe truly begotten; and the King shall

live without an heir if that which is lost be not                                145

found.

LORDS

Now blessèd be the great Apollo!

HERMIONE  Praised!

LEONTES  Hast thou read truth?

OFFICER

Ay, my lord, even so as it is here set down.                                            150

LEONTES

There is no truth at all i’ th’ oracle.

The sessions shall proceed. This is mere falsehood.

Enter a Servant.

SERVANT

My lord the King, the King!

LEONTES  What is the business?

SERVANT

O sir, I shall be hated to report it.                                                             155

The Prince your son, with mere conceit and fear

Of the Queen’s speed, is gone.

LEONTES  How? Gone?

SERVANT  Is dead.

LEONTES

Apollo’s angry, and the heavens themselves                                        160

Do strike at my injustice.

Hermione falls.

How now there?

PAULINA

This news is mortal to the Queen. Look down

And see what death is doing.

LEONTES  Take her hence.                                                                          165

Her heart is but o’ercharged. She will recover.

I have too much believed mine own suspicion.

Beseech you, tenderly apply to her

Some remedies for life.

Paulina exits with Officers carrying Hermione.

Apollo, pardon                                                                                         170

My great profaneness ’gainst thine oracle.

I’ll reconcile me to Polixenes,

New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo,

Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy;

For, being transported by my jealousies                                                 175

To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose

Camillo for the minister to poison

My friend Polixenes, which had been done

But that the good mind of Camillo tardied

My swift command, though I with death and with                              180

Reward did threaten and encourage him,

Not doing it and being done. He, most humane

And filled with honor, to my kingly guest

Unclasped my practice, quit his fortunes here,

Which you knew great, and to the hazard                                             185

Of all incertainties himself commended,

No richer than his honor. How he glisters

Through my rust, and how his piety

Does my deeds make the blacker!

Enter Paulina.

PAULINA  Woe the while!                                                                            190

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

Break too!

LORD  What fit is this, good lady?

PAULINA, to Leontes

What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?

What wheels, racks, fires? What flaying? Boiling                                 195

In leads or oils? What old or newer torture

Must I receive, whose every word deserves

To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny,

Together working with thy jealousies,

Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle                                      200

For girls of nine, O, think what they have done,

And then run mad indeed, stark mad, for all

Thy bygone fooleries were but spices of it.

That thou betrayedst Polixenes, ’twas nothing;

That did but show thee of a fool, inconstant                                        205

And damnable ingrateful. Nor was ’t much

Thou wouldst have poisoned good Camillo’s honor,

To have him kill a king: poor trespasses,

More monstrous standing by, whereof I reckon

The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter                                      210

To be or none or little, though a devil

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

Nor is ’t directly laid to thee the death

Of the young prince, whose honorable thoughts,

Thoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart                                   215

That could conceive a gross and foolish sire

Blemished his gracious dam. This is not, no,

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

When I have said, cry woe!—the Queen, the Queen,

The sweet’st, dear’st creature’s dead, and vengeance                         220

for ’t

Not dropped down yet.

LORD  The higher powers forbid!

PAULINA

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

Prevail not, go and see. If you can bring                                                225

Tincture or luster in her lip, her eye,

Heat outwardly or breath within, I’ll serve you

As I would do the gods.—But, O thou tyrant,

Do not repent these things, for they are heavier

Than all thy woes can stir. Therefore betake thee                                230

To nothing but despair. A thousand knees

Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,

Upon a barren mountain, and still winter

In storm perpetual, could not move the gods

To look that way thou wert.                                                                     235

LEONTES  Go on, go on.

Thou canst not speak too much. I have deserved

All tongues to talk their bitt’rest.

LORD, to Paulina  Say no more.

Howe’er the business goes, you have made fault                                240

I’ th’ boldness of your speech.

PAULINA  I am sorry for ’t.

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

I do repent. Alas, I have showed too much

The rashness of a woman. He is touched                                              245

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

help

Should be past grief. Do not receive affliction

At my petition. I beseech you, rather

Let me be punished, that have minded you                                          250

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

Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman.

The love I bore your queen—lo, fool again!—

I’ll speak of her no more, nor of your children.

I’ll not remember you of my own lord,                                                  255

Who is lost too. Take your patience to you,

And I’ll say nothing.

LEONTES  Thou didst speak but well

When most the truth, which I receive much better

Than to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me                                           260

To the dead bodies of my queen and son.

One grave shall be for both. Upon them shall

The causes of their death appear, unto

Our shame perpetual. Once a day I’ll visit

The chapel where they lie, and tears shed there                                    265

Shall be my recreation. So long as nature

Will bear up with this exercise, so long

I daily vow to use it. Come, and lead me

To these sorrows.

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Antigonus carrying the babe, and a Mariner.

ANTIGONUS

Thou art perfect, then, our ship hath touched upon

The deserts of Bohemia?

MARINER  Ay, my lord, and fear

We have landed in ill time. The skies look grimly

And threaten present blusters. In my conscience,                                     5

The heavens with that we have in hand are angry

And frown upon ’s.

ANTIGONUS

Their sacred wills be done. Go, get aboard.

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

I call upon thee.                                                                                             10

MARINER  Make your best haste, and go not

Too far i’ th’ land. ’Tis like to be loud weather.

Besides, this place is famous for the creatures

Of prey that keep upon ’t.

ANTIGONUS  Go thou away.                                                                         15

I’ll follow instantly.

MARINER  I am glad at heart

To be so rid o’ th’ business.                                                              He exits.

ANTIGONUS  Come, poor babe.

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

Sometimes her head on one side, some another.

I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,                                                            25

So filled and so becoming. In pure white robes,

Like very sanctity, she did approach

My cabin where I lay, thrice bowed before me,

And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes

Became two spouts. The fury spent, anon                                               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

There weep, and leave it crying. And, for the babe

Is counted lost forever, Perdita

I prithee call ’t. For this ungentle business

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

Thy wife Paulina more.” And so, with shrieks,                                        40

She melted into air. Affrighted much,

I did in time collect myself and thought

This was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys,

Yet for this once, yea, superstitiously,

I will be squared by this. I do believe                                                        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, speed thee well.                                        50

There lie, and there thy character; there these,

He lays down the baby, a bundle, and a box.

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

And still rest thine. Thunder. The storm begins.

Poor wretch,

That for thy mother’s fault art thus exposed                                          55

To loss and what may follow. Weep I cannot,

But my heart bleeds, and most accurst am I

To be by oath enjoined to this. Farewell.

The day frowns more and more. Thou ’rt like to have

A lullaby too rough. I never saw                                                                60

The heavens so dim by day.

Thunder, and sounds of hunting.

A savage clamor!

Well may I get aboard! This is the chase.

I am gone forever!                                           He exits, pursued by a bear.

Enter Shepherd.

SHEPHERD  I would there were no age between ten and                         65

three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the

rest, for there is nothing in the between but getting

wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing,

fighting—Hark you now. Would any but these

boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt                           70

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 of ivy. Good luck, an ’t be thy will,

what have we here? Mercy on ’s, a bairn! A very                               75

pretty bairn. A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty

one, a very pretty one. Sure some scape. Though I

am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman

in the scape. This has been some stair-work,

some trunk-work, some behind-door work. They                                80

were warmer that got this than the poor thing is

here. I’ll take it up for pity. Yet I’ll tarry till my son

come. He halloed but even now.—Whoa-ho-ho!

Enter Shepherd’s Son.

SHEPHERD’S SON  Hilloa, loa!

SHEPHERD  What, art so near? If thou ’lt see a thing to                         85

talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither.

What ail’st thou, man?

SHEPHERD’S SON  I have seen two such sights, by sea

and by land—but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is

now the sky; betwixt the firmament and it, you                                  90

cannot thrust a bodkin’s point.

SHEPHERD  Why, boy, how is it?

SHEPHERD’S SON  I would you did but see how it chafes,

how it rages, how it takes up the shore. But that’s

not to the point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor                          95

souls! Sometimes to see ’em, and not to see ’em.

Now the ship boring the moon with her mainmast,

and anon swallowed with yeast and froth, as you’d

thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land

service, to see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone,                  100

how he cried to me for help, and said his

name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an

end of the ship: to see how the sea flap-dragoned it.

But, first, how the poor souls roared and the sea

mocked them, and how the poor gentleman roared                         105

and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than

the sea or weather.

SHEPHERD  Name of mercy, when was this, boy?

SHEPHERD’S SON  Now, now. I have not winked since I

saw these sights. The men are not yet cold under                             110

water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman.

He’s at it now.

SHEPHERD  Would I had been by to have helped the old

man.

SHEPHERD’S SON  I would you had been by the ship side,                 115

to have helped her. There your charity would have

lacked footing.

SHEPHERD  Heavy matters, heavy matters. But look

thee here, boy. Now bless thyself. Thou met’st with

things dying, I with things newborn. Here’s a sight                           120

for thee. Look thee, a bearing cloth for a squire’s

child. Look thee here. Take up, take up, boy. Open

’t. So, let’s see. It was told me I should be rich by

the fairies. This is some changeling. Open ’t. What’s

within, boy?                                                                                              125

SHEPHERD’S SON, opening the box   You’re a made old

man. If the sins of your youth are forgiven you,

you’re well to live. Gold, all gold.

SHEPHERD  This is fairy gold, boy, and ’twill prove so.

Up with ’t, keep it close. Home, home, the next way.                      130

We are lucky, boy, and to be so still requires

nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go. Come, good

boy, the next way home.

SHEPHERD’S SON  Go you the next way with your

findings. I’ll go see if the bear be gone from the                                135

gentleman and how much he hath eaten. They are

never curst but when they are hungry. If there be

any of him left, I’ll bury it.

SHEPHERD  That’s a good deed. If thou mayest discern

by that which is left of him what he is, fetch me to                          140

th’ sight of him.

SHEPHERD’S SON  Marry, will I, and you shall help to

put him i’ th’ ground.

SHEPHERD  ’Tis a lucky day, boy, and we’ll do good

deeds on ’t.                                                                                               145

They exit.

ACT 4

Scene 1

Enter Time, the Chorus.

TIME

I, that please some, try all—both joy and terror

Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error—

Now take upon me, in the name of Time,

To use my wings. Impute it not a crime

To me or my swift passage that I slide                                                        5

O’er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried

Of that wide gap, since it is in my power

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

To plant and o’erwhelm custom. Let me pass

The same I am ere ancient’st order was                                                   10

Or what is now received. I witness to

The times that brought them in. So shall I do

To th’ freshest things now reigning, and make stale

The glistering of this present, as my tale

Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,                                          15

I turn my glass and give my scene such growing

As you had slept between. Leontes leaving,

Th’ effects of his fond jealousies so grieving

That he shuts up himself, imagine me,

Gentle spectators, that I now may be                                                       20

In fair Bohemia. And remember well

I mentioned a son o’ th’ King’s, which Florizell

I now name to you, and with speed so pace

To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace

Equal with wond’ring. What of her ensues                                               25

I list not prophesy; but let Time’s news

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

daughter

And what to her adheres, which follows after,

Is th’ argument of Time. Of this allow,                                                     30

If ever you have spent time worse ere now.

If never, yet that Time himself doth say

He wishes earnestly you never may.

He exits.

Scene 2

Enter Polixenes and Camillo.

POLIXENES  I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more

importunate. ’Tis a sickness denying thee anything,

a death to grant this.

CAMILLO  It is fifteen years since I saw my country.

Though I have for the most part been aired abroad,                            5

I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent

king, my master, hath sent for me, to whose feeling

sorrows I might be some allay—or I o’erween to

think so—which is another spur to my departure.

POLIXENES  As thou lov’st me, Camillo, wipe not out the                      10

rest of thy services by leaving me now. The need I

have of thee thine own goodness hath made. Better

not to have had thee than thus to want thee. Thou,

having made me businesses which none without

thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to                               15

execute them thyself or take away with thee the very

services thou hast done, which if I have not enough

considered, as too much I cannot, to be more

thankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit

therein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country                        20

Sicilia, prithee speak no more, whose very

naming punishes me with the remembrance of that

penitent, as thou call’st him, and reconciled king

my brother, whose loss of his most precious queen

and children are even now to be afresh lamented.                              25

Say to me, when sawst thou the Prince Florizell, my

son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not

being gracious, than they are in losing them when

they have approved their virtues.

CAMILLO  Sir, it is three days since I saw the Prince.                               30

What his happier affairs may be are to me unknown,

but I have missingly noted he is of late

much retired from court and is less frequent to his

princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.

POLIXENES  I have considered so much, Camillo, and                           35

with some care, so far that I have eyes under my

service which look upon his removedness, from

whom I have this intelligence: that he is seldom

from the house of a most homely shepherd, a man,

they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the                              40

imagination of his neighbors, is grown into an

unspeakable estate.

CAMILLO  I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a

daughter of most rare note. The report of her is

extended more than can be thought to begin from                             45

such a cottage.

POLIXENES  That’s likewise part of my intelligence, but,

I fear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou

shalt accompany us to the place, where we will, not

appearing what we are, have some question with                               50

the shepherd, from whose simplicity I think it not

uneasy to get the cause of my son’s resort thither.

Prithee be my present partner in this business, and

lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

CAMILLO  I willingly obey your command.                                               55

POLIXENES  My best Camillo. We must disguise

ourselves.

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Autolycus singing.

AUTOLYCUS

                When daffodils begin to peer,

                   With heigh, the doxy over the dale,

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

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

                The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,                                        5

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

                Doth set my pugging tooth an edge,

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

                The lark, that tirralirra chants,

                   With heigh, with heigh, the thrush and the jay,                       10

                Are summer songs for me and my aunts,

                   While we lie tumbling in the hay.

I have served Prince Florizell and in my time wore

three-pile, but now I am out of service.

                But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?                                        15

                   The pale moon shines by night,

                And when I wander here and there,

                   I then do most go right.

                If tinkers may have leave to live,

                   And bear the sow-skin budget,                                                    20

                Then my account I well may give,

                   And in the stocks avouch it.

My traffic is sheets. When the kite builds, look to

lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus, who,

being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise                           25

a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and

drab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is

the silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful

on the highway. Beating and hanging are terrors to

me. For the life to come, I sleep out the thought of                            30

it. A prize, a prize!

Enter Shepherd’s Son.

SHEPHERD’S SON  Let me see, every ’leven wether tods,

every tod yields pound and odd shilling; fifteen

hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?

AUTOLYCUS, aside  If the springe hold, the cock’s                                  35

mine.                                                                                         He lies down.

SHEPHERD’S SON  I cannot do ’t without counters. Let

me see, what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing

feast? (He reads a paper.) Three pound of sugar,

five pound of currants, rice—what will this sister of                           40

mine do with rice? But my father hath made her

mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath

made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers,

three-man song men all, and very good ones;

but they are most of them means and basses, but                              45

one Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to

hornpipes. I must have saffron to color the warden

pies; mace; dates, none, that’s out of my note;

nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I

may beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of                               50

raisins o’ th’ sun.

AUTOLYCUS, writhing as if in pain  O, that ever I was

born!

SHEPHERD’S SON  I’ th’ name of me!

AUTOLYCUS  O, help me, help me! Pluck but off these                          55

rags, and then death, death.

SHEPHERD’S SON  Alack, poor soul, thou hast need of

more rags to lay on thee rather than have these off.

AUTOLYCUS  O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends

me more than the stripes I have received, which are                          60

mighty ones and millions.

SHEPHERD’S SON  Alas, poor man, a million of beating

may come to a great matter.

AUTOLYCUS  I am robbed, sir, and beaten, my money

and apparel ta’en from me, and these detestable                               65

things put upon me.

SHEPHERD’S SON  What, by a horseman, or a footman?

AUTOLYCUS  A footman, sweet sir, a footman.

SHEPHERD’S SON  Indeed, he should be a footman by

the garments he has left with thee. If this be a                                     70

horseman’s coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend

me thy hand; I’ll help thee. Come, lend me thy

hand.

AUTOLYCUS  O, good sir, tenderly, O!

SHEPHERD’S SON  Alas, poor soul.                                                             75

AUTOLYCUS  O, good sir, softly, good sir. I fear, sir, my

shoulder blade is out.

SHEPHERD’S SON  How now? Canst stand?

AUTOLYCUS, stealing the Shepherd’s Son’s purse  Softly,

dear sir, good sir, softly. You ha’ done me a charitable                     80

office.

SHEPHERD’S SON  Dost lack any money? I have a little

money for thee.

AUTOLYCUS  No, good sweet sir, no, I beseech you, sir. I

have a kinsman not past three-quarters of a mile                               85

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.

SHEPHERD’S SON  What manner of fellow was he that

robbed you?                                                                                                90

AUTOLYCUS  A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about

with troll-my-dames. I knew him once a servant of

the Prince. I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his

virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of

the court.                                                                                                     95

SHEPHERD’S SON  His vices, you would say. There’s no

virtue whipped out of the court. They cherish it to

make it stay there, and yet it will no more but abide.

AUTOLYCUS  Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man

well. He hath been since an ape-bearer, then a                                 100

process-server, a bailiff. Then he compassed a motion

of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker’s wife

within a mile where my land and living lies, and,

having flown over many knavish professions, he

settled only in rogue. Some call him Autolycus.                                105

SHEPHERD’S SON  Out upon him! Prig, for my life, prig!

He haunts wakes, fairs, and bearbaitings.

AUTOLYCUS  Very true, sir: he, sir, he. That’s the rogue

that put me into this apparel.

SHEPHERD’S SON  Not a more cowardly rogue in all                           110

Bohemia. If you had but looked big and spit at him,

he’d have run.

AUTOLYCUS  I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter. I

am false of heart that way, and that he knew, I

warrant him.                                                                                             115

SHEPHERD’S SON  How do you now?

AUTOLYCUS  Sweet sir, much better than I was. I can

stand and walk. I will even take my leave of you and

pace softly towards my kinsman’s.

SHEPHERD’S SON  Shall I bring thee on the way?                                 120

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

SHEPHERD’S SON  Then fare thee well. I must go buy

spices for our sheep-shearing.

AUTOLYCUS  Prosper you, sweet sir.

Shepherd’s Son exits.

Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your                                 125

spice. I’ll be with you at your sheep-shearing too. If

I make not this cheat bring out another, and the

shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my

name put in the book of virtue.

Sings. Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,                                                130

                   And merrily hent the stile-a.

                A merry heart goes all the day,

                   Your sad tires in a mile-a.

He exits.

Scene 4

Enter Florizell and Perdita.

FLORIZELL

These your unusual weeds to each part of you

Does give a life—no shepherdess, but Flora

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

Is as a meeting of the petty gods,

And you the queen on ’t.                                                                               5

PERDITA  Sir, my gracious lord,

To chide at your extremes it not becomes me;

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

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

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

Most goddesslike pranked up. But that our feasts

In every mess have folly, and the feeders

Digest it with a custom, I should blush

To see you so attired, swoon, I think,

To show myself a glass.                                                                               15

FLORIZELL  I bless the time

When my good falcon made her flight across

Thy father’s ground.

PERDITA  Now Jove afford you cause.

To me the difference forges dread. Your greatness                                20

Hath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble

To think your father by some accident

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

How would he look to see his work, so noble,

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

Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts, behold

The sternness of his presence?

FLORIZELL  Apprehend

Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,

Humbling their deities to love, have taken                                               30

The shapes of beasts upon them. Jupiter

Became a bull, and bellowed; the green Neptune

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

Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,

As I seem now. Their transformations                                                      35

Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,

Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires

Run not before mine honor, nor my lusts

Burn hotter than my faith.

PERDITA  O, but sir,                                                                                         40

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

Or I my life.

FLORIZELL  Thou dear’st Perdita,

With these forced thoughts I prithee darken not

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

Or not my father’s. For I cannot be                                                           50

Mine own, nor anything to any, if

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

Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle.

Strangle such thoughts as these with anything

That you behold the while. Your guests are coming.                              55

Lift up your countenance as it were the day

Of celebration of that nuptial which

We two have sworn shall come.

PERDITA  O Lady Fortune,

Stand you auspicious!                                                                                  60

FLORIZELL  See, your guests approach.

Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,

And let’s be red with mirth.

Enter Shepherd, Shepherd’s Son, Mopsa, Dorcas,
Shepherds and Shepherdesses, Servants, Musicians,
and Polixenes and Camillo in disguise.

SHEPHERD

Fie, daughter, when my old wife lived, upon

This day she was both pantler, butler, cook,                                            65

Both dame 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 his shoulder, and his; her face afire

With labor, and the thing she took to quench it                                      70

She would to each one sip. You are retired

As if you were a feasted one and not

The hostess of the meeting. Pray you bid

These unknown friends to ’s welcome, for it is

A way to make us better friends, more known.                                       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, to Polixenes  Sir, welcome.                                                          80

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

The hostess-ship o’ th’ day. To Camillo. You’re

welcome, sir.—

Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.—Reverend

sirs,  85

For you there’s rosemary and rue. These keep

Seeming and savor all the winter long.

Grace and remembrance be to you both,

And welcome to our shearing.

POLIXENES  Shepherdess—                                                                          90

A fair one are you—well you fit our ages

With flowers of winter.

PERDITA  Sir, the year growing ancient,

Not yet on summer’s death nor on the birth

Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o’ th’ season                             95

Are our carnations and streaked gillyvors,

Which some call nature’s bastards. Of that kind

Our rustic garden’s barren, and I care not

To get slips of them.

POLIXENES  Wherefore, gentle maiden,                                                   100

Do you neglect them?

PERDITA  For I have heard it said

There is an art which in their piedness shares

With great creating nature.

POLIXENES  Say there be;                                                                           105

Yet nature is made better by no mean

But nature makes that mean. So, over that art

Which you say adds to nature is an art

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

A gentler scion to the wildest stock,                                                         110

And make conceive a bark of baser kind

By bud of nobler race. This is an art

Which does mend nature, change it rather, but

The art itself is nature.

PERDITA  So it is.                                                                                           115

POLIXENES

Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,

And do not call them bastards.

PERDITA  I’ll not put

The dibble in earth to set one slip of them,

No more than, were I painted, I would wish                                          120

This youth should say ’twere well, and only

therefore

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

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,

The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ th’ sun                                             125

And with him rises weeping. These are flowers

Of middle summer, and I think they are given

To men of middle age. You’re very welcome.

CAMILLO

I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,

And only live by gazing.                                                                            130

PERDITA  Out, alas!

You’d be so lean that blasts of January

Would blow you through and through. (To

Florizell.) Now, my fair’st friend,

I would I had some flowers o’ th’ spring, that might                           135

Become your time of day, (to the Shepherdesses)

and yours, and yours,

That wear upon your virgin branches yet

Your maidenheads growing. O Proserpina,

For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let’st fall                                 140

From Dis’s wagon! Daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes

Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses,                                                    145

That die unmarried ere they can behold

Bright Phoebus in his strength—a malady

Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and

The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,

The flower-de-luce being one—O, these I lack                                     150

To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,

To strew him o’er and o’er.

FLORIZELL  What, like a corse?

PERDITA

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

Not like a corse; or if, not to be buried,                                                   155

But quick and in mine arms. Come, take your

flowers.

Methinks I play as I have seen them do

In Whitsun pastorals. Sure this robe of mine

Does change my disposition.                                                                    160

FLORIZELL  What you do

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

I’d have you do it ever. When you sing,

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

Pray so; and for the ord’ring your affairs,                                             165

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, still so,

And own no other function. Each your doing,

So singular in each particular,                                                                  170

Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,

That all your acts are queens.

PERDITA  O Doricles,

Your praises are too large. But that your youth

And the true blood which peeps fairly through ’t                                 175

Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd,

With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,

You wooed me the false way.

FLORIZELL  I think you have

As little skill to fear as I have purpose                                                    180

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

Your hand, my Perdita. So turtles pair

That never mean to part.

PERDITA  I’ll swear for ’em.

POLIXENES, to Camillo

This is the prettiest lowborn lass that ever                                              185

Ran on the greensward. Nothing she does or seems

But smacks of something greater than herself,

Too noble for this place.

CAMILLO  He tells her something

That makes her blood look out. Good sooth, she is                             190

The queen of curds and cream.

SHEPHERD’S SON, to Musicians  Come on, strike up.

DORCAS

Mopsa must be your mistress? Marry, garlic

To mend her kissing with.

MOPSA  Now, in good time!                                                                         195

SHEPHERD’S SON

Not a word, a word. We stand upon our manners.—

Come, strike up. Music begins.

Here a Dance of Shepherds and Shepherdesses.

POLIXENES

Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this

Which dances with your daughter?

SHEPHERD

They call him Doricles, and boasts himself                                           200

To have a worthy feeding. But I have it

Upon his own report, and I believe it.

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

I think so too, for never gazed the moon

Upon the water as he’ll stand and read,                                                 205

As ’twere, my daughter’s eyes. And, to be plain,

I think there is not half a kiss to choose

Who loves another best.

POLIXENES  She dances featly.

SHEPHERD

So she does anything, though I report it                                                 210

That should be silent. If young Doricles

Do light upon her, she shall bring him that

Which he not dreams of.

Enter a Servant.

SERVANT  O, master, if you did but hear the peddler at

the door, you would never dance again after a tabor                      215

and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you. He

sings several tunes faster than you’ll tell money. He

utters them as he had eaten ballads and all men’s

ears grew to his tunes.

SHEPHERD’S SON  He could never come better. He shall                    220

come in. I love a ballad but even too well if it be

doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant

thing indeed and sung lamentably.

SERVANT  He hath songs for man or woman, of all sizes.

No milliner can so fit his customers with gloves. He                         225

has the prettiest love songs for maids, so without

bawdry, which is strange, with such delicate burdens

of dildos and fadings, “Jump her and thump

her.” And where some stretch-mouthed rascal

would, as it were, mean mischief and break a foul                           230

gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer

“Whoop, do me no harm, good man”; puts him off,

slights him, with “Whoop, do me no harm, good

man.”

POLIXENES  This is a brave fellow.                                                           235

SHEPHERD’S SON  Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable

conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided

wares?

SERVANT  He hath ribbons of all the colors i’ th’ rainbow;

points more than all the lawyers in Bohemia                                     240

can learnedly handle, though they come to him by

th’ gross; inkles, caddises, cambrics, lawns—why,

he sings ’em over as they were gods or goddesses.

You would think a smock were a she-angel, he so

chants to the sleeve-hand and the work about the                           245

square on ’t.

SHEPHERD’S SON  Prithee bring him in, and let him

approach singing.

PERDITA  Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words