ACT I
SCENE II A room of state in the same.



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

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

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

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

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

POLIXENES No longer stay.

LEONTES One seven-night longer.

POLIXENES Very sooth, to-morrow.

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

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

LEONTES Tongue-tied, our queen?
 speak you.

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

LEONTES Well said, Hermione.

HERMIONE To tell, he longs to see his son, were strong:
 But let him say so then, and let him go;
 But let him swear so, and he shall not stay,
 We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.
 Yet of your royal presence I'll adventure
 The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
 You take my lord, I'll give him my commission
 To let him there a month behind the gest
 Prefix'd for's parting: yet, good deed, Leontes,
 I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind
 What lady-she her lord. You'll stay?

POLIXENES No, madam.

HERMIONE Nay, but you will?

POLIXENES                   I may not, verily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEONTES Is he won yet?

HERMIONE He'll stay my lord.

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

HERMIONE                                  Never?

LEONTES Never, but once.

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

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

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

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

MAMILLIUS                            Ay, my good lord.

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

MAMILLIUS                   Yes, if you will, my lord.

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

POLIXENES What means Sicilia?

HERMIONE He something seems unsettled.

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

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

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

MAMILLIUS No, my lord, I'll fight.

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

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

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

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

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

 [Aside]

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

 [Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and Attendants]

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

MAMILLIUS I am like you, they say.

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

CAMILLO Ay, my good lord.

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

 [Exit MAMILLIUS]

 Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.

CAMILLO You had much ado to make his anchor hold:
 When you cast out, it still came home.

LEONTES Didst note it?

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

LEONTES Didst perceive it?

 [Aside]

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

CAMILLO                   At the good queen's entreaty.

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

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

LEONTES Ha!

CAMILLO Stays here longer.

LEONTES Ay, but why?

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

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

CAMILLO Be it forbid, my lord!

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEONTES Say it be, 'tis true.

CAMILLO No, no, my lord.

LEONTES                   It is; you lie, you lie:
 I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee,
 Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,
 Or else a hovering temporizer, that
 Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,
 Inclining to them both: were my wife's liver
 Infected as her life, she would not live
 The running of one glass.

CAMILLO Who does infect her?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CAMILLO I'll do't, my lord.

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

 [Exit]

CAMILLO O miserable lady! But, for me,
 What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner
 Of good Polixenes; and my ground to do't
 Is the obedience to a master, one
 Who in rebellion with himself will have
 All that are his so too. To do this deed,
 Promotion follows. If I could find example
 Of thousands that had struck anointed kings
 And flourish'd after, I'ld not do't; but since
 Nor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not one,
 Let villany itself forswear't. I must
 Forsake the court: to do't, or no, is certain
 To me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now!
 Here comes Bohemia.

 [Re-enter POLIXENES]

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

CAMILLO                   Hail, most royal sir!

POLIXENES What is the news i' the court?

CAMILLO None rare, my lord.

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

CAMILLO I dare not know, my lord.

POLIXENES How! dare not! do not. Do you know, and dare not?
 Be intelligent to me: 'tis thereabouts;
 For, to yourself, what you do know, you must.
 And cannot say, you dare not. Good Camillo,
 Your changed complexions are to me a mirror
 Which shows me mine changed too; for I must be
 A party in this alteration, finding
 Myself thus alter'd with 't.

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

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

CAMILLO I may not answer.

POLIXENES A sickness caught of me, and yet I well!
 I must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo,
 I conjure thee, by all the parts of man
 Which honour does acknowledge, whereof the least
 Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare
 What incidency thou dost guess of harm
 Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near;
 Which way to be prevented, if to be;
 If not, how best to bear it.

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

POLIXENES On, good Camillo.

CAMILLO I am appointed him to murder you.

POLIXENES By whom, Camillo?

CAMILLO                         By the king.

POLIXENES For what?

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

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

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

POLIXENES How should this grow?

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

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

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

 [Exeunt]




 THE WINTER'S TALE


ACT II