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Shepherd: Why, sir? |
AUTOLYCUS: The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy and air himself: for, if thou beest capable of things serious, thou must know the king is full of grief. |
Shepard: So 'tis said, sir; about his son, that should have married a shepherd's daughter. |
AUTOLYCUS: If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly: the curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster. |
Clown: Think you so, sir? |
AUTOLYCUS: Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though removed fifty times, shall all come under the hangman: which though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace... |
Clown: Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear. an't like you, sir? |
AUTOLYCUS: He has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then 'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest; then stand till he be three quarters and a dram dead; then recovered again with aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall be be se... |
Clown: He seems to be of great authority: close with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold: show the inside of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado. Remember 'stoned,' and 'flayed alive.' |
Shepherd: An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for us, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much more and leave this young man in pawn till I bring it you. |
AUTOLYCUS: After I have done what I promised? |
Shepherd: Ay, sir. |
AUTOLYCUS: Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this business? |
Clown: In some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it. |
AUTOLYCUS: O, that's the case of the shepherd's son: hang him, he'll be made an example. |
Clown: Comfort, good comfort! We must to the king and show our strange sights: he must know 'tis none of your daughter nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does when the business is performed, and remain, as he says, your pawn till it be brought you. |
AUTOLYCUS: I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on the right hand: I will but look upon the hedge and follow you. |
Clown: We are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest. |
Shepherd: Let's before as he bids us: he was provided to do us good. |
AUTOLYCUS: If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would not suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occasion, gold and a means to do the prince my master good; which who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if h... |
CLEOMENES: Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make, Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down More penitence than done trespass: at the last, Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil; With them forgive yourself. |
LEONTES: Whilst I remember Her and her virtues, I cannot forget My blemishes in them, and so still think of The wrong I did myself; which was so much, That heirless it hath made my kingdom and Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man Bred his hopes out of. |
PAULINA: True, too true, my lord: If, one by one, you wedded all the world, Or from the all that are took something good, To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd Would be unparallel'd. |
LEONTES: I think so. Kill'd! She I kill'd! I did so: but thou strikest me Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter Upon thy tongue as in my thought: now, good now, Say so but seldom. |
CLEOMENES: Not at all, good lady: You might have spoken a thousand things that would Have done the time more benefit and graced Your kindness better. |
PAULINA: You are one of those Would have him wed again. |
DION: If you would not so, You pity not the state, nor the remembrance Of his most sovereign name; consider little What dangers, by his highness' fail of issue, May drop upon his kingdom and devour Incertain lookers on. What were more holy Than to rejoice the former queen is well? What holier than, for royalty's repair... |
PAULINA: There is none worthy, Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes; For has not the divine Apollo said, Is't not the tenor of his oracle, That King Leontes shall not have an heir Till his lost child be found? which that it shall, Is all as monstrous to our human reaso... |
LEONTES: Good Paulina, Who hast the memory of Hermione, I know, in honour, O, that ever I Had squared me to thy counsel! then, even now, I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes, Have taken treasure from her lips-- |
PAULINA: And left them More rich for what they yielded. |
LEONTES: Thou speak'st truth. No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse, And better used, would make her sainted spirit Again possess her corpse, and on this stage, Where we're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd, And begin, 'Why to me?' |
PAULINA: Had she such power, She had just cause. |
LEONTES: She had; and would incense me To murder her I married. |
PAULINA: I should so. Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't You chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your ears Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd Should be 'Remember mine.' |
LEONTES: Stars, stars, And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife; I'll have no wife, Paulina. |
PAULINA: Will you swear Never to marry but by my free leave? |
LEONTES: Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit! |
PAULINA: Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath. |
CLEOMENES: You tempt him over-much. |
PAULINA: Unless another, As like Hermione as is her picture, Affront his eye. |
CLEOMENES: Good madam,-- |
PAULINA: I have done. Yet, if my lord will marry,--if you will, sir, No remedy, but you will,--give me the office To choose you a queen: she shall not be so young As was your former; but she shall be such As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy To see her in your arms. |
LEONTES: My true Paulina, We shall not marry till thou bid'st us. |
PAULINA: That Shall be when your first queen's again in breath; Never till then. |
Gentleman: One that gives out himself Prince Florizel, Son of Polixenes, with his princess, she The fairest I have yet beheld, desires access To your high presence. |
LEONTES: What with him? he comes not Like to his father's greatness: his approach, So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us 'Tis not a visitation framed, but forced By need and accident. What train? |
Gentleman: But few, And those but mean. |
LEONTES: His princess, say you, with him? |
Gentleman: Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think, That e'er the sun shone bright on. |
PAULINA: O Hermione, As every present time doth boast itself Above a better gone, so must thy grave Give way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself Have said and writ so, but your writing now Is colder than that theme, 'She had not been, Nor was not to be equall'd;'--thus your verse Flow'd with her beauty once: 'tis shr... |
Gentleman: Pardon, madam: The one I have almost forgot,--your pardon,-- The other, when she has obtain'd your eye, Will have your tongue too. This is a creature, Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal Of all professors else, make proselytes Of who she but bid follow. |
PAULINA: How! not women? |
Gentleman: Women will love her, that she is a woman More worth than any man; men, that she is The rarest of all women. |
LEONTES: Go, Cleomenes; Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends, Bring them to our embracement. Still, 'tis strange He thus should steal upon us. |
PAULINA: Had our prince, Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd Well with this lord: there was not full a month Between their births. |
LEONTES: Prithee, no more; cease; thou know'st He dies to me again when talk'd of: sure, When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches Will bring me to consider that which may Unfurnish me of reason. They are come. Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince; For she did print your royal father off, Conceiving you: we... |
FLORIZEL: By his command Have I here touch'd Sicilia and from him Give you all greetings that a king, at friend, Can send his brother: and, but infirmity Which waits upon worn times hath something seized His wish'd ability, he had himself The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his Measured to look upon you; whom h... |
LEONTES: O my brother, Good gentleman! the wrongs I have done thee stir Afresh within me, and these thy offices, So rarely kind, are as interpreters Of my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither, As is the spring to the earth. And hath he too Exposed this paragon to the fearful usage, At least ungentle, of the dreadful N... |
FLORIZEL: Good my lord, She came from Libya. |
LEONTES: Where the warlike Smalus, That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and loved? |
FLORIZEL: Most royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence, A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd, To execute the charge my father gave me For visiting your highness: my best train I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd; Who for Bohemia bend, to si... |
LEONTES: The blessed gods Purge all infection from our air whilst you Do climate here! You have a holy father, A graceful gentleman; against whose person, So sacred as it is, I have done sin: For which the heavens, taking angry note, Have left me issueless; and your father's blest, As he from heaven merits it, with you... |
Lord: Most noble sir, That which I shall report will bear no credit, Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir, Bohemia greets you from himself by me; Desires you to attach his son, who has-- His dignity and duty both cast off-- Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with A shepherd's daughter. |
LEONTES: Where's Bohemia? speak. |
Lord: Here in your city; I now came from him: I speak amazedly; and it becomes My marvel and my message. To your court Whiles he was hastening, in the chase, it seems, Of this fair couple, meets he on the way The father of this seeming lady and Her brother, having both their country quitted With this young prince. |
FLORIZEL: Camillo has betray'd me; Whose honour and whose honesty till now Endured all weathers. |
Lord: Lay't so to his charge: He's with the king your father. |
LEONTES: Who? Camillo? |
Lord: Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now Has these poor men in question. Never saw I Wretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth; Forswear themselves as often as they speak: Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them With divers deaths in death. |
PERDITA: O my poor father! The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have Our contract celebrated. |
LEONTES: You are married? |
FLORIZEL: We are not, sir, nor are we like to be; The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first: The odds for high and low's alike. |
LEONTES: My lord, Is this the daughter of a king? |
FLORIZEL: She is, When once she is my wife. |
LEONTES: That 'once' I see by your good father's speed Will come on very slowly. I am sorry, Most sorry, you have broken from his liking Where you were tied in duty, and as sorry Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty, That you might well enjoy her. |
FLORIZEL: Dear, look up: Though Fortune, visible an enemy, Should chase us with my father, power no jot Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir, Remember since you owed no more to time Than I do now: with thought of such affections, Step forth mine advocate; at your request My father will grant precious things a... |
LEONTES: Would he do so, I'ld beg your precious mistress, Which he counts but a trifle. |
PAULINA: Sir, my liege, Your eye hath too much youth in't: not a month 'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes Than what you look on now. |
LEONTES: I thought of her, Even in these looks I made. But your petition Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father: Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires, I am friend to them and you: upon which errand I now go toward him; therefore follow me And mark what way I make: come, good my lord. |
AUTOLYCUS: Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation? |
First Gentleman: I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it: whereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber; only this methought I heard the shepherd say, he found the child. |
AUTOLYCUS: I would most gladly know the issue of it. |
First Gentleman: I make a broken delivery of the business; but the changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were very notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture; they looked as they had hear... |
Second Gentleman: Nothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled; the king's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is broken out within this hour that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it. Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward: he can deliver you more. How goes it now, sir? this news which is called true is so ... |
Third Gentleman: Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance: that which you hear you'll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione's, her jewel about the neck of it, the letters of Antigonus found with it which they know to be his character, the majesty of the creature in... |
Second Gentleman: No. |
Third Gentleman: Then have you lost a sight, which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenances of such di... |
Second Gentleman: What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child? |
Third Gentleman: Like an old tale still, which will have matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear open. He was torn to pieces with a bear: this avouches the shepherd's son; who has not only his innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows. |
First Gentleman: What became of his bark and his followers? |
Third Gentleman: Wrecked the same instant of their master's death and in the view of the shepherd: so that all the instruments which aided to expose the child were even then lost when it was found. But O, the noble combat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in Paulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of her hus... |
First Gentleman: The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted. |
Third Gentleman: One of the prettiest touches of all and that which angled for mine eyes, caught the water though not the fish, was when, at the relation of the queen's death, with the manner how she came to't bravely confessed and lamented by the king, how attentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of dol... |
First Gentleman: Are they returned to the court? |
Third Gentleman: No: the princess hearing of her mother's statue, which is in the keeping of Paulina,--a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is he... |
Second Gentleman: I thought she had some great matter there in hand; for she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever since the death of Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall we thither and with our company piece the rejoicing? |
First Gentleman: Who would be thence that has the benefit of access? every wink of an eye some new grace will be born: our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along. |
AUTOLYCUS: Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man and his son aboard the prince: told him I heard them talk of a fardel and I know not what: but he at that time, overfond of the shepherd's daughter, so he then took her to be, who began to be much sea-sic... |
Shepherd: Come, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born. |
Clown: You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me this other day, because I was no gentleman born. See you these clothes? say you see them not and think me still no gentleman born: you were best say these robes are not gentlemen born: give me the lie, do, and try whether I am not now a gentleman born. |
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