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PAULINA:
No noise, my lord; but needful conference
About some gossips for your highness.
LEONTES:
How!
Away with that audacious lady! Antigonus,
I charged thee that she should not come about me:
I knew she would.
ANTIGONUS:
I told her so, my lord,
On your displeasure's peril and on mine,
She should not visit you.
LEONTES:
What, canst not rule her?
PAULINA:
From all dishonesty he can: in this,
Unless he take the course that you have done,
Commit me for committing honour, trust it,
He shall not rule me.
ANTIGONUS:
La you now, you hear:
When she will take the rein I let her run;
But she'll not stumble.
PAULINA:
Good my liege, I come;
And, I beseech you, hear me, who profess
Myself your loyal servant, your physician,
Your most obedient counsellor, yet that dare
Less appear so in comforting your evils,
Than such as most seem yours: I say, I come
From your good queen.
LEONTES:
Good queen!
PAULINA:
Good queen, my lord,
Good queen; I say good queen;
And would by combat make her good, so were I
A man, the worst about you.
LEONTES:
Force her hence.
PAULINA:
Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes
First hand me: on mine own accord I'll off;
But first I'll do my errand. The good queen,
For she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter;
Here 'tis; commends it to your blessing.
LEONTES:
Out!
A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door:
A most intelligencing bawd!
PAULINA:
Not so:
I am as ignorant in that as you
In so entitling me, and no less honest
Than you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant,
As this world goes, to pass for honest.
LEONTES:
Traitors!
Will you not push her out? Give her the bastard.
Thou dotard! thou art woman-tired, unroosted
By thy dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard;
Take't up, I say; give't to thy crone.
PAULINA:
For ever
Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou
Takest up the princess by that forced baseness
Which he has put upon't!
LEONTES:
He dreads his wife.
PAULINA:
So I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt
You'ld call your children yours.
LEONTES:
A nest of traitors!
ANTIGONUS:
I am none, by this good light.
PAULINA:
Nor I, nor any
But one that's here, and that's himself, for he
The sacred honour of himself, his queen's,
His hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander,