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With an aspect more favourable. 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 honourable grief lodg'd here which burns |
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 perform'd! |
LEONTES. [To the GUARD] Shall I be heard? |
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 |
Has deserv'd 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 wish'd to see you sorry; now |
I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave. |
LEONTES. Go, do our bidding; hence! |
Exeunt HERMIONE, guarded, and LADIES |
FIRST 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. |
FIRST 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. |
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, |
Ay, every dram of woman's flesh is false, |
If she be. |
LEONTES. Hold your peaces. |
FIRST LORD. Good my lord- |
ANTIGONUS. It is for you we speak, not for ourselves. |
You are abus'd, and by some putter-on |
That will be damn'd for't. Would I knew the villain! |
I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd- |
I have three daughters: the eldest is eleven; |
The second and the third, nine and some five; |
If this prove true, they'll pay for 't. By mine honour, |
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 |
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 |
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. |
LEONTES. What! Lack I credit? |
FIRST LORD. I had rather you did lack than I, my lord, |
Upon this ground; and more it would content me |
To have her honour true than your suspicion, |
Be blam'd for't how you might. |
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 stupified |
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. |
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, |
Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight, |
Added to their familiarity- |
Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture, |
That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation |
But only seeing, all other circumstances |
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 dispatch'd in post |
To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple, |
Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know |
Of stuff'd sufficiency. Now, from the oracle |
They will bring all, whose spiritual counsel had, |
Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well? |
FIRST 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 |
Whose ignorant credulity will not |
Come up to th' truth. So have we thought it good |
From our free person she should be confin'd, |
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