ACT I.

SCENE I. Antechamber in LEONTES' palace.

Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS. Arch. 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.

Cam. I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.

Arch. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be justified in our loves; for indeedCam. Beseech you,

II

Arch. 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 little accuse us.

Cam. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. 19

Arch. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.

Cam. 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. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have seemed to be together, though absent, shook hands, as over a vast, and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves!

Arch. I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young prince Mamil

HERMIONE, queen to Leontes.

PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Herm
PAULINA, wife to Antigonus.

EMILIA, a lady attending on Hermione
MOPSA,

DORCAS, Shepherdesses.

Other Lords and Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers Servants, Shepherds, and Shepherdesses

Time, as Chorus.

SCENE: Sicilia, and Bohemia.

lius: it is a gentleman of the greatest pr that ever came into my note.

Cam. I very well agree with you r hopes of him: it is a gallant child; c indeed physics the subject, makes old fresh: they that went on crutches ere e born desire yet their life to see him a man. Arch. Would they else be content to de Cam. Yes; if there were no other a why they should desire to live.

Arch. If the king had no son, they s desire to live on crutches till he had one [£14.

SCENE II. A room of state in the same

Enter LEONTES, HERMIONE, MAMILLITS,
POLIXENES, CAMILLO, and Attendants
Pol. Nine changes of the watery star
been

The shepherd's note since we have left our thr
Without a burthen: time as long again
Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thank
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 m
That go before it.
Leon.

Stay your thanks a while,
And pay them when you part.
Pol.

Sir, that's to-morrow. I am question'd by my fears, of what may chan 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 stay'd

To tire your royalty.

Leon.

We are tougher, brother,

Than you can put us to't.
Pol.
No longer stay.
Leon. One seven-night longer.
Pol.
Very sooth, to-mar

Mam. Ay, my good lord. Leon. I' fecks! 120 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?

Yes, if you will, my lord.

How thou lovest us, show in our brother's wt.

come;

Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap:
Next to thyself and my young rover, he's
Apparent to my heart.
Her.
If you would seek us.

We are yours i' the garden: shall's attend
there?

Leon. To your own bents dispose you: y.. be found,

Be you beneath the sky. [Aside] I am ang i

now,

Though you perceive me not how I give line.

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To be full like me: yet they say we are
Almost as like as eggs; women say so,
That will say any thing: 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,

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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.

Pol.
What means Sicilia?
Her. He something seems unsettled.
Pol.

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

Her.
As if you held a brow of much distraction:
Are you moved, my lord?
Leon.
No, in good earnest. 150
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?
Mam. No, my lord, I'll fight.
Leon. 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?

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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, in
Attendan

Didst note

Cam. He would not stay at your petitions

made

His business more material.

Didst perceive it!

Leon. [Aside] They're here with me already, whisper ing, rounding

'Sicilia is a so-forth:' 'tis far gone, When I shall gust it last. How came't, Cam That he did stay?

Cam. At the good queen's entreaty.

My gracious lord, I may be negligent, foolish and fearful; Is every one of these no man is free, but that his negligence, his folly, fear, Among the infinite doings of the world,

250

Sametime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,
If ever I were wilful-negligent,

It was my folly; if industriously
play'd the fool, it was my negligence,
Net weighing well the end; if ever fearful
To do a thing, where I the issue doubted,
Mereof the execution did cry out
Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear
Wich oft infects the wisest: these, my lord,
Are such allow'd infirmities that honesty
I never free of. But, beseech your grace,
De plainer with me; let me know my trespass
By its own visage: if I then deny it,
"Tis none of mine.

Lion.

Ha' not you seen, Camillo,

260

Bat that's past doubt, you have, or your eyeglass

Is thicker than a cuckold's horn,--or heard,-
For to a vision so apparent rumour

anot be mute,-or thought,--for cogitation
Kesides not in that man that does not think,-
My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess,
Or else be impudently negative,

270

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

280

Cam. 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.

Leon. 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.

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

Say it be, 'tis true.

Cam. No, no, my lord. Leon.

300

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.

Cam.

Who does infect her? Leon. Why, he that wears her like her medal, hanging

About his neck, Bohemia: who, if I

321

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,-

Leon. 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,
331
Without ripe moving to't? Would I do this?
Could man so blench?
Cam.

I must believe you, sir: