ACT III. SCENE I.

The Same. A Street in some Town.

Enter CLEOMENES and DIONS.

CLEO. The climate's delicate; the air most sweet; Fertile the isle'; the temple much surpassing The common praise it bears.

I shall report,

DION. For most it caught me1, the celestial habits, (Methinks, I so should term them,) and the reve

rence

Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice!
How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly
It was i' the offering!

CLEO.

But, of all, the burst

And the ear-deafening voice o' the oracle,

Kin to Jove's thunder, so surpriz'd my sense,
That I was nothing.

DION.
If the event o' the journey
Prove as successful to the queen,-O, be't so!-

8 Cleomenes and Dion.] These two names, and those of Antigonus and Archidamus, our author found in North's Plutarch. MALONE.

9 Fertile the isle ;] But the temple of Apollo at Delphi was not in an island, but in Phocis, on the continent. Either Shakspeare, or his editors, had their heads running on Delos, an island of the Cyclades. If it was the editor's blunder, then Shakspeare wrote: Fertile the soil, which is more elegant too, than the present reading. WARBURTON.

Shakspeare is little careful of geography. There is no need of this emendation in a play of which the whole plot depends upon a geographical error, by which Bohemia is supposed to be a maritime country. JOHNSON.

In The History of Dorastus and Fawnia, the queen desires the king to send "six of his noblemen, whom he best trusted, to the isle of Delphos," &c. STEEVENS.

For most IT caught me,] It may relate to the whole spectacle. JOHNSON.

As it hath been to us, rare, pleasant, speedy,
The time is worth the use on't2.

CLEO.

Great Apollo,

Turn all to the best! These proclamations,
So forcing faults upon Hermione,

I little like.

DION.

The violent carriage of it

Will clear, or end, the business: When the oracle,
(Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up,)
Shall the contents discover, something rare,
Even then will rush to knowledge.--Go,-fresh

horses ;

And gracious be the issue!

SCENE II.

The Same. A Court of Justice.

[Exeunt.

LEONTES, Lords, and Officers, appear properly seated.

LEON. This sessions (to our great grief, we pronounce,)

Even pushes 'gainst our heart3: The party tried,
The daughter of a king; our wife; and one
Of us too much belov'd.-Let us be clear'd

2 The TIME is worth the use on't.] The time is worth the use on't, means, the time which we have spent in visiting Delos, has recompensed us for the trouble of so spending it. JOHNSON.

If the event prove fortunate to the Queen, the time which we have spent in our journey is worth the trouble it hath cost us." In other words, the happy issue of our journey will compensate for the time expended in it, and the fatigue we have undergone. We meet with nearly the same expression in Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essaies, 1603: "The common saying is, the time we live, is worth the money we pay for it." MAlone.

3

- pushes 'gainst our heart:] So, in Macbeth:

every minute of his being thrusts Against my near'st of life." STEEVENS.

Of being tyrannous, since we so openly
Proceed in justice: which shall have due course,
Even to the guilt, or the purgation *.

Produce the prisoner.

OFFI. It is his highness' pleasure, that the queen Appear in person here in court.-Silence!

HERMIONE is brought in guarded; PAULINA and Ladies attending.

LEON. Read the indictment.

OFFI. Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes, king of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in committing adultery with Polixenes, king of Bohemia; and conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign lord the king, thy royal husband: the pretence whereof being by circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of a true subject, didst counsel and aid them, for their better safety, to fly away by night.

5

HER. Since what I am to say, must be but that Which contradicts my accusation; and

The testimony on my part, no other

But what comes from myself; it shall scarce boot

me

To say, Not guilty: mine integrity,

4 EVEN to the guilt, or the purgation.] Mr. Roderick observes, that the word even is not to be understood here as an adverb, but as an adjective, signifying equal or indifferent. STEEVENS. The epithet even-handed, as applied in Macbeth to Justice, seems to unite both senses. HENLEY.

5 - pretence] Is, in this place, taken for a scheme laid, a design formed; to pretend means to design, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. JOHNSON.

6

mine integrity, &c.] That is, my virtue being accounted wickedness, my assertion of it will pass but for a lie. Falsehood means both treachery and lie. JOHNSON.

It is frequently used in the former sense in Othello, vol. ix. p. 477:

Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,
Be so receiv'd. But thus,-If powers divine
Behold our human actions, (as they do,)

I doubt not then, but innocence shall make
False accusation blush, and tyranny

Tremble at patience 7.-You, my lord, best know, (Who least will seem to do so,) my past life

8

Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,

9

As I am now unhappy; which is more

Than history can pattern, though devis'd,
And play'd, to take spectators: For behold me,—
A fellow of the royal bed, which owe

A moiety of the throne, a great king's daughter,
The mother to a hopeful prince,―here standing,
To prate and talk for life, and honour, 'fore

Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it1 As I weigh grief, which I would spare 2: for honour, 'Tis a derivative from me to mine3,

"He says, thou told'st him that his wife was false.” Again, p. 475:

66

i

Thou art rash as fire,

"To say that she was false."

If POWERS DIVINE

MALONE.

BEHOLD OUR HUMAN ACTIONS, (AS THEY DO,)

I doubt not then, but innocence shall make
False accusation BLUSH, and tyranny

Tremble at PATIENCE.] Our author has here closely followed the novel of Dorastus and Faunia, 1588: "If the divine powers be privie to human actions, (as no doubt they are,) I hope my patience shall make fortune blush, and my unspotted life shall stayne spiteful discredit." MALONE.

8 WHO least-] Old copy-Whom least. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

9

I

which] That is, which unhappiness. MALONE.

For life, I prize it] Life is to me now only grief, and as such only is considered by me; I would therefore willingly dismiss it. JOHNSON.

2

I would spare:] To spare any thing is to let it go, to quit the possession of it. JOHNSON.

3 'Tis a derivative from me to mine,] This sentiment, which is probably borrowed from Ecclesiasticus, iii. 11, cannot be too

And only that I stand for. I appeal

To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes
Came to your court, how I was in your grace,
How merited to be so; since he came,

With what encounter so uncurrent I

Have strain'd, to appear thus: if one jot beyond

often impressed on the female mind: "The glory of a man is from the honour of his father; and a mother in dishonour, is a reproach unto her children." STEEVENS.

4 - I appeal

To your own conscience, &c.] So, in Dorastus and Faunia : "How I have led my life before Egisthus' coming, I appeal, Pandosto, to the Gods, and to thy conscience" MALONE.

5 since he came,

With what encounter so uncurrent I

Have strain'd to appear thus:] These lines I no not understand; with the licence of all editors, what I cannot understand I suppose unintelligible, and therefore propose that they may be altered thus:

"With what encounter so uncurrent have I
"Been stain'd to appear thus?"

At least I think it might be read :

"With what encounter so uncurrent have I

"Strain'd to appear thus ? If one jot beyond-"

JOHNSON.

The sense seems to be this: what sudden slip have I made, that I should catch a wrench in my character.' So, in Timon of Athens:

An uncurrent encounter seems to mean an irregular, unjustifiable congress. Perhaps it may be a metaphor from tilting, in which the shock of meeting adversaries was so called. Thus, in Drayton's Legend of T. Cromwell E. of Essex :

"Yet these encounters thrust me not awry."

The sense would then be:- In what base reciprocation of love have I caught this strain?' Uncurrent is what will not pass, and is, at present, only applied to money.

Mrs. Ford talks of some strain in her character, and in Beaumont and Fletcher's Custom of the Country, the same expression

occurs:

66

strain your loves

"With any base, or hir'd persuasions."