Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, and Attendants; Satyrs for a Dance; Shep

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 us, we be justified in our loves; for, indeed, –

Cam. Beseech you,

1

will

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. 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 2 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 3 with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have seem'd 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 love!

1" In so far as our entertainment falls short, we will make up the deficiency with our love."

2 Instead of which, the usage of our time would require as in this place. But in Shakespeare's time the demonstratives this, that, and such, and also the relatives which, that, and as, were often used indiscriminately.

3 Attorneyed is done by deputy or representative, as a man is represented by his attorney in a lawsuit. That, in the next clause, has the force of so that, or insomuch that; a frequent usage with the Poet.

4 Vast is here used in much the same sense as in Hamlet, i. 2: In the dead vast and middle of the night." So in Paradise Lost, vi. 203: "Through the vast of Heaven it sounded, and the faithful armies sung hosanna to the Highest." See, also, page 30, note 79.

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 Mamillius: it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.5

Cam. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it is a gallant child; one that, indeed, physics the subject,6 makes old hearts fresh: they that went on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man.

Arch. Would they else be content to die?

Cam. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.

Arch. If the King had no son, they would desire to live on crutches till he had one.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

The Same. A Room of State in the Palace.

Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and Attendants.

Polix. Nine changes of the watery star 1 have been The shepherd's note since we have left our throne Without a burden: time as long again

Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks;

5 "Come within my notice or knowledge." The Poet has note repeatedly in this sense. So in King Lear, iii. 1: "Sir, I do know you; and dare, upon the warrant of my note," &c.

6 Physic, verb, was formerly used for to heal or make healthy. Medicine is still used in like manner; as in Cymbeline, iv. 2: “Great griefs, I see, medicine the less."— Subject here bears the sense of subjects, the singular for the plural.

1 The watery star is the Moon; probably called watery from her connection with the tides. And the meaning is, simply, that the shepherd hath noted, or seen, nine changes of the Moon. The "nine changes" are, I think, beyond question, nine lunar months, though some explain it nine weeks. But I doubt whether the quarterings of the Moon were called changes. And if the time had been but nine weeks, it is not likely that Leontes would speak, as he afterwards does, touching Perdita.

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 more
That go before it.

Leon.

Stay your thanks awhile,

And pay them when you part.2

Polix.

Sir, that's to-morrow.
I'm question'd by my fear of what may chance
Or breed upon our absence: may there blow
No sneaping winds at home, to make us say,
This is put forth too truly !3 Besides, I've stay'd
To tire your royalty.

Leon. We'll part the time between's, then: and in that I'll no gainsaying.

Polix.

Press me not, beseech you, so.

There is no tongue that moves, none, none i̇' the world,
So soon as yours, could win me: so it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs

Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder,
Were, in your love, a whip to me; my stay,
To you a charge and trouble: to save both,
Farewell, our brother.

2 Part for depart. The two were used interchangeably.

8 That is, "this fear of mine has too much cause"; this presage is too

4 Very sooth is in real truth. Both words are often used thus, especially the latter. And so soothsayer originally meant truth-speaker.

Leon.

Tongue-tied, our Queen? speak you.

Herm. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until

You had drawn oaths from him not to stay.

You, sir,

Charge him too coldly. Tell him, you are sure
All in Bohemia's well; this satisfaction
The by-gone day proclaim'd: say this to him,
He's beat from his best ward.5

Leon.

Well said, Hermione.

Herm. To tell, he longs to see his son, were strong:

But let him say so then, and let him go;

But let him swear so, and he shall not stay,
We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.

[To POLIX.] Yet of your royal presence I'll adventure
The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
You take my lord, I'll give you my commission
To let him there a month behind the gest

Prefix'd for's parting: - yet, good deed, Leontes,
I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind

What lady e'er her lord."

Polix.

You'll stay?

No, madam.

I may not, verily.

Herm. Nay, but you will?

Polix.

Herm. Verily!

You put me off with limber vows; but I,

Though you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths,

5 To ward is to guard; and the substantive was often used for place or posture of defence. See page 37, note 100.

6 To let had for its synonymes to stay or stop; to let him there is to stay him there. Gests were scrolls in which were marked the stages or places of rest in a progress or journey, especially a royal one.

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7" A jar o' the clock" is a tick o' the clock; jar being at that time often used for tick. - Behind is here equivalent to less than; and "what lady e'er” means whatever lady. The language is elliptical; the full sense being, "not a jot less than any lady whatever loves her lord." We have a like expression in Richard II., v. 3: "How heinous e'er it be."