That thou commend it strangely to some place
Where chance may nurse or end it.
Take it up.

Antigonus. I swear to do this, though a present death
Had been more merciful.-Come on, poor babe;
Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens
To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say,
Casting their savageness aside, have done
Like offices of pity.-Sir, be prosperous

In more than this deed does require! And blessing
Against this cruelty fight on thy side,

Poor thing, condemn'd to loss!

Leontes.

Another's issue.

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[Exit with the child.

No, I'll not rear

Servant.

Enter a Servant.

Please your highness, posts

From those you sent to the oracle are come

An hour since; Cleomenes and Dion,

Being well arriv'd from Delphos, are both landed,
Hasting to the court.

I Lord.

So please you, sir, their speed

Twenty-three days

Hath been beyond account.

Leontes.

They have been absent: 't is good speed; foretells
The great Apollo suddenly will have

The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords;
Summon a session, that we may arraign
Our most disloyal lady, for, as she hath
Been publicly accus'd, so shall she have
A just and open trial. While she lives
My heart will be a burthen to me.
And think upon my bidding.

Leave me,

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[Exeunt.

SCENE I. A Seaport in Sicilia.

Enter CLEOMENES and DION.

Cleomenes. The climate 's delicate, the air most sweet, Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing

The common praise it bears.

Dion.

I shall report,

For most it caught me, the celestial habits,

Methinks I so should term them,-and the reverence Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice!

How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly

It was i' the offering!

Cleomenes.

But of all, the burst

And the ear-deafening voice o' the oracle,
Kin to Jove's thunder, so surpris'd my sense,
That I was nothing.

Dion.

If the event o' the journey

Prove as successful to the queen,-O, be 't so !—
As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy,

The time is worth the use on 't.

Cleomenes.

Great Apollo

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

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. A Court of Justice.

Enter LEONTES, Lords, and Officers.

ΤΟ

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[Exeunt.

Leontes. This sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,

Even pushes 'gainst our heart; the party tried

The daughter of a king, our wife, and one

Of us too much belov'd.-Let us be clear'd

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.

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

10

Enter HERMIONE guarded; PAULINA and Ladies attending. Leontes. Read the indictment.

Officer. [Reads] '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!'

Hermione. 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

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.-You, my lord, best know,
Who least will seem to do so, my past life
Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,
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

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Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it As I weigh grief, which I would spare; for honour, 'Tis a derivative from me to mine,

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
The bound of honour, or in act or will
That way inclining, harden'd be the hearts
Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin

Cry fie upon my grave!

Leontes.

That any

I ne'er heard yet

of these bolder vices wanted

Less impudence to gainsay what they did

Than to perform it first.

Hermione.

That's true enough;

Though 't is a saying, sir, not due to me.

Leontes. You will not own it.

Hermione.

More than mistress of

Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not

At all acknowledge. For Polixenes,

With whom I am accus'd, I do confess
I lov'd him as in honour he requir'd,
With such a kind of love as might become

A lady like me, with a love even such,

So and no other, as yourself commanded;

Which not to have done I think had been in me

Both disobedience and ingratitude

To you and toward your friend, whose love had spoke,
Even since it could speak, from an infant, freely

That it was yours. Now, for conspiracy,

I know not how it tastes; though it be dish'd
For me to try how all I know of it

:

Is that Camillo was an honest man;

And why he left your court, the gods themselves,
Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.

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