Sicilia. A Room in the Palace. | |
| |
Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and Ladies. | |
| Her. Take the boy to you: he so troubles me, | |
| ’Tis past enduring. | 4 |
| First Lady. Come, my gracious lord, | |
| Shall I be your playfellow? | |
| Mam. No, I’ll none of you. | |
| First Lady. Why, my sweet lord? | 8 |
| Mam. You’ll kiss me hard and speak to me as if | |
| I were a baby still. I love you better. | |
| Sec. Lady. And why so, my lord? | |
| Mam. Not for because | 12 |
| Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say, | |
| Become some women best, so that there be not | |
| Too much hair there, but in a semicircle, | |
| Or a half-moon made with a pen. | 16 |
| Sec. Lady. Who taught you this? | |
| Mam. I learn’d it out of women’s faces. Pray now, | |
| What colour are your eyebrows? | |
| First Lady. Blue, my lord. | 20 |
| Mam. Nay, that’s a mock: I have seen a lady’s nose | |
| That has been blue, but not her eyebrows. | |
| Sec. Lady. Hark ye; | |
| The queen your mother rounds apace: we shall | 24 |
| Present our services to a fine new prince | |
| One of these days; and then you’d wanton with us, | |
| If we would have you. | |
| First Lady. She is spread of late | 28 |
| Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her! | |
| Her. What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come sir, now | |
| I am for you again: pray you, sit by us, | |
| And tell’s a tale. | 32 |
| Mam. Merry or sad shall’t be? | |
| Her. As merry as you will. | |
| Mam. A sad tale’s best for winter. | |
| I have one of sprites and goblins. | 36 |
| Her. Let’s have that, good sir. | |
| Come on, sit down: come on, and do your best | |
| To fright me with your sprites; you’re powerful at it. | |
| Mam. There was a man,— | 40 |
| Her. Nay, come, sit down; then on. | |
| Mam. Dwelt by a churchyard. I will tell it softly; | |
| Yond crickets shall not hear it. | |
| Her. Come on then, | 44 |
| And give’t me in mine ear. | |
| |
Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, Lords, and Others. | |
| Leon. Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him? | |
| First Lord. Behind the tuft of pines I met them : never | 48 |
| Saw I men scour so on their way: I ey’d them | |
| Even to their ships. | |
| Leon. How blest am I | |
| In my just censure, in my true opinion! | 52 |
| Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accurs’d | |
| In being so blest! There may be in the cup | |
| A spider steep’d, and one may drink, depart, | |
| And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge | 56 |
| Is not infected; but if one present | |
| The abhorr’d ingredient to his eye, make known | |
| How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides, | |
| With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider. | 60 |
| Camillo was his help in this, his pandar: | |
| There is a plot against my life, my crown; | |
| All’s true that is mistrusted: that false villain | |
| Whom I employ’d was pre-employ’d by him: | 64 |
| He has discover’d my design, and I | |
| Remain a pinch’d thing; yea, a very trick | |
| For them to play at will. How came the posterns | |
| So easily open? | 68 |
| First Lord. By his great authority; | |
| Which often hath no less prevail’d than so | |
| On your command. | |
| Leon. I know’t too well. | 72 |
| [To HERMIONE.] Give me the boy: I am glad you did not nurse him: | |
| Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you | |
| Have too much blood in him. | |
| Her. What is this? sport? | 76 |
| Leon. Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her; | |
| Away with him!—[Exit MAMILLIUS, attended.] and let her sport herself | |
| With that she’s big with; for ’tis Polixenes | |
| Has made thee swell thus. | 80 |
| Her. But I’d say he had not, | |
| And I’ll be sworn you would believe my saying, | |
| Howe’er you lean to the nayward. | |
| Leon. You, my lords, | 84 |
| Look on her, mark her well; be but about | |
| To say, ‘she is a goodly lady,’ and | |
| The justice of your hearts will thereto add | |
| ‘’Tis pity she’s not honest, honourable:’ | 88 |
| Praise her but for this her without-door form,— | |
| Which, on my faith deserves high speech,—and straight | |
| The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands | |
| That calumny doth use,—O, I am out!— | 92 |
| That mercy does, for calumny will sear | |
| Virtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha’s, | |
| When you have said ‘she’s goodly,’ come between, | |
| Ere you can say ‘she’s honest.’ But be’t known, | 96 |
| From him that has most cause to grieve it should be, | |
| She’s an adulteress. | |
| Her. Should a villain say so, | |
| The most replenish’d villain in the world, | 100 |
| He were as much more villain: you, my lord, | |
| Do but mistake. | |
| Leon. You have mistook, my lady, | |
| Polixenes for Leontes. O thou thing! | 104 |
| Which I’ll not call a creature of thy place, | |
| Lest barbarism, making me the precedent, | |
| Should a like language use to all degrees, | |
| And mannerly distinguishment leave out | 108 |
| Betwixt the prince and beggar: I have said | |
| She’s an adulteress; I have said with whom: | |
| More, she’s a traitor, and Camillo is | |
| A federary with her, and one that knows | 112 |
| What she should shame to know herself | |
| But with her most vile principal, that she’s | |
| A bed-swerver, even as bad as those | |
| That vulgars give bold’st titles; ay, and privy | 116 |
| To this their late escape. | |
| Her. No, by my life, | |
| Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you | |
| When you shall come to clearer knowledge that | 120 |
| You thus have publish’d me! Gentle my lord, | |
| You scarce can right me throughly then to say | |
| You did mistake. | |
| Leon. No; if I mistake | 124 |
| In those foundations which I build upon, | |
| The centre is not big enough to bear | |
| A schoolboy’s top. Away with her to prison! | |
| He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty | 128 |
| But that he speaks. | |
| Her. There’s some ill planet reigns: | |
| I must be patient till the heavens look | |
| With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords, | 132 |
| 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 | 136 |
| 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! | 140 |
| Leon. [To the Guards.] Shall I be heard? | |
| Her. 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; | 144 |
| 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: | 148 |
| I never wish’d to see you sorry; now | |
| I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave. | |
| Leon. Go, do our bidding: hence! [Exeunt Queen guarded, and Ladies. | |
| First Lord. Beseech your highness call the queen again. | 152 |
| Ant. 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, | 156 |
| I dare my life lay down, and will do’t, sir, | |
| Please you to accept it,—that the queen is spotless | |
| I’ the eyes of heaven and to you: I mean, | |
| In this which you accuse her. | 160 |
| Ant. 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 further trust her; | 164 |
| For every inch of woman in the world, | |
| Ay, every dram of woman’s flesh is false, | |
| If she be. | |
| Leon. Hold your peaces! | 168 |
| First Lord. Good my lord,— | |
| Ant. 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, | 172 |
| 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, | 176 |
| I’ll geld them 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. | 180 |
| Leon. 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 | 184 |
| The instruments that feel. | |
| Ant. If it be so, | |
| We need no grave to bury honesty: | |
| There’s not a grain of it the face to sweeten | 188 |
| Of the whole dungy earth. | |
| Leon. 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 | 192 |
| To have her honour true than your suspicion, | |
| Be blam’d for’t how you might. | |
| Leon. Why, what need we | |
| Commune with you of this, but rather follow | 196 |
| 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 | 200 |
| Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves | |
| We need no more of your advice: the matter, | |
| The loss, the gain, the ordering on’t, is all | |
| Properly ours. | 204 |
| Ant. And I wish, my liege, | |
| You had only in your silent judgment tried it, | |
| Without more overture. | |
| Leon. How could that be? | 208 |
| 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, | 212 |
| That lack’d sight only, nought for approbation | |
| But only seeing, all other circumstances | |
| Made up to the deed, doth push on this proceeding: | |
| Yet, for a greater confirmation,— | 216 |
| 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 | 220 |
| 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. | 224 |
| Leon. Though I am satisfied and need no more | |
| Than what I know, yet shall the oracle | |
| Give rest to the minds of others, such as he | |
| Whose ignorant credulity will not | 228 |
| Come up to the truth. So have we thought it good | |
| From our free person she should be confin’d, | |
| Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence | |
| Be left her to perform. Come, follow us: | 232 |
| We are to speak in public; for this business | |
| Will raise us all. | |
| Ant. [Aside.] To laughter, as I take it, | |
| If the good truth were known. [Exeunt. | 236 |
