The Winter's Tale (18 page)

LEONTES
    
What
¹⁰⁹
with him? He comes not
       Like to his father's greatness. His approach,
       So
out of circumstance
¹¹¹
and sudden, tells us
       'Tis not a visitation
framed
¹¹²
, but forced
       By need and
accident
¹¹³
. What
train
?

SERVANT
     But few,
       And those but
mean
¹¹⁵
.

LEONTES
     His princess, say you, with him?

SERVANT
     Ay, the most
peerless piece of earth
¹¹⁷
, I think,
       That e'er the sun shone bright on.

PAULINA
     O, Hermione,
      
As every present time doth boast itself
       Above a better gone, so must thy grave
       Give way to what's seen now
¹²⁰
! Sir, you yourself
To Servant
       Have said and writ so, but your writing now
       Is colder than that
theme
¹²⁴
: ‘She had not been,
       Nor was not to be equalled.' Thus your verse
       Flowed with her beauty once; 'tis
shrewdly ebbed
¹²⁶
,
       To say you have seen a better.

SERVANT
     Pardon, madam.
       The
one
¹²⁹
I have almost forgot — your pardon —
       The other, when she has obtained your eye,
       Will have your
tongue
¹³¹
too. This is a creature,
       Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
       Of all
professors else
¹³³
, make
proselytes
       Of
who
¹³⁴
she but bid follow.

PAULINA
     How? Not women?

SERVANT
     Women will love her that she is a woman
       More worth than any man: men that she is
       The rarest of all women.

LEONTES
     Go, Cleomenes.
       Yourself, assisted with your honoured friends,
       Bring them to our embracement.— Still, 'tis strange
To Paulina
       He thus should steal upon us.
[
Exeunt Cleomenes and others
]

PAULINA
     Had our
prince
¹⁴³
,
       Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had paired
       Well with this lord, there was not
full a
¹⁴⁵
month
       Between their births.

LEONTES
     Prithee no more; cease. Thou know'st
       He dies to me again when talked of. Sure,
       When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
       Will bring me to consider that which may
      
Unfurnish
¹⁵¹
me of reason. They are come.

Enter Cleomenes and others
, [
with
]
Florizel and Perdita

To Florizel

     Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince,
       For she did
print your royal father off
¹⁵³
,
       Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,
       Your father's image is so
hit
¹⁵⁵
in you,
       His very air, that I should call you brother,
       As I did him, and speak of something wildly
       By us performed before. Most dearly welcome!
       And your fair princess — goddess! — O, alas!
       I lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth

       Might thus have stood
begetting
¹⁶¹
wonder as
       You, gracious couple, do. And then I lost —
       All mine own folly — the
society
¹⁶³
,
      
Amity
¹⁶⁴
too, of your brave father, whom,
      
Though bearing misery, I desire my life
       Once more to look on him
¹⁶⁵
.

FLORIZEL
     By his command
       Have I here
touched
¹⁶⁸
Sicilia and from him
       Give you all greetings that a king,
at friend
¹⁶⁹
,
       Can send his brother, and
but
¹⁷⁰
infirmity,
       Which
waits upon worn times
¹⁷¹
hath
something seized
       His wished ability
, he had himself
       The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
      
Measured
¹⁷⁴
to look upon you, whom he loves —
       He bade me say so — more than all the
sceptres
       And those that bear them living
¹⁷⁵
.

LEONTES
     O, my brother —
       Good gentleman! — the wrongs I have done thee stir
       Afresh within me, and these thy
offices
¹⁷⁹
,
       So
rarely
¹⁸⁰
kind, are as interpreters
       Of my behind-hand rarely
slackness
¹⁸⁰
. Welcome hither,
     As is the spring to th'earth. And hath he too
       Exposed this
paragon
¹⁸³
to th'
fearful usage
,
       At least
ungentle
¹⁸⁴
, of the dreadful
Neptune
,
       To greet a man not worth her
pains
¹⁸⁵
, much less
      
Th'adventure of her person
¹⁸⁶
?

FLORIZEL
     Good my lord,
       She came from Libya.

LEONTES
     Where the warlike
Smalus
¹⁸⁹
,
       That noble honoured lord, is feared and loved?

FLORIZEL
     Most royal sir, from thence, from him whose
           daughter
       His
tears proclaimed
¹⁹²
his, parting with her: thence,
       A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have crossed,
       To
execute
¹⁹⁴
the
charge
my father gave me
       For visiting your highness. My best train
       I have from your Sicilian shores dismissed,
       Who for Bohemia
bend
¹⁹⁷
, to signify
       Not only my success in Libya, sir,
       But my arrival and my wife's in safety
       Here where we are.

LEONTES
     The blessèd gods
       Purge all infection from our air whilst you
       Do
climate
²⁰³
here! You have a holy father,
       A
graceful
²⁰⁴
gentleman, against whose person,
       So sacred as it is, I have done sin,
       For which the heavens, taking angry note,
       Have left me
issueless
²⁰⁷
. And your father's blest,
       As he from heaven merits it, with you,
       Worthy
his
²⁰⁹
goodness. What might I have been,
       Might I a son and daughter now have looked on,
       Such goodly things as you.

Enter a Lord

LORD
     Most noble sir,
       That which I shall report will
bear no credit
²¹³
,
       Were not the proof so
nigh
²¹⁴
. Please you, great sir,
       Bohemia greets you from himself by me.
       Desires you to
attach
²¹⁶
his son, who has —
       His
dignity and duty
²¹⁷
both cast off —
       Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with
       A shepherd's daughter.

LEONTES
     Where's Bohemia? Speak.

LORD
     Here in your city. I now came from him.
       I speak
amazedly
²²²
, and it
becomes
       My marvel
and my message. To your court
       Whiles he was hast'ning, in the chase, it seems,
       Of this fair couple, meets he on the way
       The father of this
seeming
²²⁶
lady and
       Her brother, having both their country quitted
       With this young prince.

FLORIZEL
     Camillo has betrayed me,
       Whose honour and whose honesty till now
       Endured all weathers.

LORD
    
Lay't so to his charge
²³²
:
       He's with the king your father.

LEONTES
     Who? Camillo?

LORD
     Camillo, sir. I spake with him, who now
      
Has these poor men in question
²³⁶
. Never saw I
       Wretches so quake. They kneel, they kiss the earth,
      
Forswear themselves
²³⁸
as often as they speak.
       Bohemia
stops
²³⁹
his ears, and threatens them
       With
divers
²⁴⁰
deaths in death.

PERDITA
     O, my poor father!
     The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have
       Our
contract
²⁴³
celebrated.

LEONTES
     You are married?

FLORIZEL
     We are not, sir, nor are we like to be.
       The stars, I see, will
kiss the valleys first
²⁴⁶
:
      
The odds for high and low's alike
²⁴⁷
.

LEONTES
     My lord,
       Is this the daughter of a king?

FLORIZEL
     She is,
       When once she is my wife.

LEONTES
     That ‘once' I see by your good father's speed
       Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,
       Most sorry, you have broken from his liking
       Where you were tied in duty, and as sorry
       Your choice is not so rich in
worth
²⁵⁶
as beauty,
       That you might well enjoy her.

FLORIZEL
     Dear,
look up
²⁵⁸
.
To Perdita
       Though Fortune, visible an enemy,
       Should chase us with my father, power no jot

       Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,
       Remember
since you owed no more to time
       Than I do now
²⁶²
. With thought of such affections,
      
Step forth mine advocate
²⁶⁴
. At your request
       My father will grant precious things as trifles.

LEONTES
     Would he do so, I'd beg your precious mistress,
       Which he counts but a
trifle
²⁶⁷
.

PAULINA
     Sir, my liege,
       Your eye hath too much youth in't. Not a month
       'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes
       Than what you look on now.

LEONTES
     I thought of her,
     Even in these looks I made.— But your
petition
²⁷³
To Florizel
       Is yet unanswered. I will to your father.

      
Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires
²⁷⁵
,
       I am friend to them and you, upon which errand
       I now go toward him: therefore follow me
       And mark
what way I make
²⁷⁸
. Come, good my lord.
Exeunt

Enter Autolycus and a Gentleman

AUTOLYCUS
     Beseech you, sir, were you present at this
relation
¹
?

FIRST GENTLEMAN
     I was
by
²
at the opening of the fardel, heard
       the old shepherd deliver the manner how he found
       it: whereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all
       commanded out of the
chamber
⁵
. Only this, methought I
       heard the shepherd say, he found the child.

AUTOLYCUS
     I would most gladly know the
issue
⁷
of it.

FIRST GENTLEMAN
     I make a
broken delivery
⁸
of the business; but
       the changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were very
      
notes of admiration
¹⁰
. They seemed almost, with staring on
       one another, to tear the
cases of their eyes
¹¹
. There was speech
       in their dumbness, language in their very gesture. They
       looked
as
¹³
they had heard of a world ransomed, or one
       destroyed. A notable passion of wonder appeared in them,
       but the wisest beholder that knew no more but seeing, could
       not say if th'
importance
¹⁶
were joy or sorrow, but in the
       extremity of the
one
¹⁷
, it must needs be.

Enter another Gentleman

     Here comes a gentleman that
happily
¹⁸
knows more. The
       news, Rogero?