Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 208 (всего у книги 250 страниц)

5.4 Enter Menenius and Sicinius

MENENIUS See you yon coign o’th’ Capitol, yon corner-stone?

SICINIUS Why, what of that?

MENENIUS If it be possible for you to displace it with your little finger, there is some hope the ladies of Rome, especially his mother, may prevail with him. But I say there is no hope in’t, our throats are sentenced and stay upon execution.

SICINIUS Is’t possible that so short a time can alter the condition of a man?

MENENIUS There is differency between a grub and a butterfly, yet your butterfly was a grub. This Martius is grown from man to dragon. He has wings, he’s more than a creeping thing.

SICINIUS He loved his mother dearly.

MENENIUS So did he me, and he no more remembers his mother now than an eight-year old horse. The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes. When he walks, he moves like an engine, and the ground shrinks before his treading. He is able to pierce a corslet with his eye, talks like a knell, and his ‘hmh!’ is a battery. He sits in his state as a thing made for Alexander. What he bids be done is finished with his bidding. He wants nothing of a god but eternity and a heaven to throne in.

SICINIUS Yes: mercy, if you report him truly.

MENENIUS I paint him in the character. Mark what mercy his mother shall bring from him. There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger. That shall our poor city find; and all this is ’long of you. SICINIUS The gods be good unto us!

VIENENIUS No, in such a case the gods will not be good unto us. When we banished him we respected not them, and, he returning to break our necks, they respect not us.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGER (to Sicinius)

Sir, if you’d save your life, fly to your house.

The plebeians have got your fellow tribune

And hale him up and down, all swearing if

The Roman ladies bring not comfort home

They’ll give him death by inches.

Enter another Messenger

SICINIUS

What’s the news?

SECOND MESSENGER

Good news, good news. The ladies have prevailed,

The Volscians are dislodged, and Martius gone.

A merrier day did never yet greet Rome,

No, not th’expulsion of the Tarquins.

SICINIUS

Friend,

Art thou certain this is true? Is’t most certain?

SECOND MESSENGER

As certain as I know the sun is fire.

Where have you lurked that you make doubt of it?

Ne’er through an arch so hurried the blown tide

As the recomforted through th’ gates.

Trumpets, hautboys, drums, beat all together

Why, hark you,

The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries, and fifes,

Tabors and cymbals and the shouting Romans

Make the sun dance.

A shout within

Hark you!

MENENIUS

This is good news.

I will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia

Is worth of consuls, senators, patricians,

A city full; of tribunes such as you,

A sea and land full. You have prayed well today.

This morning for ten thousand of your throats

I’d not have given a doit.

Music sounds still with the shouts

Hark how they joy!

SICINIUS (to the Messenger)

First, the gods bless you for your tidings. Next,

⌈Giving money⌉ Accept my thankfulness.

SECOND MESSENGER

Sir, we have all great cause to give great thanks.

SICINIUS

They are near the city.

SECOND MESSENGER Almost at point to enter.

SICINIUS We’ll meet them, and help the joy.

Exeunt

5.5 Enter ⌈at one door⌉ Lords ⌈and Citizens⌉, ⌈at another door⌉ two Senators with the ladies Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria, passing over the stage

A SENATOR

Behold our patroness, the life of Rome!

Call all your tribes together, praise the gods,

And make triumphant fires. Strew flowers before them.

Unshout the noise that banished Martius,

Repeal him with the welcome of his mother.

Cry ‘Welcome, ladies, welcome!’

ALL

Welcome, ladies, welcome!

A flourish with drums and trumpets. Exeunt

5.6 Enter Tullus Aufidius with attendants

AUFIDIUS

Go tell the lords o‘th’ city I am here.

Deliver them this paper. Having read it,

Bid them repair to th’ market-place, where I,

Even in theirs and in the commons’ ears,

Will vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse

The city ports by this hath entered, and

Intends t’appear before the people, hoping

To purge himself with words. Dispatch.

Exeunt attendants

Enter three or four Conspirators of Aufidius’ faction

Most welcome.

FIRST CONSPIRATOR

How is it with our general?

AUFIDIUS Even so

As with a man by his own alms impoisoned,

And with his charity slain.

SECOND CONSPIRATOR Most noble sir,

If you do hold the same intent wherein

You wished us parties, we’ll deliver you

Of your great danger.

AUFIDIUS

Sir, I cannot tell.

We must proceed as we do find the people.

THIRD CONSPIRATOR

The people will remain uncertain whilst

’Twixt you there’s difference, but the fall of either

Makes the survivor heir of all.

AUFIDIUS

I know it,

And my pretext to strike at him admits

A good construction. I raised him, and I pawned

Mine honour for his truth; who being so heightened,

He watered his new plants with dews of flattery,

Seducing so my friends; and to this end

He bowed his nature, never known before

But to be rough, unswayable, and free.

THIRD CONSPIRATOR Sir, his stoutness

When he did stand for consul, which he lost

By lack of stooping—

AUFIDIUS

That I would have spoke of.

Being banished for’t, he came unto my hearth,

Presented to my knife his throat. I took him,

Made him joint-servant with me, gave him way

In all his own desires; nay, let him choose

Out of my files, his projects to accomplish,

My best and freshest men; served his designments

In mine own person, holp to reap the fame

Which he did end all his, and took some pride

To do myself this wrong, till at the last

I seemed his follower, not partner, and

He waged me with his countenance as if

I had been mercenary.

FIRST CONSPIRATOR

So he did, my lord.

The army marvelled at it, and in the last,

When he had carried Rome and that we looked

For no less spoil than glory—

AUFIDIUS

There was it,

For which my sinews shall be stretched upon him.

At a few drops of women’s rheum, which are

As cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour

Of our great action; therefore shall he die,

And I’ll renew me in his fall.

Drums and trumpets sound, with great shouts of the people

But hark.

FIRST CONSPIRATOR

Your native town you entered like a post,

And had no welcomes home; but he returns

Splitting the air with noise.

SECOND CONSPIRATOR And patient fools,

Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear

With giving him glory.

THIRD CONSPIRATOR Therefore, at your vantage,

Ere he express himself or move the people

With what he would say, let him feel your sword,

Which we will second. When he lies along,

After your way his tale pronounced shall bury

His reasons with his body.

Enter the Lords of the city

AUFIDIUS

Say no more.

Here come the lords.

ALL THE LORDS You are most welcome home.

AUFIDIUS I have not deserved it.

But, worthy lords, have you with heed perused

What I have written to you?

ALL THE LORDS

We have.

FIRST LORD

And grieve to hear’t.

What faults he made before the last, I think

Might have found easy fines. But there to end

Where he was to begin, and give away

The benefit of our levies, answering us

With our own charge, making a treaty where

There was a yielding—this admits no excuse.

AUFIDIUS He approaches. You shall hear him.

Enter Coriolanus marching with drum and colours, the Commoners being with him

CORIOLANUS

Hail, lords! I am returned your soldier,

No more infected with my country’s love

Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting

Under your great command. You are to know

That prosperously I have attempted, and

With bloody passage led your wars even to

The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home

Doth more than counterpoise a full third part

The charges of the action. We have made peace

With no less honour to the Antiates

Than shame to th’ Romans. And we here deliver,

Subscribed by th’ consuls and patricians,

Together with the seal o’th’ senate, what

We have compounded on.

He gives the Lords a paper

AUFIDIUS

Read it not, noble lords,

But tell the traitor in the highest degree

He hath abused your powers.

CORIOLANUS Traitor? How now?

AUFIDIUS Ay, traitor, Martius.

CORIOLANUS Martius?

AUFIDIUS

Ay, Martius, Caius Martius. Dost thou think

I’ll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol’n name,

‘Coriolanus’, in Corioles?

You lords and heads o‘th’ state, perfidiously

He has betrayed your business, and given up,

For certain drops of salt, your city, Rome—

I say your city—to his wife and mother,

Breaking his oath and resolution like

A twist of rotten silk, never admitting

Counsel o’th’ war. But at his nurse’s tears

He whined and roared away your victory,

That pages blushed at him, and men of heart

Looked wond’ring each at others.

CORIOLANUS

Hear’st thou, Mars?

AUFIDIUS

Name not the god, thou boy of tears.

CORIOLANUS Ha?

AUFIDIUS

No more.

CORIOLANUS

Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart

Too great for what contains it. ‘Boy’? O slave!—

Pardon me, lords, ’tis the first time that ever

I was forced to scold. Your judgements, my grave lords,

Must give this cur the lie, and his own notion—

Who wears my stripes impressed upon him, that

Must bear my beating to his grave—shall join

To thrust the lie unto him.

FIRST LORD

Peace both, and hear me speak.

CORIOLANUS

Cut me to pieces, Volsces. Men and lads,

Stain all your edges on me. ‘Boy’! False hound,

If you have writ your annals true, ‘tis there

That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I

Fluttered your Volscians in Corioles.

Alone I did it. ‘Boy’!

AUFIDIUS

Why, noble lords,

Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune,

Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart,

Fore your own eyes and ears?

ALL THE CONSPIRATORS

Let him die for’t.

ALL THE PEOPLE ⌈shouting dispersedly⌉

Tear him to pieces! Do it presently!

He killed my son! My daughter! He killed my cousin

Marcus! He killed my father!

SECOND LORD

Peace, ho! No outrage, peace.

The man is noble, and his fame folds in

This orb o’th’ earth. His last offences to us

Shall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,

And trouble not the peace.

CORIOLANUS ⌈drawing his sword⌉

O that I had him with six Aufidiuses,

Or more, his tribe, to use my lawful sword!

AUFIDIUS ⌈drawing his sword⌉

Insolent villain!

ALL THE CONSPIRATORS Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!

Two Conspirators draw and kill Martius, who falls. Aufidius ⌈and Conspirators⌉ stand on him

LORDS

Hold, hold, hold, hold!

AUFIDIUS

My noble masters, hear me speak.

FIRST LORD

O Tullus!

SECOND LORD (to Aufidius)

Thou hast done a deed whereat

Valour will weep.

THIRD LORD ⌈to Aufidius and the Conspirators⌉

Tread not upon him, masters.

All be quiet. Put up your swords.

AUFIDIUS My lords,

When you shall know—as in this rage

Provoked by him you cannot—the great danger

Which this man’s life did owe you, you’ll rejoice

That he is thus cut off. Please it your honours

To call me to your senate, I’ll deliver

Myself your loyal servant, or endure

Your heaviest censure.

FIRST LORD Bear from hence his body,

And mourn you for him. Let him be regarded

As the most noble corpse that ever herald

Did follow to his urn.

SECOND LORD His own impatience

Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.

Let’s make the best of it.

AUFIDIUS

My rage is gone,

And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.

Help three o’th’ chiefest soldiers; I’ll be one.

Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully.

Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he

Hath widowed and unchilded many a one,

Which to this hour bewail the injury,

Yet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.

A dead march sounded. Exeunt

bearing the body of Martius

THE WINTER’S TALE

THE astrologer Simon Forman saw The Winter’s Tale at the Globe on 15 May 1611. Just how much earlier the play was written is not certainly known. During the sheep-shearing feast in Act 4, twelve countrymen perform a satyrs’ dance that three of them are said to have already ‘danced before the King’. This is not necessarily a topical reference, but satyrs danced in Ben Jonson’s Masque of Oberon, performed before King James on 1 January 1611. It seems likely that this dance was incorporated in The Winter’s Tale (just as, later, another masque dance seems to have been transferred to The Two Noble Kinsmen). But it occurs in a self-contained passage that may well have been added after Shakespeare wrote the play itself. The Winter’s Tale, first printed in the 1623 Folio, is usually thought to have been written after Cymbeline, but stylistic evidence places it before that play, perhaps in 1609-10.

A mid sixteenth-century book classes ‘winter tales’ along with ‘old wives’ tales‘; Shakespeare’s title prepared his audiences for a tale of romantic improbability, one to be wondered at rather than believed; and within the play itself characters compare its events to ‘an old tale’ (5.2.61; 5.3.118). The comparison is just: Shakespeare is dramatizing a story by his old rival Robert Greene, published as Pandosto: The Triumph of Time in or before 1588. This gave Shakespeare his plot outline, of a king (Leontes) who believes his wife (Hermione) to have committed adultery with another king (Polixenes), his boyhood friend, and who casts off his new-born daughter (Perdita—the lost one) in the belief that she is his friend’s bastard. In both versions the baby is brought up as a shepherdess, falls in love with her supposed father’s son (Florizel in the play), and returns to her real father’s court where she is at last recognized as his daughter. In both versions, too, the wife’s innocence is demonstrated by the pronouncement of the Delphic oracle, and her husband passes the period of his daughter’s absence in penitence; but Shakespeare alters the ending of his source story, bringing it into line with the conventions of romance. He adopts Greene’s tripartite structure, but greatly develops it, adding for instance Leontes’ steward Antigonus and his redoubtable wife Paulina, along with the comic rogue Autolycus, ‘snapper-up of unconsidered trifles’.

The intensity of poetic suffering with which Leontes expresses his irrational jealousy is matched by the lyrical rapture of the love episodes between Florizel and Perdita. In both verse and prose The Winter’s Tale shows Shakespeare’s verbal powers at their greatest, and his theatrical mastery is apparent in, for example, Hermione’s trial (3.1) and the daring final scene in which time brings about its triumph.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

LEONTES, King of Sicily

HERMIONE, his wife

MAMILLIUS, his son

PERDITA, his daughter

PAULINA, Antigonus’s wife

EMILIA, a lady attending on Hermione

A JAILER

A MARINER

Other Lords and Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers, and Servants at Leontes’s court

POLIXENES, King of Bohemia

FLORIZEL, his son, in love with Perdita; known as Doricles

ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian lord

AUTOLYCUS, a rogue, once in the service of Florizel

OLD SHEPHERD

CLOWN, his son

SERVANT of the Old Shepherd

Other Shepherds and Shepherdesses

Twelve countrymen disguised as satyrs

TIME, as chorus

The Winter’s Tale

1.1 Enter Camillo and Archidamus

ARCHIDAMUS 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.

CAMILLO I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.

ARCHIDAMUS Wherein our entertainment shall shame us, we will be justified in our loves; for indeed—

CAMILLO Beseech you—

ARCHIDAMUS 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.

CAMILLO You pay a great deal too dear for what’s given freely.

ARCHIDAMUS Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.

CAMILLO 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 cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters—though not personal—hath been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies, that they have seemed 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 loves.

ARCHIDAMUS 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.

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

ARCHIDAMUS Would they else be content to die?

CAMILLO Yes—if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.

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

1.2 Enter Leontes, Hermione, Mamillius, Polixenes, and ⌈Camillo⌉

POLIXENES

Nine changes of the wat‘ry star hath been

The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne

Without a burden. Time as long again

Would be filled up, my brother, with our thanks,

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.

LEONTES

Stay your thanks a while,

And pay them when you part.

POLIXENES

Sir, that’s tomorrow. I am questioned by my fears of what may chance

Or breed upon our absence, that may blow

No sneaping winds at home to make us say

‘This is put forth too truly.’ Besides, I have stayed

To tire your royalty.

LEONTES

We are tougher, brother,

Than you can put us to’t.

POLIXENES

No longer stay.

LEONTES

One sennight longer.

POLIXENES

Very sooth, tomorrow.

LEONTES

We’ll part the time between’s, then; and in that

I’ll no gainsaying.

POLIXENES

Press me not, beseech you, so.

There is no tongue that moves, none, none i‘th’ 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.

LEONTES

Tongue-tied, our queen? Speak you.

HERMIONE

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 bygone day proclaimed. Say this to him,

He’s beat from his best ward.

LEONTES

Well said, Hermione!

HERMIONE

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 Polixenes) Yet of your royal presence I’ll adventure

The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia

You take my lord, I’ll give him my commission

To let him there a month behind the gest

Prefixed for’s parting.—Yet, good deed, Leontes,

I love thee not a jar o’th’ clock behind

What lady she her lord.—You’ll stay?

POLIXENES

No, madam.

HERMIONE Nay, but you will?

POLIXENES I may not, verily.

HERMIONE Verily?

You put me off with limber vows. But I,

Though you would seek t‘unsphere the stars with

oaths,

Should yet say ‘Sir, no going.’ Verily

You shall not go. A lady’s ‘verily’ ’s

As potent as a lord’s. Will you go yet?

Force me to keep you as a prisoner,

Not like a guest: so you shall pay your fees

When you depart, and save your thanks. How say

you?

My prisoner? or my guest? By your dread ‘verily’,

One of them you shall be.

POLIXENES

Your guest then, madam.

To be your prisoner should import offending,

Which is for me less easy to commit

Than you to punish.

HERMIONE

Not your jailer then,

But your kind hostess. Come, I’ll question you

Of my lord’s tricks and yours when you were boys.

You were pretty lordings then?

POLIXENES

We were, fair Queen,

Two lads that thought there was no more behind

But such a day tomorrow as today,

And to be boy eternal.

HERMIONE Was not my lord

The verier wag o’th’ two?

POLIXENES

We were as twinned lambs that did frisk i‘th’ sun,

And bleat the one at th’other. What we changed

Was innocence for innocence. We knew not

The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed

That any did. Had we pursued that life,

And our weak spirits ne‘er been higher reared

With stronger blood, we should have answered

heaven

Boldly, ‘Not guilty’, the imposition cleared

Hereditary ours.

HERMIONE

By this we gather

You have tripped since.

POLIXENES

O my most sacred lady,

Temptations have since then been born to’s; for

In those unfledged days was my wife a girl.

Your precious self had then not crossed the eyes

Of my young playfellow.

HERMIONE

Grace to boot!

Of this make no conclusion, lest you say

Your queen and I are devils. Yet go on.

Th’offences we have made you do we’ll answer,

If you first sinned with us, and that with us

You did continue fault, and that you slipped not

With any but with us.

LEONTES

Is he won yet?

HERMIONE

He’ll stay, my lord.

LEONTES

At my request he would not.

Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok’st

To better purpose.

HERMIONE

Never?

LEONTES

Never but once.

HERMIONE

What, have I twice said well? When was’t before?

I prithee tell me. Cram’s with praise, and make’s

As fat as tame things. One good deed dying tongueless

Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.

Our praises are our wages. You may ride’s

With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere

With spur we heat an acre. But to th’ goal.

My last good deed was to entreat his stay.

What was my first? It has an elder sister,

Or I mistake you. O, would her name were Gracel

But once before I spoke to th’ purpose? When?

Nay, let me have’t. I long.

LEONTES

Why, that was when

Three crabbed months had soured themselves to death

Ere I could make thee open thy white hand

And clap thyself my love. Then didst thou utter,

‘I am yours for ever.’

HERMIONE

’Tis grace indeed.

Why lo you now; I have spoke to th’ purpose twice.

The one for ever earned a royal husband;

Th’other, for some while a friend.

⌈She gives her hand to Polixenes.⌉

They stand aside

LEONTES (aside)

Too hot, too hot:

To mingle friendship farre is mingling bloods.

I have tremor cordis on me. My heart dances,

But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment

May a free face put on, derive a liberty

From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,

And well become the agent. ’T may, I grant.

But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,

As now they are, and making practised smiles

As in a looking-glass; and then to sigh, as ‘twere

The mort o’th’ deer—O, that is entertainment

My bosom likes not, nor my brows.—Mamillius,

Art thou my boy?

MAMILLIUS

Ay, my good lord.

LEONTES

I’fecks,

Why, that’s my bawcock. What? Hast smutched thy

nose?

They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain,

We must be neat—not neat, but cleanly, captain.

And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf

Are all called neat.—Still virginalling

Upon his palm?—How now, you wanton calf—

Art thou my calf?

MAMILLIUS

Yes, if you will, my lord.

LEONTES

Thou want‘st a rough pash and the shoots that I have,

To be full like me. Yet they say we are

Almost as like as eggs. Women say so,

That will say anything. But were they false

As o’er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false

As dice are to be wished by one that fixes

No bourn ‘twixt his and mine, yet were it true

To say this boy were like me. Come, sir page,

Look on me with your welkin eye. Sweet villain,

Most dear’st, my collop! Can thy dam—may’t be?—

Affection, thy intention stabs the centre.

Thou dost make possible things not so held,

Communicat‘st with dreams—how can this be?—

With what’s unreal thou coactive art,

And fellow’st nothing. Then ‘tis very credent

Thou mayst co-join with something, and thou dost—

And that beyond commission; and I find it—

And that to the infection of my brains

And hard’ning of my brows.

POLIXENES

What means Sicilia?

HERMIONE

He something seems unsettled.

POLIXENES

How, my lord!

LEONTES

What cheer? How is’t with you, best brother?

HERMIONE

You look

As if you held a brow of much distraction.

Are you moved, my lord?

LEONTES

No, in good earnest.

How sometimes nature will betray its folly,

Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime

To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines

Of my boy’s face, methoughts I did recoil

Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreeched,

In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzled,

Lest it should bite its master, and so prove,

As ornament oft does, too dangerous.

How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,

This squash, this gentleman.—Mine honest friend,

Will you take eggs for money?

MAMILLIUS

No, my lord, I’ll fight.

LEONTES

You will? Why, happy man be’s dole!—My brother,

Are you so fond of your young prince as we

Do seem to be of ours?

POLIXENES

If at home, sir,

He’s all my exercise, my mirth, my matter;

Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;

My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.

He makes a July’s day short as December,

And with his varying childness cures in me

Thoughts that would thick my blood.

LEONTES

So stands this squire

Officed with me. We two will walk, my lord,

And leave you to your graver steps. Hermione,

How thou lov’st us show in our brother’s welcome.

Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap.

Next to thyself and my young rover, he’s

Apparent to my heart.

HERMIONE

If you would seek us,

We are yours i’th’ garden. Shall’s attend you there?

LEONTES

To your own bents dispose you. You’ll be found,

Be you beneath the sky. (Aside) I am angling now,

Though you perceive me not how I give line.

Go to, go to!

How she holds up the neb, the bill to him,

And arms her with the boldness of a wife

To her allowing husband!

Exeunt Polixenes and Hermione Gone already.

Inch-thick, knee-deep, o‘er head and ears a forked

one!—

Go play, boy, play. Thy mother plays, and I

Play too; but so disgraced a part, whose issue

Will hiss me to my grave. Contempt and clamour

Will be my knell. Go play, boy, play. There have been,

Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now,

And many a man there is, even at this present,

Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by th’arm,

That little thinks she has been sluiced in’s absence,

And his pond fished by his next neighbour, by

Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there’s comfort in‘t,

Whiles other men have gates, and those gates opened,

As mine, against their will. Should all despair

That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind

Would hang themselves. Physic for’t there’s none.

It is a bawdy planet, that will strike

Where ’tis predominant; and ‘tis powerful. Think it:

From east, west, north, and south, be it concluded,

No barricado for a belly. Know’t,

It will let in and out the enemy

With bag and baggage. Many thousand on’s

Have the disease and feel’t not.—How now, boy?

MAMILLIUS

I am like you, they say.

LEONTES

Why, that’s some comfort.

What, Camillo there!

CAMILLO [coming forward] Ay, my good lord.

LEONTES

Go play, Mamillius, thou’rt an honest man.

Exit Mamillius

Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.

CAMILLO

You had much ado to make his anchor hold.

When you cast out, it still came home.

LEONTES Didst note it?

CAMILLO

He would not stay at your petitions, made

His business more material.

LEONTES

Didst perceive it?

(Aside) They’re here with me already, whisp‘ring,

rounding,

‘Sicilia is a so-forth’. ’Tis far gone

When I shall gust it last.—How came’t, Camillo,

That he did stay?

CAMILLO

At the good Queen’s entreaty.

LEONTES

‘At the Queen’s’ be’t. ‘Good’ should be pertinent,

But so it is, it is not. Was this taken

By any understanding pate but thine?

For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in

More than the common blocks. Not noted, is’t,

But of the finer natures? By some severals

Of head-piece extraordinary? Lower messes

Perchance are to this business purblind? Say.

CAMILLO

Business, my lord? I think most understand

Bohemia stays here longer.

LEONTES Ha?

CAMILLO Stays here longer.

LEONTES Ay, but why?

CAMILLO

To satisfy your highness, and the entreaties

Of our most gracious mistress.

LEONTES Satisfy?

Th‘entreaties of your mistress? Satisfy?

Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,

With all the near’st things to my heart, as well

My chamber-counsels, wherein, priest-like, thou

Hast cleansed my bosom, I from thee departed

Thy penitent reformed. But we have been

Deceived in thy integrity, deceived

In that which seems so.

CAMILLO

Be it forbid, my lord.

LEONTES

To bide upon’t: thou art not honest; or

If thou inclin‘st that way, thou art a coward,

Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining

From course required. Or else thou must be counted

A servant grafted in my serious trust

And therein negligent, or else a fool

That seest a game played home, the rich stake drawn,

And tak’st it all for jest.

CAMILLO

My gracious lord,

I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful.

In every one of these no man is free,

But that his negligence, his folly, fear,

Among the infinite doings of the world

Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,

If ever I were wilful-negligent,

It was my folly. If industriously

I played the fool, it was my negligence,

Not weighing well the end. If ever fearful

To do a thing where I the issue doubted,

Whereof the execution did cry out

Against the non-performance, ‘twas a fear

Which oft infects the wisest. These, my lord,

Are such allowed infirmities that honesty

Is never free of. But beseech your grace

Be plainer with me, let me know my trespass

By its own visage. If I then deny it,

’Tis none of mine.

LEONTES

Ha’ not you seen, Camillo—

But that’s past doubt; you have, or your eye-glass

Is thicker than a cuckold’s horn—or heard—

For, to a vision so apparent, rumour

Cannot be mute—or thought—for cogitation

Resides not in that man that does not think—

My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess—

Or else be impudently negative

To have nor eyes, nor ears, nor thought—then say

My wife’s a hobby-horse, deserves a name

As rank as any flax-wench that puts to

Before her troth-plight. Say’t, and justify’t.

CAMILLO

I would not be a stander-by to hear