The Winter’s Tale

1 Enter Hermione, Mamillius and Ladies.
2 HERMIONE.
3 Take the boy to you: he so troubles me,
4 ’Tis past enduring.
5 FIRST LADY.
6 Come, my gracious lord,
7 Shall I be your playfellow?
8 MAMILLIUS.
9 No, I’ll none of you.
10 FIRST LADY.
11 Why, my sweet lord?
12 MAMILLIUS.
13 You’ll kiss me hard, and speak to me as if
14 I were a baby still. I love you better.
15 SECOND LADY.
16 And why so, my lord?
17 MAMILLIUS.
18 Not for because
19 Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,
20 Become some women best, so that there be not
21 Too much hair there, but in a semicircle
22 Or a half-moon made with a pen.
23 SECOND LADY.
24 Who taught this?
25 MAMILLIUS.
26 I learn’d it out of women’s faces. Pray now,
27 What colour are your eyebrows?
28 FIRST LADY.
29 Blue, my lord.
30 MAMILLIUS.
31 Nay, that’s a mock. I have seen a lady’s nose
32 That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.
33 FIRST LADY.
34 Hark ye,
35 The queen your mother rounds apace. We shall
36 Present our services to a fine new prince
37 One of these days, and then you’d wanton with us,
38 If we would have you.
39 SECOND LADY.
40 She is spread of late
41 Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her!
42 HERMIONE.
43 What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now
44 I am for you again. Pray you sit by us,
45 And tell ’s a tale.
46 MAMILLIUS.
47 Merry or sad shall’t be?
48 HERMIONE.
49 As merry as you will.
50 MAMILLIUS.
51 A sad tale’s best for winter. I have one
52 Of sprites and goblins.
53 HERMIONE.
54 Let’s have that, good sir.
55 Come on, sit down. Come on, and do your best
56 To fright me with your sprites: you’re powerful at it.
57 MAMILLIUS.
58 There was a man,—
59 HERMIONE.
60 Nay, come, sit down, then on.
61 MAMILLIUS.
62 Dwelt by a churchyard. I will tell it softly,
63 Yond crickets shall not hear it.
64 HERMIONE.
65 Come on then,
66 And give’t me in mine ear.
67 Enter Leontes, Antigonus, Lords and Guards.
68 LEONTES.
69 Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him?
70 FIRST LORD.
71 Behind the tuft of pines I met them, never
72 Saw I men scour so on their way: I ey’d them
73 Even to their ships.
74 LEONTES.
75 How blest am I
76 In my just censure, in my true opinion!
77 Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accurs’d
78 In being so blest! There may be in the cup
79 A spider steep’d, and one may drink, depart,
80 And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge
81 Is not infected; but if one present
82 Th’ abhorr’d ingredient to his eye, make known
83 How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
84 With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider.
85 Camillo was his help in this, his pander.
86 There is a plot against my life, my crown;
87 All’s true that is mistrusted. That false villain
88 Whom I employ’d, was pre-employ’d by him.
89 He has discover’d my design, and I
90 Remain a pinch’d thing; yea, a very trick
91 For them to play at will. How came the posterns
92 So easily open?
93 FIRST LORD.
94 By his great authority,
95 Which often hath no less prevail’d than so
96 On your command.
97 LEONTES.
98 I know’t too well.
99 Give me the boy. I am glad you did not nurse him.
100 Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you
101 Have too much blood in him.
102 HERMIONE.
103 What is this? sport?
104 LEONTES.
105 Bear the boy hence, he shall not come about her,
106 Away with him, and let her sport herself
107 With that she’s big with; for ’tis Polixenes
108 Has made thee swell thus.
109 [_Exit Mamillius with some of the Guards._]
110 HERMIONE.
111 But I’d say he had not,
112 And I’ll be sworn you would believe my saying,
113 Howe’er you learn th’ nayward.
114 LEONTES.
115 You, my lords,
116 Look on her, mark her well. Be but about
117 To say, “she is a goodly lady,” and
118 The justice of your hearts will thereto add
119 “’Tis pity she’s not honest, honourable”:
120 Praise her but for this her without-door form,
121 Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight
122 The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands
123 That calumny doth use—O, I am out,
124 That mercy does; for calumny will sear
125 Virtue itself—these shrugs, these hum’s, and ha’s,
126 When you have said “she’s goodly,” come between,
127 Ere you can say “she’s honest”: but be it known,
128 From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,
129 She’s an adultress!
130 HERMIONE.
131 Should a villain say so,
132 The most replenish’d villain in the world,
133 He were as much more villain: you, my lord,
134 Do but mistake.
135 LEONTES.
136 You have mistook, my lady,
137 Polixenes for Leontes. O thou thing,
138 Which I’ll not call a creature of thy place,
139 Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
140 Should a like language use to all degrees,
141 And mannerly distinguishment leave out
142 Betwixt the prince and beggar. I have said
143 She’s an adultress; I have said with whom:
144 More, she’s a traitor, and Camillo is
145 A federary with her; and one that knows
146 What she should shame to know herself
147 But with her most vile principal, that she’s
148 A bed-swerver, even as bad as those
149 That vulgars give bold’st titles; ay, and privy
150 To this their late escape.
151 HERMIONE.
152 No, by my life,
153 Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you,
154 When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
155 You thus have publish’d me! Gentle my lord,
156 You scarce can right me throughly then, to say
157 You did mistake.
158 LEONTES.
159 No. If I mistake
160 In those foundations which I build upon,
161 The centre is not big enough to bear
162 A school-boy’s top. Away with her to prison!
163 He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty
164 But that he speaks.
165 HERMIONE.
166 There’s some ill planet reigns:
167 I must be patient till the heavens look
168 With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,
169 I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
170 Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
171 Perchance shall dry your pities. But I have
172 That honourable grief lodg’d here which burns
173 Worse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords,
174 With thoughts so qualified as your charities
175 Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so
176 The king’s will be perform’d.
177 LEONTES.
178 Shall I be heard?
179 HERMIONE.
180 Who is’t that goes with me? Beseech your highness
181 My women may be with me, for you see
182 My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools;
183 There is no cause: when you shall know your mistress
184 Has deserv’d prison, then abound in tears
185 As I come out: this action I now go on
186 Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord:
187 I never wish’d to see you sorry; now
188 I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave.
189 LEONTES.
190 Go, do our bidding. Hence!
191 [_Exeunt Queen and Ladies with Guards._]
192 FIRST LORD.
193 Beseech your highness, call the queen again.
194 ANTIGONUS.
195 Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice
196 Prove violence, in the which three great ones suffer,
197 Yourself, your queen, your son.
198 FIRST LORD.
199 For her, my lord,
200 I dare my life lay down, and will do’t, sir,
201 Please you to accept it, that the queen is spotless
202 I’ th’ eyes of heaven and to you—I mean
203 In this which you accuse her.
204 ANTIGONUS.
205 If it prove
206 She’s otherwise, I’ll keep my stables where
207 I lodge my wife; I’ll go in couples with her;
208 Than when I feel and see her no further trust her.
209 For every inch of woman in the world,
210 Ay, every dram of woman’s flesh, is false,
211 If she be.
212 LEONTES.
213 Hold your peaces.
214 FIRST LORD.
215 Good my lord,—
216 ANTIGONUS.
217 It is for you we speak, not for ourselves:
218 You are abus’d, and by some putter-on
219 That will be damn’d for’t: would I knew the villain,
220 I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw’d,
221 I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven;
222 The second and the third, nine and some five;
223 If this prove true, they’ll pay for’t. By mine honour,
224 I’ll geld ’em all; fourteen they shall not see,
225 To bring false generations: they are co-heirs,
226 And I had rather glib myself than they
227 Should not produce fair issue.
228 LEONTES.
229 Cease; no more.
230 You smell this business with a sense as cold
231 As is a dead man’s nose: but I do see’t and feel’t,
232 As you feel doing thus; and see withal
233 The instruments that feel.
234 ANTIGONUS.
235 If it be so,
236 We need no grave to bury honesty.
237 There’s not a grain of it the face to sweeten
238 Of the whole dungy earth.
239 LEONTES.
240 What! Lack I credit?
241 FIRST LORD.
242 I had rather you did lack than I, my lord,
243 Upon this ground: and more it would content me
244 To have her honour true than your suspicion,
245 Be blam’d for’t how you might.
246 LEONTES.
247 Why, what need we
248 Commune with you of this, but rather follow
249 Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative
250 Calls not your counsels, but our natural goodness
251 Imparts this; which, if you, or stupified
252 Or seeming so in skill, cannot or will not
253 Relish a truth, like us, inform yourselves
254 We need no more of your advice: the matter,
255 The loss, the gain, the ord’ring on’t, is all
256 Properly ours.
257 ANTIGONUS.
258 And I wish, my liege,
259 You had only in your silent judgement tried it,
260 Without more overture.
261 LEONTES.
262 How could that be?
263 Either thou art most ignorant by age,
264 Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo’s flight,
265 Added to their familiarity,
266 (Which was as gross as ever touch’d conjecture,
267 That lack’d sight only, nought for approbation
268 But only seeing, all other circumstances
269 Made up to th’ deed) doth push on this proceeding.
270 Yet, for a greater confirmation
271 (For in an act of this importance, ’twere
272 Most piteous to be wild), I have dispatch’d in post
273 To sacred Delphos, to Apollo’s temple,
274 Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know
275 Of stuff’d sufficiency: now from the oracle
276 They will bring all, whose spiritual counsel had,
277 Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well?
278 FIRST LORD.
279 Well done, my lord.
280 LEONTES.
281 Though I am satisfied, and need no more
282 Than what I know, yet shall the oracle
283 Give rest to the minds of others, such as he
284 Whose ignorant credulity will not
285 Come up to th’ truth. So have we thought it good
286 From our free person she should be confin’d,
287 Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence
288 Be left her to perform. Come, follow us;
289 We are to speak in public; for this business
290 Will raise us all.
291 ANTIGONUS.
292 [_Aside._] To laughter, as I take it,
293 If the good truth were known.
294 [_Exeunt._]