The Winter’s Tale

1 Enter Polixenes and Camillo.
2 POLIXENES.
3 I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: ’tis a sickness
4 denying thee anything; a death to grant this.
5 CAMILLO.
6 It is fifteen years since I saw my country. Though I have for the most
7 part been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the
8 penitent king, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling sorrows I
9 might be some allay, or I o’erween to think so,—which is another spur
10 to my departure.
11 POLIXENES.
12 As thou lov’st me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy services by
13 leaving me now: the need I have of thee, thine own goodness hath made;
14 better not to have had thee than thus to want thee. Thou, having made
15 me businesses which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must
16 either stay to execute them thyself, or take away with thee the very
17 services thou hast done, which if I have not enough considered (as too
18 much I cannot) to be more thankful to thee shall be my study; and my
19 profit therein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country Sicilia,
20 prithee speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the
21 remembrance of that penitent, as thou call’st him, and reconciled king,
22 my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children are even
23 now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the Prince
24 Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being
25 gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved their
26 virtues.
27 CAMILLO.
28 Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What his happier affairs
29 may be, are to me unknown, but I have missingly noted he is of late
30 much retired from court, and is less frequent to his princely exercises
31 than formerly he hath appeared.
32 POLIXENES.
33 I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care; so far that I
34 have eyes under my service which look upon his removedness; from whom I
35 have this intelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a most
36 homely shepherd, a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond
37 the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.
38 CAMILLO.
39 I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare
40 note: the report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin
41 from such a cottage.
42 POLIXENES.
43 That’s likewise part of my intelligence: but, I fear, the angle that
44 plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place, where we
45 will, not appearing what we are, have some question with the shepherd;
46 from whose simplicity I think it not uneasy to get the cause of my
47 son’s resort thither. Prithee, be my present partner in this business,
48 and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.
49 CAMILLO.
50 I willingly obey your command.
51 POLIXENES.
52 My best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves.
53 [_Exeunt._]