The Winter’s Tale
| ACT V SCENE II | Before Leontes’ palace. | |
| [Enter AUTOLYCUS and a Gentleman] | ||
| AUTOLYCUS | Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation? | |
| First Gentleman | I was by 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; only this methought I | 5 | |
| heard the shepherd say, he found the child. | ||
| AUTOLYCUS | I would most gladly know the issue of it. | |
| First Gentleman | I make a broken delivery of the business; but the | |
| changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were | ||
| very notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with | 10 | |
| staring on one another, to tear the cases of their | ||
| eyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language | ||
| in their very gesture; they looked as they had heard | ||
| of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable | ||
| passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest | 15 | |
| beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not | ||
| say if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the | ||
| extremity of the one, it must needs be. | ||
| [Enter another Gentleman] | ||
| Here comes a gentleman that haply knows more. | ||
| The news, Rogero? | 20 | |
| Second Gentleman | Nothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled; the | |
| king’s daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is | ||
| broken out within this hour that ballad-makers | ||
| cannot be able to express it. | ||
| [Enter a third Gentleman] | ||
| Here comes the Lady Paulina’s steward: he can | 25 | |
| deliver you more. How goes it now, sir? this news | ||
| which is called true is so like an old tale, that | ||
| the verity of it is in strong suspicion: has the king | ||
| found his heir? | ||
| Third Gentleman | Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by | 30 |
| circumstance: that which you hear you’ll swear you | ||
| see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle | ||
| of Queen Hermione’s, her jewel about the neck of it, | ||
| the letters of Antigonus found with it which they | ||
| know to be his character, the majesty of the | 35 | |
| creature in resemblance of the mother, the affection | ||
| of nobleness which nature shows above her breeding, | ||
| and many other evidences proclaim her with all | ||
| certainty to be the king’s daughter. Did you see | ||
| the meeting of the two kings? | 40 | |
| Second Gentleman | No. | |
| Third Gentleman | Then have you lost a sight, which was to be seen, | |
| cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one | ||
| joy crown another, so and in such manner that it | ||
| seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their | 45 | |
| joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, | ||
| holding up of hands, with countenances of such | ||
| distraction that they were to be known by garment, | ||
| not by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of | ||
| himself for joy of his found daughter, as if that | 50 | |
| joy were now become a loss, cries ‘O, thy mother, | ||
| thy mother!’ then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then | ||
| embraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his | ||
| daughter with clipping her; now he thanks the old | ||
| shepherd, which stands by like a weather-bitten | 55 | |
| conduit of many kings’ reigns. I never heard of such | ||
| another encounter, which lames report to follow it | ||
| and undoes description to do it. | ||
| Second Gentleman | What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried | |
| hence the child? | 60 | |
| Third Gentleman | Like an old tale still, which will have matter to | |
| rehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear | ||
| open. He was torn to pieces with a bear: this | ||
| avouches the shepherd’s son; who has not only his | ||
| innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a | 65 | |
| handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows. | ||
| First Gentleman | What became of his bark and his followers? | |
| Third Gentleman | Wrecked the same instant of their master’s death and | |
| in the view of the shepherd: so that all the | ||
| instruments which aided to expose the child were | 70 | |
| even then lost when it was found. But O, the noble | ||
| combat that ‘twixt joy and sorrow was fought in | ||
| Paulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of | ||
| her husband, another elevated that the oracle was | ||
| fulfilled: she lifted the princess from the earth, | 75 | |
| and so locks her in embracing, as if she would pin | ||
| her to her heart that she might no more be in danger | ||
| of losing. | ||
| First Gentleman | The dignity of this act was worth the audience of | |
| kings and princes; for by such was it acted. | 80 | |
| Third Gentleman | One of the prettiest touches of all and that which | |
| angled for mine eyes, caught the water though not | ||
| the fish, was when, at the relation of the queen’s | ||
| death, with the manner how she came to’t bravely | ||
| confessed and lamented by the king, how | 85 | |
| attentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one | ||
| sign of dolour to another, she did, with an ‘Alas,’ | ||
| I would fain say, bleed tears, for I am sure my | ||
| heart wept blood. Who was most marble there changed | ||
| colour; some swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world | 90 | |
| could have seen ‘t, the woe had been universal. | ||
| First Gentleman | Are they returned to the court? | |
| Third Gentleman | No: the princess hearing of her mother’s statue, | |
| which is in the keeping of Paulina,–a piece many | ||
| years in doing and now newly performed by that rare | 95 | |
| Italian master, Julio Romano, who, had he himself | ||
| eternity and could put breath into his work, would | ||
| beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her | ||
| ape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that | ||
| they say one would speak to her and stand in hope of | 100 | |
| answer: thither with all greediness of affection | ||
| are they gone, and there they intend to sup. | ||
| Second Gentleman | I thought she had some great matter there in hand; | |
| for she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever | ||
| since the death of Hermione, visited that removed | 105 | |
| house. Shall we thither and with our company piece | ||
| the rejoicing? | ||
| First Gentleman | Who would be thence that has the benefit of access? | |
| every wink of an eye some new grace will be born: | ||
| our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. | 110 | |
| Let’s along. | ||
| [Exeunt Gentlemen] | ||
| AUTOLYCUS | Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, | |
| would preferment drop on my head. I brought the old | ||
| man and his son aboard the prince: told him I heard | ||
| them talk of a fardel and I know not what: but he | 115 | |
| at that time, overfond of the shepherd’s daughter, | ||
| so he then took her to be, who began to be much | ||
| sea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of | ||
| weather continuing, this mystery remained | ||
| undiscovered. But ’tis all one to me; for had I | 120 | |
| been the finder out of this secret, it would not | ||
| have relished among my other discredits. | ||
| [Enter Shepherd and Clown] | ||
| Here come those I have done good to against my will, | ||
| and already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune. | ||
| Shepherd | Come, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and | 125 |
| daughters will be all gentlemen born. | ||
| Clown | You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me | |
| this other day, because I was no gentleman born. | ||
| See you these clothes? say you see them not and | ||
| think me still no gentleman born: you were best say | 130 | |
| these robes are not gentlemen born: give me the | ||
| lie, do, and try whether I am not now a gentleman born. | ||
| AUTOLYCUS | I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born. | |
| Clown | Ay, and have been so any time these four hours. | |
| Shepherd | And so have I, boy. | 135 |
| Clown | So you have: but I was a gentleman born before my | |
| father; for the king’s son took me by the hand, and | ||
| called me brother; and then the two kings called my | ||
| father brother; and then the prince my brother and | ||
| the princess my sister called my father father; and | 140 | |
| so we wept, and there was the first gentleman-like | ||
| tears that ever we shed. | ||
| Shepherd | We may live, son, to shed many more. | |
| Clown | Ay; or else ’twere hard luck, being in so | |
| preposterous estate as we are. | 145 | |
| AUTOLYCUS | I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the | |
| faults I have committed to your worship and to give | ||
| me your good report to the prince my master. | ||
| Shepherd | Prithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are | |
| gentlemen. | 150 | |
| Clown | Thou wilt amend thy life? | |
| AUTOLYCUS | Ay, an it like your good worship. | |
| Clown | Give me thy hand: I will swear to the prince thou | |
| art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia. | ||
| Shepherd | You may say it, but not swear it. | 155 |
| Clown | Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and | |
| franklins say it, I’ll swear it. | ||
| Shepherd | How if it be false, son? | |
| Clown | If it be ne’er so false, a true gentleman may swear | |
| it in the behalf of his friend: and I’ll swear to | 160 | |
| the prince thou art a tall fellow of thy hands and | ||
| that thou wilt not be drunk; but I know thou art no | ||
| tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be | ||
| drunk: but I’ll swear it, and I would thou wouldst | ||
| be a tall fellow of thy hands. | 165 | |
| AUTOLYCUS | I will prove so, sir, to my power. | |
| Clown | Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow: if I do not | |
| wonder how thou darest venture to be drunk, not | ||
| being a tall fellow, trust me not. Hark! the kings | ||
| and the princes, our kindred, are going to see the | 170 | |
| queen’s picture. Come, follow us: we’ll be thy | ||
| good masters. | ||
| [Exeunt] | ||
Next: The Winter’s Tale, Act 5, Scene 3