The Winter’s Tale
ACT II SCENE I | A room in Leontes’ palace. | |
[Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and Ladies] | ||
HERMIONE | Take the boy to you: he so troubles me, | |
‘Tis past enduring. | ||
First Lady | Come, my gracious lord, | |
Shall I be your playfellow? | ||
MAMILLIUS | No, I’ll none of you. | 5 |
First Lady | Why, my sweet lord? | |
MAMILLIUS | You’ll kiss me hard and speak to me as if | |
I were a baby still. I love you better. | ||
Second Lady | And why so, my lord? | |
MAMILLIUS | Not for because | 10 |
Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say, | ||
Become some women best, so that there be not | ||
Too much hair there, but in a semicircle | ||
Or a half-moon made with a pen. | ||
Second Lady | Who taught you this? | 15 |
MAMILLIUS | I learnt it out of women’s faces. Pray now | |
What colour are your eyebrows? | ||
First Lady | Blue, my lord. | |
MAMILLIUS | Nay, that’s a mock: I have seen a lady’s nose | |
That has been blue, but not her eyebrows. | 20 | |
First Lady | Hark ye; | |
The queen your mother rounds apace: we shall | ||
Present our services to a fine new prince | ||
One of these days; and then you’ld wanton with us, | ||
If we would have you. | 25 | |
Second Lady | She is spread of late | |
Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her! | ||
HERMIONE | What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now | |
I am for you again: pray you, sit by us, | ||
And tell ‘s a tale. | 30 | |
MAMILLIUS | Merry or sad shall’t be? | |
HERMIONE | As merry as you will. | |
MAMILLIUS | A sad tale’s best for winter: I have one | |
Of sprites and goblins. | ||
HERMIONE | Let’s have that, good sir. | 35 |
Come on, sit down: come on, and do your best | ||
To fright me with your sprites; you’re powerful at it. | ||
MAMILLIUS | There was a man– | |
HERMIONE | Nay, come, sit down; then on. | |
MAMILLIUS | Dwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly; | 40 |
Yond crickets shall not hear it. | ||
HERMIONE | Come on, then, | |
And give’t me in mine ear. | ||
[Enter LEONTES, with ANTIGONUS, Lords and others] | ||
LEONTES | Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him? | |
First Lord | Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never | 45 |
Saw I men scour so on their way: I eyed them | ||
Even to their ships. | ||
LEONTES | How blest am I | |
In my just censure, in my true opinion! | ||
Alack, for lesser knowledge! how accursed | 50 | |
In being so blest! There may be in the cup | ||
A spider steep’d, and one may drink, depart, | ||
And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge | ||
Is not infected: but if one present | ||
The abhorr’d ingredient to his eye, make known | 55 | |
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides, | ||
With violent hefts. I have drunk, | ||
and seen the spider. | ||
Camillo was his help in this, his pander: | ||
There is a plot against my life, my crown; | 60 | |
All’s true that is mistrusted: that false villain | ||
Whom I employ’d was pre-employ’d by him: | ||
He has discover’d my design, and I | ||
Remain a pinch’d thing; yea, a very trick | ||
For them to play at will. How came the posterns | 65 | |
So easily open? | ||
First Lord | By his great authority; | |
Which often hath no less prevail’d than so | ||
On your command. | ||
LEONTES | I know’t too well. | 70 |
Give me the boy: I am glad you did not nurse him: | ||
Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you | ||
Have too much blood in him. | ||
HERMIONE | What is this? sport? | |
LEONTES | Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her; | 75 |
Away with him! and let her sport herself | ||
With that she’s big with; for ’tis Polixenes | ||
Has made thee swell thus. | ||
HERMIONE | But I’ld say he had not, | |
And I’ll be sworn you would believe my saying, | 80 | |
Howe’er you lean to the nayward. | ||
LEONTES | You, my lords, | |
Look on her, mark her well; be but about | ||
To say ‘she is a goodly lady,’ and | ||
The justice of your bearts will thereto add | 85 | |
‘Tis pity she’s not honest, honourable:’ | ||
Praise her but for this her without-door form, | ||
Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight | ||
The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands | ||
That calumny doth use–O, I am out– | 90 | |
That mercy does, for calumny will sear | ||
Virtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha’s, | ||
When you have said ‘she’s goodly,’ come between | ||
Ere you can say ‘she’s honest:’ but be ‘t known, | ||
From him that has most cause to grieve it should be, | 95 | |
She’s an adulteress. | ||
HERMIONE | Should a villain say so, | |
The most replenish’d villain in the world, | ||
He were as much more villain: you, my lord, | ||
Do but mistake. | 100 | |
LEONTES | You have mistook, my lady, | |
Polixenes for Leontes: O thou thing! | ||
Which I’ll not call a creature of thy place, | ||
Lest barbarism, making me the precedent, | ||
Should a like language use to all degrees | 105 | |
And mannerly distinguishment leave out | ||
Betwixt the prince and beggar: I have said | ||
She’s an adulteress; I have said with whom: | ||
More, she’s a traitor and Camillo is | ||
A federary with her, and one that knows | 110 | |
What she should shame to know herself | ||
But with her most vile principal, that she’s | ||
A bed-swerver, even as bad as those | ||
That vulgars give bold’st titles, ay, and privy | ||
To this their late escape. | 115 | |
HERMIONE | No, by my life. | |
Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you, | ||
When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that | ||
You thus have publish’d me! Gentle my lord, | ||
You scarce can right me throughly then to say | 120 | |
You did mistake. | ||
LEONTES | No; if I mistake | |
In those foundations which I build upon, | ||
The centre is not big enough to bear | ||
A school-boy’s top. Away with her! to prison! | 125 | |
He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty | ||
But that he speaks. | ||
HERMIONE | There’s some ill planet reigns: | |
I must be patient till the heavens look | ||
With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords, | 130 | |
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex | ||
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew | ||
Perchance shall dry your pities: but I have | ||
That honourable grief lodged here which burns | ||
Worse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords, | 135 | |
With thoughts so qualified as your charities | ||
Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so | ||
The king’s will be perform’d! | ||
LEONTES | Shall I be heard? | |
HERMIONE | Who is’t that goes with me? Beseech your highness, | 140 |
My women may be with me; for you see | ||
My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools; | ||
There is no cause: when you shall know your mistress | ||
Has deserved prison, then abound in tears | ||
As I come out: this action I now go on | 145 | |
Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord: | ||
I never wish’d to see you sorry; now | ||
I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave. | ||
LEONTES | Go, do our bidding; hence! | |
[Exit HERMIONE, guarded; with Ladies] | ||
First Lord | Beseech your highness, call the queen again. | 150 |
ANTIGONUS | Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice | |
Prove violence; in the which three great ones suffer, | ||
Yourself, your queen, your son. | ||
First Lord | For her, my lord, | |
I dare my life lay down and will do’t, sir, | 155 | |
Please you to accept it, that the queen is spotless | ||
I’ the eyes of heaven and to you; I mean, | ||
In this which you accuse her. | ||
ANTIGONUS | If it prove | |
She’s otherwise, I’ll keep my stables where | 160 | |
I lodge my wife; I’ll go in couples with her; | ||
Than when I feel and see her no farther trust her; | ||
For every inch of woman in the world, | ||
Ay, every dram of woman’s flesh is false, If she be. | ||
LEONTES | Hold your peaces. | 165 |
First Lord | Good my lord,– | |
ANTIGONUS | It is for you we speak, not for ourselves: | |
You are abused and by some putter-on | ||
That will be damn’d for’t; would I knew the villain, | ||
I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw’d, | 170 | |
I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven | ||
The second and the third, nine, and some five; | ||
If this prove true, they’ll pay for’t: | ||
by mine honour, | ||
I’ll geld ’em all; fourteen they shall not see, | 175 | |
To bring false generations: they are co-heirs; | ||
And I had rather glib myself than they | ||
Should not produce fair issue. | ||
LEONTES | Cease; no more. | |
You smell this business with a sense as cold | 180 | |
As is a dead man’s nose: but I do see’t and feel’t | ||
As you feel doing thus; and see withal | ||
The instruments that feel. | ||
ANTIGONUS | If it be so, | |
We need no grave to bury honesty: | 185 | |
There’s not a grain of it the face to sweeten | ||
Of the whole dungy earth. | ||
LEONTES | What! lack I credit? | |
First Lord | I had rather you did lack than I, my lord, | |
Upon this ground; and more it would content me | 190 | |
To have her honour true than your suspicion, | ||
Be blamed for’t how you might. | ||
LEONTES | Why, what need we | |
Commune with you of this, but rather follow | ||
Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative | 195 | |
Calls not your counsels, but our natural goodness | ||
Imparts this; which if you, or stupefied | ||
Or seeming so in skill, cannot or will not | ||
Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves | ||
We need no more of your advice: the matter, | 200 | |
The loss, the gain, the ordering on’t, is all | ||
Properly ours. | ||
ANTIGONUS | And I wish, my liege, | |
You had only in your silent judgment tried it, | ||
Without more overture. | 205 | |
LEONTES | How could that be? | |
Either thou art most ignorant by age, | ||
Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo’s flight, | ||
Added to their familiarity, | ||
Which was as gross as ever touch’d conjecture, | 210 | |
That lack’d sight only, nought for approbation | ||
But only seeing, all other circumstances | ||
Made up to the deed, doth push on this proceeding: | ||
Yet, for a greater confirmation, | ||
For in an act of this importance ’twere | 215 | |
Most piteous to be wild, I have dispatch’d in post | ||
To sacred Delphos, to Apollo’s temple, | ||
Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know | ||
Of stuff’d sufficiency: now from the oracle | ||
They will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had, | 220 | |
Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well? | ||
First Lord | Well done, my lord. | |
LEONTES | Though I am satisfied and need no more | |
Than what I know, yet shall the oracle | ||
Give rest to the minds of others, such as he | 225 | |
Whose ignorant credulity will not | ||
Come up to the truth. So have we thought it good | ||
From our free person she should be confined, | ||
Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence | ||
Be left her to perform. Come, follow us; | 230 | |
We are to speak in public; for this business | ||
Will raise us all. | ||
ANTIGONUS | [Aside] | |
To laughter, as I take it, | ||
If the good truth were known. | 235 | |
[Exeunt] |
Next: The Winter’s Tale, Act 2, Scene 2