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