Complete Plays, The Read online

  Nay, hated too, worse than the great’st infection

  That e’er was heard or read!

  Camillo

  Swear his thought over

  By each particular star in heaven and

  By all their influences, you may as well

  Forbid the sea for to obey the moon

  As or by oath remove or counsel shake

  The fabric of his folly, whose foundation

  Is piled upon his faith and will continue

  The standing of his body.

  Polixenes

  How should this grow?

  Camillo

  I know not: but I am sure ’tis safer to

  Avoid what’s grown than question how ’tis born.

  If therefore you dare trust my honesty,

  That lies enclosed in this trunk which you

  Shall bear along impawn’d, away to-night!

  Your followers I will whisper to the business,

  And will by twos and threes at several posterns

  Clear them o’ the city. For myself, I’ll put

  My fortunes to your service, which are here

  By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain;

  For, by the honour of my parents, I

  Have utter’d truth: which if you seek to prove,

  I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer

  Than one condemn’d by the king’s own mouth, thereon

  His execution sworn.

  Polixenes

  I do believe thee:

  I saw his heart in ’s face. Give me thy hand:

  Be pilot to me and thy places shall

  Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready and

  My people did expect my hence departure

  Two days ago. This jealousy

  Is for a precious creature: as she’s rare,

  Must it be great, and as his person’s mighty,

  Must it be violent, and as he does conceive

  He is dishonour’d by a man which ever

  Profess’d to him, why, his revenges must

  In that be made more bitter. Fear o’ershades me:

  Good expedition be my friend, and comfort

  The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing

  Of his ill-ta’en suspicion! Come, Camillo;

  I will respect thee as a father if

  Thou bear’st my life off hence: let us avoid.

  Camillo

  It is in mine authority to command

  The keys of all the posterns: please your highness

  To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.

  Exeunt

  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.

  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

  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?

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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;

  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

  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

  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

  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;

  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

  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.

  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;

  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,

  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

  ’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 —

  That mercy does, for calumny will searr />
  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,

  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.

  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

  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

  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.

  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

  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!

  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,

  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,

  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,

  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

  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.

  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,

  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

  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.

  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,

  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,

  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

  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:

  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

  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

  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,

  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.

  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,

  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

  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,

  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

  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;

  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.

  Exeunt

  SCENE II. A PRISON.

  Enter Paulina, a Gentleman, and Attendants

  Paulina

  The keeper of the prison, call to him; let him have knowledge who I am.

  Exit Gentleman

  Good lady,

  No court in Europe is too good for thee;

  What dost thou then in prison?

  Re-enter Gentleman, with the Gaoler

  Now, good sir,

  You know me, do you not?

  Gaoler

  For a worthy lady

  And one whom much I honour.

  Paulina

  Pray you then,

  Conduct me to the queen.

  Gaoler

  I may not, madam:

  To the contrary I have express commandment.

  Paulina

  Here’s ado,

  To lock up honesty and honour from

  The access of gentle visitors!

  Is’t lawful, pray you,

  To see her women? any of them? Emilia?

  Gaoler

  So please you, madam,

  To put apart these your attendants, I

  Shall bring Emilia forth.

  Paulina

  I pray now, call her.

  Withdraw yourselves.

  Exeunt Gentleman and Attendants

  Gaoler

  And, madam,

  I must be present at your conference.

  Paulina

  Well, be’t so, prithee.

  Exit Gaoler

  Here’s such ado to make no stain a stain

  As passes colouring.

  Re-enter Gaoler, with Emilia

  Dear gentlewoman,

  How fares our gracious lady?

  Emilia

  As well as one so great and so forlorn

  May hold together: on her frights and griefs,

  Which never tender lady hath born greater,

  She is something before her time deliver’d.

  Paulina

  A boy?

  Emilia

  A daughter, and a goodly babe,

  Lusty and like to live: the queen receives

  Much comfort in’t; says ‘My poor prisoner,

  I am innocent as you.’

  Paulina

  I dare be sworn

  These dangerous unsafe lunes i’ the king, beshrew them!

  He must be told on’t, and he shall: the office

  Becomes a woman best; I’ll take’t upon me:

  If I prove honey-mouth’d let my tongue blister

  And never to my red-look’d anger be

  The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia,

  Commend my best obedience to the queen:

  If she dares trust me with her little babe,

  I’ll show’t the king and undertake to be

  Her advocate to the loud’st. We do not know

  How he may soften at the sight o’ the child:

  The silence often of pure innocence

  Persuades when speaking fails.

  Emilia

  Most worthy madam,

  Your honour and your goodness is so evident