Act VScene I
Sicilia. A Room in the palace of Leontes
Enter Leontes, Cleomenes, Dion, Paulina and others.
Cleomenes
Sir, you have done enough, and have perform’dA saint-like sorrow: no fault could you makeWhich you have not redeem’d; indeed, paid downMore penitence than done trespass: at the last,Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil;With them, forgive yourself.
Leontes
Whilst I rememberHer and her virtues, I cannot forgetMy blemishes in them; and so still think ofThe wrong I did myself: which was so muchThat heirless it hath made my kingdom, andDestroy’d the sweet’st companion that e’er manBred his hopes out of.
Paulina
True, too true, my lord.If, one by one, you wedded all the world,Or from the all that are took something good,To make a perfect woman, she you kill’dWould be unparallel’d.
Leontes
I think so. Kill’d!She I kill’d! I did so: but thou strik’st meSorely, to say I did: it is as bitterUpon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,Say so but seldom.
Cleomenes
Not at all, good lady.You might have spoken a thousand things that wouldHave done the time more benefit and grac’dYour kindness better.
Paulina
You are one of thoseWould have him wed again.
Dion
If you would not so,You pity not the state, nor the remembranceOf his most sovereign name; consider littleWhat dangers, by his highness’ fail of issue,May drop upon his kingdom, and devourIncertain lookers-on. What were more holyThan to rejoice the former queen is well?What holier than, for royalty’s repair,For present comfort, and for future good,To bless the bed of majesty againWith a sweet fellow to ’t?
Paulina
There is none worthy,Respecting her that’s gone. Besides, the godsWill have fulfill’d their secret purposes;For has not the divine Apollo said,Is ’t not the tenor of his oracle,That king Leontes shall not have an heirTill his lost child be found? Which that it shall,Is all as monstrous to our human reasonAs my Antigonus to break his graveAnd come again to me; who, on my life,Did perish with the infant. ’Tis your counselMy lord should to the heavens be contrary,Oppose against their wills.
To Leontes.
Care not for issue;The crown will find an heir. Great AlexanderLeft his to th’ worthiest; so his successorWas like to be the best.
Leontes
Good Paulina,Who hast the memory of Hermione,I know, in honour, O that ever IHad squar’d me to thy counsel! Then, even now,I might have look’d upon my queen’s full eyes,Have taken treasure from her lips,—
Paulina
And left themMore rich for what they yielded.
Leontes
Thou speak’st truth.No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse,And better us’d, would make her sainted spiritAgain possess her corpse, and on this stage,(Where we offenders now appear) soul-vexed,And begin “Why to me?”
Paulina
Had she such power,She had just cause.
Leontes
She had; and would incense meTo murder her I married.
Paulina
I should so.Were I the ghost that walk’d, I’d bid you markHer eye, and tell me for what dull part in ’tYou chose her: then I’d shriek, that even your earsShould rift to hear me; and the words that follow’dShould be “Remember mine.”
Leontes
Stars, stars,And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;I’ll have no wife, Paulina.
Paulina
Will you swearNever to marry but by my free leave?
Leontes
Never, Paulina; so be bless’d my spirit!
Paulina
Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.
Cleomenes
You tempt him over-much.
Paulina
Unless another,As like Hermione as is her picture,Affront his eye.
Cleomenes
Good madam,—
Paulina
I have done.Yet, if my lord will marry,—if you will, sir,No remedy but you will,—give me the officeTo choose you a queen: she shall not be so youngAs was your former, but she shall be suchAs, walk’d your first queen’s ghost, it should take joyTo see her in your arms.
Leontes
My true Paulina,We shall not marry till thou bid’st us.
Paulina
ThatShall be when your first queen’s again in breath;Never till then.
Enter a Servant.
Servant
One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,Son of Polixenes, with his princess (sheThe fairest I have yet beheld) desires accessTo your high presence.
Leontes
What with him? he comes notLike to his father’s greatness: his approach,So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us’Tis not a visitation fram’d, but forc’dBy need and accident. What train?
Servant
But few,And those but mean.
Leontes
His princess, say you, with him?
Servant
Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,That e’er the sun shone bright on.
Paulina
O Hermione,As every present time doth boast itselfAbove a better gone, so must thy graveGive way to what’s seen now! Sir, you yourselfHave said and writ so,—but your writing nowIs colder than that theme,—‘She had not been,Nor was not to be equall’d’; thus your verseFlow’d with her beauty once; ’tis shrewdly ebb’d,To say you have seen a better.
Servant
Pardon, madam:The one I have almost forgot,—your pardon;—The other, when she has obtain’d your eye,Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,Would she begin a sect, might quench the zealOf all professors else; make proselytesOf who she but bid follow.
Paulina
How! not women?
Servant
Women will love her that she is a womanMore worth than any man; men, that she isThe rarest of all women.
Leontes
Go, Cleomenes;Yourself, assisted with your honour’d friends,Bring them to our embracement.
Exeunt Cleomenes and others.
Still, ’tis strangeHe thus should steal upon us.
Paulina
Had our prince,Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair’dWell with this lord. There was not full a monthBetween their births.
Leontes
Prithee no more; cease; Thou know’stHe dies to me again when talk’d of: sure,When I shall see this gentleman, thy speechesWill bring me to consider that which mayUnfurnish me of reason. They are come.
Enter Florizel, Perdita, Cleomenes and others.
Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince;For she did print your royal father off,Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,Your father’s image is so hit in you,His very air, that I should call you brother,As I did him, and speak of something wildlyBy us perform’d before. Most dearly welcome!And your fair princess,—goddess! O, alas!I lost a couple that ’twixt heaven and earthMight thus have stood, begetting wonder, asYou, gracious couple, do! And then I lost,—All mine own folly,—the society,Amity too, of your brave father, whom,Though bearing misery, I desire my lifeOnce more to look on him.
Florizel
By his commandHave I here touch’d Sicilia, and from himGive you all greetings that a king, at friend,Can send his brother: and, but infirmity,Which waits upon worn times, hath something seiz’dHis wish’d ability, he had himselfThe lands and waters ’twixt your throne and hisMeasur’d, to look upon you; whom he loves,He bade me say so,—more than all the sceptresAnd those that bear them living.
Leontes
O my brother,—Good gentleman!—the wrongs I have done thee stirAfresh within me; and these thy offices,So rarely kind, are as interpretersOf my behind-hand slackness! Welcome hither,As is the spring to the earth. And hath he tooExpos’d this paragon to the fearful usage,At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,To greet a man not worth her pains, much lessTh’ adventure of her person?
Florizel
Good, my lord,She came from Libya.
Leontes
Where the warlike Smalus,That noble honour’d lord, is fear’d and lov’d?
Florizel
Most royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughterHis tears proclaim’d his, parting with her: thence,A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross’d,To execute the charge my father gave meFor visiting your highness: my best trainI have from your Sicilian shores dismiss’d;Who for Bohemia bend, to signifyNot only my success in Libya, sir,But my arrival, and my wife’s, in safetyHere, where we are.
Leontes
The blessed godsPurge all infection from our air whilst youDo climate here! You have a holy father,A graceful gentleman; against whose person,So sacred as it is, I have done sin,For which the heavens, taking angry note,Have left me issueless. And your father’s bless’d,As he from heaven merits it, with you,Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,Might I a son and daughter now have look’d on,Such goodly things as you!
Enter a Lord.
Lord
Most noble sir,That which I shall report will bear no credit,Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,Bohemia greets you from himself by me;Desires you to attach his son, who has—His dignity and duty both cast off—Fled from his father, from his hopes, and withA shepherd’s daughter.
Leontes
Where’s Bohemia? speak.
Lord
Here in your city; I now came from him.I speak amazedly, and it becomesMy marvel and my message. To your courtWhiles he was hast’ning—in the chase, it seems,Of this fair couple—meets he on the wayThe father of this seeming lady andHer brother, having both their country quittedWith this young prince.
Florizel
Camillo has betray’d me;Whose honour and whose honesty till now,Endur’d all weathers.
Lord
Lay ’t so to his charge.He’s with the king your father.
Leontes
Who? Camillo?
Lord
Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who nowHas these poor men in question. Never saw IWretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth;Forswear themselves as often as they speak.Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens themWith divers deaths in death.
Perdita
O my poor father!The heaven sets spies upon us, will not haveOur contract celebrated.
Leontes
You are married?
Florizel
We are not, sir, nor are we like to be.The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first.The odds for high and low’s alike.
Leontes
My lord,Is this the daughter of a king?
Florizel
She is,When once she is my wife.
Leontes
That “once”, I see by your good father’s speed,Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,Most sorry, you have broken from his liking,Where you were tied in duty; and as sorryYour choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,That you might well enjoy her.
Florizel
Dear, look up:Though Fortune, visible an enemy,Should chase us with my father, power no jotHath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,Remember since you ow’d no more to timeThan I do now: with thought of such affections,Step forth mine advocate. At your requestMy father will grant precious things as trifles.
Leontes
Would he do so, I’d beg your precious mistress,Which he counts but a trifle.
Paulina
Sir, my liege,Your eye hath too much youth in ’t: not a month’Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazesThan what you look on now.
Leontes
I thought of herEven in these looks I made.
To Florizel.
But your petitionIs yet unanswer’d. I will to your father.Your honour not o’erthrown by your desires,I am friend to them and you: upon which errandI now go toward him; therefore follow me,And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord.
Exeunt.