The Winter's Tale (1981) - full transcript

[upbeat music]

[laughs]

If you shall chance,
Camillo, to visit Bohemia,

on the like occasion
whereon my services are now

on foot, you shall see, as I have said,

great difference betwixt our
Bohemia and your Sicilia.

I think, this coming
summer, the King of Sicilia

means to pay Bohemia the visitation

which he justly owes him.

Wherein our entertainment shall shame us

we will be justified in
our loves, for indeed--



Beseech you,--

Verily, I speak it in the
freedom of my knowledge,

we cannot with such
magnificence in so rare,

I know not what to say.

We will give you sleepy drinks,

Oh.

That your senses, unintelligent
of our insufficience,

may though they cannot praise
us, as little accuse us.

You pay a great deal too
dear for what's given freely.

Believe me, I speak as my
understanding instructs me

and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.

Sicilia cannot show himself
over kind to Bohemia.

They were trained together
in their childhoods

and there rooted betwixt
the men such an affection,



which cannot choose but branch now.

Since their more mature
dignities and royal necessities

made separation of their
society, their encounters,

though not personal, have
been royally attorneyed

with interchange of gifts,
letters, loving embassies,

that they have seemed to be together,

though absent, shook
hands, as over a vast,

and embraced, as it were, from
the ends of opposed winds.

Their heavens continue their loves!

I think there is not in
the world either malice

or matter to alter it.

Oh!

[growls]

[laughs]

You have an unspeakable
comfort of your young prince

Mamillius, it is a gentleman
of the greatest promise

that ever came into my note.

I very well agree with
you in the hopes of him.

It is a gallant child,
one that indeed physics

the subject, makes old hearts fresh.

They that went on crutches ere he was born

desire yet their life to see him a man.

Would they else be content to die?

Yes, if there were no other excuse

why they should desire to live.

If the king had no son,
they would desire to live

on crutches till he had one.

[laughs]

Nine changes of the watery star hath been

the shepherd's note since
we have left our throne

Without a burthen.

Time as much again my
brother when filled up

with our thanks.

And yet we should, for perpetuity,

go hence in debt,
therefore, like a cipher,

yet standing in a rich place.

I multiply with one we thank
you many thousands more

that go before it.

Stay your thanks a while
and pay them when you part.

Sir, that's tomorrow.

[laughs]

I am questioned by my
fears, of what may chance

or breed upon our absence that may blow

no sneaping winds at home, to make us say,

"this was put forth too truly."

Besides, I have stayed
to tire your royalty.

We are tougher brother
than you can put us to't.

[Polixenes] No longer stay.

One seven night longer.

Very sooth tomorrow.

[laughs]

We'll part the time betweens then,

and in that I'll no gainsaying.

Press me not, beseech you, so.

There is no tongue that moves,
none, none in the world.

So soon as yours could
win me so it should now,

were there necessity in your request,

although were needful I denied it.

My affairs do even drag me homeward,

which to hinder were in
your love a whip to me,

my stay to you a charge and trouble,

save both.

Farewell, our brother.

Tongue-tied, our queen?

Speak you.

I had thought sir, to
have held my peace until

you had drawn oaths from him not to stay.

You, sir, charge him too coldly.

Tell him, you are sure
all in Bohemia's well.

This satisfaction the
by-gone day proclaimed,

say this to him, he's
beat from his best ward.

Well said, Hermione.

To tell, he longs to see
his son, were strong.

But let him say so then, and let him go.

But let him swear so,
and he shall not stay,

we'll thwack him hence with distaffs.

[laughs]

Yet of your royal presence,

I'll adventure the borrow of a week.

When at Bohemia you take My Lord,

I'll give him my
commission to let him there

a month behind the gest
prefixed for his party.

Yet, good deed, Leontes,

I love thee not a jar of the clock behind

what lady she her lord.

You'll stay.

No madam.

Nay, but you will.

I may not, verily.

Verily?

[laughs]

You put me off with limber vows,

but I though you would seek to unsphere

the stars with oaths,

should yet say,

"Sir, no going."

Verily, you shall not go.

A lady's verily is as potent
as a lord's, will you go yet?

Force me to keep you as a prisoner,

not like a guest, so
you shall pay your fees

when you depart, and save your thanks.

How say you?

My prisoner or my guest?

By your dread verily,
one of them you shall be.

Your guest then madam.

To be your prisoner
should import offending,

which were for me less easy
to commit than you to punish.

Not your jailer then,

but your kind hostess.

[claps]

Come, I'll question
you of My Lord's tricks

and yours when you were boys.

You were pretty lordings then?

We were fair queen two lads that thought

there was no more behind but
such a day tomorrow as today.

And to be boy eternal.

Was not My Lord

the verier wag of the two?

We were as twinned lambs
that frisk in the sun,

and bleat the one at each other.

What we changed was
innocence for innocence,

we knew not the doctrine of ill-doing,

nor dreamed that any did.

Had we pursued that life,

and our weak spirits
ne'er been higher reared

with stronger blood, we
should have answered heaven

boldly,

"not guilty!"

The imposition cleared hereditary ours.

By this we gather you have tripped since.

[laughs]

O my most sacred lady!

Temptations have since
then been born to us

for in those unfledged
days was my wife a girl.

Your precious self had
then not crossed the eyes

of my young play fellow.

Grace to boot!

Of this make no conclusion, lest you say

your queen and I are devils.

Yet go on,

the offenses we have
made you do we'll answer,

if you first sinned
with us and that with us

you did continue fault
and that you slipped not

with any but with us.

[laughs]

Is he won yet?

He'll stay My Lord.

At my request he would not.

Hermione, my dearest, thou
never spokest to better purpose.

Never?

Never, but once.

What have I twice said well?

When was before?

I prithee tell me cram us
with praise, and make us

as fat as tame things,

one good deed dying tongueless slaughters

a thousand waiting upon that.

Our praises are our wages,

you may ride with one soft
kiss a thousand furlongs

ere with spur we heat an acre.

But to the goal.

My last good deed was to entreat his stay,

what was my first?

It has an elder sister or I mistake you?

Oh, would her name were Grace!

[laughs]

But once before I spoke
to the purpose, when?

Nay, let me have I long.

Why, that was when three crabbed months

had soured themselves to death,

ere I could make thee open thy white hand

and clap thyself my love
then didst thou utter,

"I am yours for ever."

'Tis grace indeed.

Why, lo you now, I have
spoke to the purpose twice.

The one for ever earned a royal husband,

the other for some while a friend.

[laughs]

Too hot, too hot!

To mingle friendship
far is mingling bloods.

I have tremor cordis on me my heart dances

but not for joy, not joy.

This entertainment may a free face put on,

derive a liberty from heartiness,

from bounty, fertile bosom
and well become the agent,

to may I grant.

But to be paddling palms
and pinching fingers,

as now they are, and
making practiced smiles,

as in a looking-glass,

and then to sigh, as
twere the mort o the deer,

Oh, that is entertainment my
bosom likes not, nor my brows!

Mamillius,

Art thou my boy?

Ay, my good lord.

He fecks!

Why, that's my bawcock.

What, hast smutched thy nose?

They say it is a copy out of mine.

Come captain,

we must be neat, not
neat, but cleanly captain.

And yet the steer, the heifer and the calf

are all called neat.

Still virginalling upon his palm!

How now, you wanton calf!

Art thou my calf?

Yes, if you will, My Lord.

I wanted a rough pash and
the shoots that I have,

to be full like me,

yet they say we are
almost as like as eggs.

Women say so, that will say anything

but were they false as o'er-dyed
blacks, as wind, as waters,

false as dice are to be
wished by one that fixes

no bourne twixt his and mine,

yet were it true to say
this boy were like me.

Come, sir page,

look on me with your
welkin eye sweet villain!

Most dear'st my collop.

Can thy dam may't be?

Affection thy intention
stabbed the center.

Thou dost make possible
things not so held,

communicates with dreams,

how can this be?

With what's unreal thou coactive art,

and fellow'st nothing,

then 'tis very credent thou mayst co-join

with something and thou dost,

and that beyond commission, and I find it,

and that to the infection of my brains

and hardening of my brows.

What means Sicilia?

He something seems unsettled.

How, My Lord, what cheer?

How is't with you, best brother?

You look as if you held a
brow of much distraction.

Are you moved, My Lord?

No, in good earnest.

How sometimes nature does betray
its folly, its tenderness,

and make itself a
pastime to harder bosoms!

Looking on the lines of my boy's face,

methoughts I did recoil 23 years,

saw myself unbreeched,
In my green velvet coat,

my dagger muzzled lest
it should bite its master

and so prove as ornaments
oft do too dangerous.

How like methought I
then was to this kernel,

this squash, this gentleman.

Mine honest friend,

will you take eggs for money?

No, My Lord, I'll fight.

[laughs]

You will!

Why, happy man be's dole!

My brother, are you so
fond of your young son

as we do seem to be of ours?

If at home sir,

he's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter.

Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy.

My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.

He makes July's day short as December,

and with his varying childness,

cures in me thoughts that
would thick my blood!

[laughs]

So stands this squire officed with me.

We two will walk My Lord,

and leave you to your graver steps.

Hermione, how thou lovest us
show in our brother's welcome.

Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap.

Next to thyself and my young rover,

he's apparent to my heart.

If you would seek us,

we are yours i' the garden.

Shall's attend you there?

To your own bents dispose you,

you'll be found be you beneath the sky.

I am angling now,

though you perceive me
not how I give line.

[laughs]

Go to, go to!

How she holds up the neb, the bill to him!

And arms her with the boldness of a wife

to her allowing husband.

Gone already!

Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er
head and ears a forked one!

Go play boy, play.

Thy mother plays, and I play too,

but so disgraced a part whose issue

will hiss me to my grave,

contempt and clamor will be my knell.

Go play, boy play.

There have been or I am much
deceived cuckolds ere now.

And many a man there
is even at this present

now while I speak this,

holds his wife by the
arm and little thinks

she has been sluiced in's absence

and his pond fished by his next neighbour,

by Sir Smile, his neighbor.

Nay, there's comfort in't.

Whiles other men have gates
and those gates opened

as mine against their will.

Should all despair that
have revolted wives,

the tenth of mankind
would hang themselves.

Physic for't there is none.

It is a bawdy planet that will strike

where 'tis predominant,

and 'tis powerful think you

from east, west, north and south.

Be it concluded no barricado for a belly.

Know't it will let in and out the enemy

with bag and baggage.

Many thousand on's have
the disease and feel't not.

How now, my boy!

I am like you, they say.

Why that's some comfort,
what Camillo there?

Ay, my good lord.

Go play, Mamillius thou'rt an honest man.

Camillo, this great sir
will yet stay longer.

You had much ado to make his anchor hold

when you cast out, it still came home.

Didst note it?

He would not stay at your petitions made

his business more material.

Didst perceived

They're here with me
already, whispering, rounding

"Sicilia is a so-forth"

'tis far gone when I shall gust it last.

How came't Camillo that he did stay?

At the good queen's entreaty.

At the queen's be't.

Good should be pertinent
but so it is, it is not.

Was this taken by any
understanding pate but thine?

For thy conceit is soaking,

will draw in more than the common blocks.

Not noted is't but of the finer natures?

By some severals of
head-piece extraordinary.

Lower messes perchance are
to this business purblind?

Say.

Business, My Lord!

I think most understand
Bohemia stays here longer.

Ha!

Stays here longer.

Ay, but why?

To satisfy your highness
and the entreaties

of our most gracious mistress.

Satisfy?

The entreaties of your mistress satisfy?

Let that suffice.

I have trusted thee Camillo with all

the nearest things to my heart,

as well my chamber councils,

wherein, priest like thou
hast cleansed my bosom,

I from thee departed
thy penitent reformed.

But we have been deceived
in thy integrity,

deceived in that which seems so.

Be it forbid, My Lord!

To bide upon't, thou art not honest?

Or If thou inclinest that
way, thou art a coward

Which hoaxes honesty behind,

restraining from course required

or else you must be counted a servant

grafted in my serious
trust and therein negligent

or else a fool.

That seest a game played
home, the rich stake drawn,

and takest it all for jest.

My gracious lord I may be
negligent, foolish and fearful.

In every one of these no man is free.

But that his negligence, his folly, fear

among the infinite doings of the world,

sometime puts forth.

In your affairs, My Lord, if
ever I were wilful negligent,

it was my folly.

If industriously I play'd the fool,

it was my negligence not
weighing well the end.

If ever fearful to do a thing,
where I the issue doubted,

where of the execution did cry out

against the non-performance,

'twas a fear which oft infects the wisest.

These My Lord, are such
allowed infirmities

that honesty is never free of.

But, beseech your grace,
be plainer with me.

Let me know my trespass by its own visage

if I then deny it 'tis none of mine.

Ha' not you seen, Camillo?

But that's past doubt,

you have, or your eye-glass is thicker

than a cuckold's horn, or heard

for to a vision so apparent
rumor cannot be mute,

or thought for cogitation
resides not in a man

that does not think,

my wife is slippery.

If thou wilt confess, or
else be impudently negative

to have nor eyes nor ears nor thought,

then say my wife's a hobby-horse,

deserves a name as rank as
any flax wench that puts two

before her troth plight
say it and justify it.

I would not be a stander-by to hear

my sovereign mistress clouded so without

my present vengeance taken.

Shrew my heart, you never
spoke what did become you

less than this which to reiterate were sin

as deep as that, though true.

Is whispering nothing?

Is leaning cheek to cheek,

is meeting noses kissing with inside lip?

Stopping the career of
laughter with a sigh?

A note infallible of breaking honesty,

horsing foot on foot, skulking in corners,

wishing clocks more swift,
hours, minutes, noon, midnight

and all eyes blind with the pin and web

but theirs, theirs only,

that would unseen be wicked.

Is this nothing?

Why then, the world and
all that's in't is nothing?

The covering sky is
nothing, Bohemia is nothing,

my wife is nothing.

Nor nothing have these,
nothings if this be nothing.

Good My Lord, be cured
of this diseased opinion

and betimes for 'tis most dangerous.

Say it be, 'tis true.

No, no, My Lord.

It is, you lie, you lie!

I say thou liest Camillo, and I hate thee.

Pronounce thee a gross
lout, a mindless slave,

or else a hovering temporizer,

with canst with thine eyes
that once see good and evil,

inclining to them both.

Were my wife's liver infected as her life,

she would not live the
running of one glass.

Who does infect her?

Why, he that wears her like a medal

hanging about his neck, Bohemia.

Who, if I had servants true about me,

that bare eyes to see alike
mine honor as their profits,

their own particular thrifts,

they would do that which
should undo more doing.

Ay, and thou his cupbearer
whom I from meaner form

have benched and reared to worship,

who mayst see plainly as heaven sees earth

and earth sees heaven,

how I am galled, mightst bespice a cup

to give mine enemy a lasting wink

which draught to me were cordial.

Sir, My Lord,

I could do this,

but I can not believe this crack
to be in my dread mistress,

so sovereignly being honorable.

I have loved thee--

Make that thy question, and go rot!

Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled,

to appoint myself in this vexation,

sully the purity and
whiteness of my sheets,

which to preserve is sleep
which we're being spotted

as goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps,

give scandal to the blood
of the prince my son,

who I do think is mine and love as mine,

without ripe moving to't?

Would I do this?

Could man so blench?

I must believe you, sir.

I do and will fetch off Bohemia for't.

Provided that, when he's removed,

your highness will take again
your queen as yours at first,

even for your son's sake
and thereby for sealing

the injury of tongues
in courts and kingdoms

known and allied to yours.

Thou dost advise me

even so as I mine own
course have set down.

I'll give no blemish to her honor, none.

My lord,

go then and with a countenance as clear

as friendship wears at
feasts, keep with Bohemia

and with your queen.

I am his cupbearer,

if he from me have wholesome beverage,

account me not your servant.

This is all.

Do't and thou hast the
one half of my heart,

do't not, thou split'st thine own.

I'll do't, My Lord.

I will seem friendly,
as thou hast advised me.

Oh miserable lady!

But for me,

what case stand I in?

I must be the poisoner of good Polixenes,

and my ground to do it is
the obedience to a master,

one who in rebellion
with himself will have

all that are his so too.

To do this deed, promotion follows.

If I could find example of
thousands that had struck

anointed kings and flourished after,

I'ld not do it.

But since nor brass nor stone
nor parchment bears not one,

let villainy itself forswear it.

I must forsake the court.

To do it, or no, is
certain to me a break-neck.

Happy star, reign now!

Here comes Bohemia.

This is strange,

methinks my favor here begins to warp.

Not speak.

Good day, Camillo.

Hail, most royal sir!

What is the news of the court?

None rare, My Lord.

The king hath on him such a countenance

as he had lost some province and a region

loved as he loves himself.

Even now I met him with
customary compliment when he,

wafting his eyes to the
contrary and falling

a lip of much contempt, speeds from me

and so leaves me to
consider what is breeding

the changeth thus his manners.

I dare not know, My Lord.

How?

Dare not, do not.

Do you know, and dare not?

[laughs]

Be intelligent to me 'tis thereabouts

for to yourself, what you do
know you must and cannot say,

you dare not.

Good Camillo, your changed
complexions are to me a mirror

which show me mine changed too.

For I must be a party in this alteration,

finding myself thus altered with it.

There is a sickness.

Which puts some of us in distemper,

but I cannot name the disease

and it is caught of you that yet are well.

How caught of me?

Make me not sighted like the basilisk.

I have looked upon thousands,
that have sped the better

by my regard, but killed none so,

I beseech you, if you know aught

which does behoove my knowledge
thereof to be informed,

imprison't not in ignorant concealment.

I may not answer.

A sickness caught of me, and I yet well.

I must be answered.

Dost thou hear, Camillo,

I conjure thee, by all the parts of man

which honor that they acknowledge,

or the least is not the suit of mine,

that thou declare what incidency
thou dost guess of harm

is creeping toward me.

How far off?

How near?

Which way to be prevented, if to be

if not, how best to bear it?

Sir, I will tell you

since I am charged in honor and by him

that I think honorable.

Therefore mark my counsel,

which must be even as swiftly followed

as I mean to utter it,
or both yourself and me

cry lost, and so good night!

On, good Camillo.

I am appointed him to murder you.

By whom, Camillo?

By the king.

For what?

He thinks, nay, with all
confidence he swears,

as he had seen it or been an
instrument to vice you to't,

that you have touched
his queen forbiddenly.

Then my best blood turn
to an infected jelly

and my name be yoked with
his that did betray the best.

Turn then my freshest
reputation to a savor

that may strike the dullest
nostril where I arrive,

and my approach be
shunned, nay, hated too.

More than the worst infection
that was ever heard or read!

Swear this thought over by
each particular star in heaven

and by all their influences,

you may as well forbid the
sea for it 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.

How should this grow?

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, will I
whisper to the business,

and will by twos and
threes at several posterns

clear them of 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 honor of my parents,

I have uttered truth which
if you seek to prove,

I dare not stand by nor shall you be safer

than one condemned by
the king's own mouth,

thereon his execution sworn.

I do believe thee.

I saw his heart and his 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 dishonored by a man

which ever did professed to him.

Why, his revenges must in
this 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.

It is in mine authority to command

the keys of all the posterns.

Please your highness to
take the urgent hour.

Come, sir, away.

[laughs]

Take the boy to you he so troubles me,

'tis past enduring.

Come, my gracious lord,

Shall I be your playfellow?

No, none of you.

Why, my sweet lord?

You'll kiss me hard and speak to me as if

I were a baby still.

I love you better.

And why so, My Lord?

Not for because your brows are blacker

yet black brows they say,
become some women best,

so there be not too much hair there,

but in a semicircle or a
half-moon made with a pen.

Who taught you this?

I learnt it out of women's faces.

[laughs]

Pray now, what color are your eyebrows?

Blue, My Lord.

Nay, that's a mock.

I have seen a lady's
nose that has been blue,

but not her eyebrows.

[laughs]

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'd wanton with us,

if we would have you.

She has spread of late into a goodly bulk,

good time encounter her!

What wisdom stirs amongst you?

Come, sir, now I am for you again

pray you, sit by us and tell 's a tale.

Merry or sad shall't be?

As merry as you will.

A sad tale's best for winter.

I have one of sprites and goblins.

Oh, 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.

There was a man--

Nay, come, sit down then on.

Dwelt by a churchyard,

I will tell it softly yond
crickets shall not hear it.

Come on then, and give't me in mine ear.

Was he met there?

His train, Camillo with him?

Behind the tuft of pines I met them,

never saw I men scour so on their way.

I eyed them even to their ships.

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 steeped,

and one may drink depart
and yet partake no venom,

for his knowledge is not infected.

But if one present the
abhorred 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 employed was pre-employed by him.

He hath discovered my design,

and I remain a pinched
thing yea, a very trick

for them to play at will.

How came the posterns so easily open?

By his great authority.

Which often hath no less
prevailed than so on your command.

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.

What is this?

Sport?

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.

But I'ld say he had not.

And I'll be sworn you
would believe my saying,

Howe'er you lean to the nayward.

You My Lords,

look on her, mark her well

be but about to say she is a goodly lady

and the justice of your
hearts will thereto add

'tis pity she's not honest, honorable.

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 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,

she's an adulteress!

Should a villain say so,

the most replenished villain in the world,

he were as much more villain.

You My Lord, do but mistake.

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.

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 published me!

Gentle My Lord, you scarce
can right me throughly then

to say you did mistake.

No if I mistake in those
foundations which I build upon,

the center is not big enough
to bear a school boy's top.

Away with her to prison!

He that shall speak for
her is afar off guilty

but that he speaks.

There's some ill planet reigns.

I must be patient till the heavens look

with an aspect more favorable.

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 honorable
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 performed!

Shall I be heard?

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 wished to see you sorry,

now I trust I shall.

My women, come you have leave.

Go, do our bidding hence!

Beseech your highness,
call the queen again.

Be certain what you do, sir,

lest your justice prove
violence in the which

three great ones suffer.

Yourself, your queen, your son.

For her, My Lord,

I dare my life lay down
and will do it sir,

please you to accept it,

that the queen is spotless at
the eyes of heaven and to you

I mean, in this which you accuse her.

If she prove otherwise,

I'll keep my stables
where I lodge my wife,

I'll go in couples with her.

Then 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.

Hold your peaces.

Good My Lord!

It is for you we speak, not for ourselves.

You are abused and by some putter-on

that will be damned for't
would I knew the villain,

I'd land damn him.

Be she honor-flawed,

I have three daughters the eldest is 11

the second and the third,
nine, and some five.

If this prove true, they'll
pay for't by mine honor,

I'll geld 'em all.

Fourteen they shall not see
to bring false generations,

they are co-heirs I had
rather glib myself than they

should not produce fair issue.

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.

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.

What lack I credit?

I had rather you did lack than I, My Lord,

upon this ground.

And more it would content
me to have her honor true

than your suspicion.

Be blamed for't how you might.

Why, what need we to
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.

And I wish, my liege,

you had only in your
silent judgment tried it,

without more overture.

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 touched conjecture,

that lacked 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 dispatched in
post to sacred Delphos,

to Apollo's temple,

Cleomenes and , whom you know

of stuffed sufficiency.

Now from the oracle they will bring all

whose spiritual counsel
had, shall stop or spur me.

Have I done well?

Well done, My Lord.

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.

To laughter as I take it,

if the good truth were known.

The keeper of the prison, call to him

let him have knowledge who I am.

Good lady,

No court in Europe is too good for thee.

What dost thou then in prison?

Now, good sir, you know me, do you not?

For a worthy lady,

and one whom much I honor.

Pray you then, conduct me to the queen.

I may not, madam.

To the contrary I have
express commandment.

Here's ado.

To lock up honesty and
honor from the access

of gentle visitors!

Is't lawful pray you, to see her women?

Any of them?

Emilia?

So please you, madam,

to put apart these your attendants,

I shall bring Emilia forth.

I pray now, call her.

Withdraw yourselves.

And, madam,

I must be present at your conference.

Well, be't so, prithee.

Here's such ado to make no stain a stain

as passes coloring.

Dear gentlewoman, how
fares our gracious lady?

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 delivered.

A boy?

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."

I dare be sworn.

These dangerous unsafe lunes
of 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-mouthed
let my tongue blister

and never to my red-looked
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.

Most worthy madam,

your honor and your
goodness is so evident,

that your free undertaking
cannot miss a thriving issue.

There is no lady living so
meet for this great errand.

Please your ladyship
to visit the next room,

I'll presently acquaint the
queen of your most noble offer.

Who but today hammered of this design,

but durst not tempt a minister of honor,

lest she should be denied.

Tell her, Emilia.

I'll use that tongue I have.

If wit flow from't as
boldness from my bosom,

let it not be doubted, I shall do good.

Now be you blest for it!

I'll to the queen please
you, come something nearer.

Madam, if it please the
queen to send the babe,

I know not what I shall incur to pass it.

Having no warrant.

You need not fear it, sir.

This child was prisoner to the womb,

and is by law and process
of great nature thence

freed and enfranchised,

not a party to the anger
of the king nor guilty of,

if any be, the trespass of the queen.

I do believe it.

Do not you fear upon mine honor,

I will stand betwixt you and danger.

Nor night nor day no rest.

It is but weakness to bear
the matter thus mere weakness.

If the cause were not in
being, part o' the cause,

she the adulteress for the harlot king

is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank

and level of my brain, plot-proof.

But she I can hook to me,

say that she were gone, given to the fire,

a moiety of my rest
might come to me again.

Who's there?

My lord?

How does the boy?

He took good rest tonight

'tis hoped his sickness is discharged.

To see his nobleness
conceiving the dishonor

of his mother,

he straight declined,
droop'd, took it deeply.

Fastened and fixed the
shame on't in himself.

Threw off his spirit,
his appetite, his sleep,

and downright languished.

Leave me solely go, see how he fares.

Fie, fie.

No thought of him.

The very thought of my revenges
that way recoil upon me,

in himself too mighty, and
in his parties, his alliance.

Let him be until a time may serve,

for present vengeance take it on her.

Camillo and Polixenes laugh at me,

make their pastime at my sorrow.

They should not laugh
if I could reach them,

nor shall she within my power.

You must not enter.

Nay, rather good My
Lords, be second to me.

Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,

than the queen's life?

A gracious innocent soul,
more free than he is jealous.

That's enough.

Madam, he hath not slept tonight commanded

none should come at him.

Not so hot, good sir.

I come to bring him sleep.

'Tis such as you, that
creep like shadows by him

and do sigh at each his needless heavings,

such as you nourish the
cause of his awaking.

I do come with words as medicinal as true,

honest as either, to
purge him of that humor

that presses him from sleep.

What noise there, ho?

No noise, My Lord but needful conference

about some gossips for your highness.

How?

Away with that audacious lady!

Antigonus, I charged thee that
she should not come about me,

I knew she would.

I told her so, My Lord,

on your displeasure's peril and on mine,

she should not visit you.

What, canst not rule her?

From all dishonesty he can.

In this, unless he take the
course that you have done,

commit me for committing honor,

trust it, he shall not rule me.

La you now, you hear.

When she will take the rein I let her run,

but she'll not stumble.

Good my liege, I come.

And, I do beseech you, hear me,

who profess myself your loyal
servant, your physician,

your most obedient counselor,

yet that dare less appear
so in comforting your evils,

than such as most seem yours.

I say, I come from your good queen.

Good queen?

Good queen, My Lord, good queen.

I say good queen and would
by combat make her good,

so were I a man, the worst about you.

Force her hence!

Let him that makes but trifles
of his eyes first hand me.

On mine own accord I'll off.

But first I'll do my errand.

The good queen, for she is good,

hath brought you forth a daughter.

Here 'tis.

[child cries]

Commends it to your blessing.

[cries]

Out!

A mankind witch!

Hence with her, out o' door,

a most intelligencing bawd!

Not so!

I am as ignorant in that
as you in so entitling me,

and no less honest than you
are mad which is enough,

I'll warrant, as this world
goes, to pass for honest.

Traitors!

Will you not push her out?

Give her the bastard thou dotard!

Thou art woman-tired, unroosted
by thy dame Partlet here.

Take up the bastard!

Take't up, I say give't to thy crone.

For ever unvenerable be thy hands,

if thou takest up the princess
by that forced baseness

which he has put upon't!

He dreads his wife.

So I would you did than
'twere past all doubt

you'ld call your children yours.

A nest of traitors!

I am none, by this good light.

Nor I, nor any but one that's
here, and that's himself,

for he the sacred honor
of himself, his queen's,

his hopeful son's, his
babe's, betrays to slander.

Whose sting is sharper than the sword's

and will not!

For, as the case now stands, it is a curse

he cannot be compelled to't.

Once remove The root of his opinion,

which is rotten as ever
oak or stone was sound.

A callat of boundless tongue

that late hath beat her
husband and now baits me!

This brat is none of mine.

It is the issue of Polixenes.

Hence with it, together with the dam

commit them to the fire!

It is yours!

And, might we lay the old
proverb to your charge,

so like you, 'tis the worse.

Behold, My Lords!

[baby cries]

Although the print be
little the whole matter

and copy of the father, eye, nose, lip,

the trick of's frown, his
forehead, nay, the valley,

the pretty dimples of his chin and cheek.

His smiles, the very mold and
frame of hand, nail, finger

and thou, good goddess
nature which hast made

so like to him that got it,

if thou hast the ordering of the mind too,

'mongst all colors no yellow in't,

lest she suspect, as he does
her children not her husband's!

A gross hag and, lozel, thou
art worthy to be hang'd,

that wilt not stay her tongue.

Hang all the husbands
that cannot do that feat,

you'll leave yourself hardly one subject.

Once more, take her hence!

A most unworthy and unnatural
lord can do no more.

I'll ha' thee burnt.

I care not!

It is an heretic that makes the fire,

not she which burns in't.

I'll not call you tyrant.

But this most cruel usage of your queen,

not able to produce more
accusation than your own

weak-hinged fancy,
something savors of tyranny

and will ignoble make you
yea, scandalous to the world.

On your allegiance, out
of the chamber with her!

Were I a tyrant, where were her life?

She durst not call me so,
if she did know me one.

Away with her!

I pray you, do not push me I'll be gone.

Look to your babe, My Lord 'tis yours

Jove send her a better guiding spirit!

What needs these hands?

You, that are thus so
tender o'er his follies,

will never do him good, not one of you.

So, so farewell we are gone.

Thou, traitor, hast set
on thy wife to this.

My child, away with't!

Even thou, that hast a
heart so tender o'er it,

take it hence and see it
instantly consumed with fire.

Even thou and none but thou.

Take it up straight.

Within this hour bring me word 'tis done,

and by good testimony,
or I'll seize thy life,

with what thou else call'st thine.

If thou refuse and wilt
encounter with my wrath, say so.

The bastard brains with
these my proper hands

shall I dash out.

Go, take it to the fire for
thou set'st on thy wife.

I did not, sir!

These lords, my noble
fellows, if they please,

can clear me in't.

We can my royal liege,

he is not guilty of her coming hither.

You're liars all.

Beseech your highness,
give us better credit.

We have always truly served you,

and beseech so to esteem of us,

and on our knees we beg, as
recompense of our dear services

past and to come, that you
do change this purpose.

Which being so horrible, so bloody,

must lead on to some
foul issue, we all kneel.

I am a feather for each wind that blows.

Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel

and call me father?

Better burn it now than curse it then.

But be it let it live.

It shall not neither.

You, sir, come you hither.

You that have been so tenderly officious

with Lady Margery, your midwife there

to save this bastard's life,

for 'tis a bastard so
sure as this beard's gray,

what will thou adventure
to save this brat's life?

Any thing, My Lord.

That my ability may undergo
and nobleness impose

at least thus much.

I'll pawn the little
blood which I have left

to save the innocent any thing possible.

It shall be possible.

Swear by this sword thou
wilt perform my bidding.

I will, My Lord.

Mark and perform it,

see'st thou, for the fail of any point

in't shall not only be
death to thyself but to thy

lewd-tongued wife.

Whom for this time we pardon.

We enjoin thee, as thou
art liege-man to us,

that thou carry this female bastard hence

and that thou bear it to
some remote and desert place

quite out of our dominions,
and that there thou leave it,

without more mercy, to its own protection

and favor of the climate.

As by strange fortune it came to us,

we do in justice charge thee,

on thy soul's peril
and thy body's torture,

that thou commend it
strangely to some place

where chance may nurse or end it.

Take it up.

I swear to do this.

Though a present death
had been more merciful.

Come on, poor babe.

Some powerful spirit
instruct the kites and ravens

to be thy nurses!

Wolves and bears, they say
casting their savageness aside

have done like offices of pity.

Sir, be prosperous in more
than this deed does require!

And blessing against this
cruelty fight on thy side,

poor thing, condemned to loss!

No, I'll not rear another's issue.

Please your highness,
posts from those you sent

to the oracle are come an
hour since Cleomenes and Dion,

being well arrived from
Delphos, are both landed,

hasting to the court.

So please you, sir,

their speed hath been beyond account.

23 days they have been
absent 'tis good speed

foretells the great
Apollo suddenly will have

the truth of this appear.

Prepare you, lords summon a session,

that we may arraign
our most disloyal lady,

for, as she hath been publicly accused,

so shall she have a just and open trial.

While she lives my heart
will be a burthen to me.

Leave me, and think upon my bidding.

[man nailing a notice]

The climate's delicate,
the air most sweet,

fertile the isle,

and the temple much surpassing
the common praise it bears.

I shall report, for most it caught me,

the celestial habits.

Methinks I so should term them,

and the reverence of the grave wearers.

O, the sacrifice!

How ceremonious, solemn and unearthly

it was i' the offering!

But of all, the burst
and the ear-deafening

voice o' the oracle kin to Jove's thunder,

so surprised my sense, that I was nothing.

If the event o' the journey

prove as successful to the queen,

O be't so!

As it hath been to us
rare, pleasant, speedy.

The time is worth the use on't.

And great Apollo turn all to the best!

These proclamations, so
forcing faults upon Hermione,

I little like.

The violent carriage of it
will clear or end the business

when the oracle, thus by
Apollo's great divine sealed up,

shall the contents discover,

something rare even then
will rush to knowledge.

Go fresh horses!

And gracious be the issue!

[gavel nocking]

This sessions, to our
great grief we pronounce,

even pushes 'gainst our heart.

The party tried the daughter
of a king, our wife,

and one of us too much beloved.

Let us be cleared of being tyrannous,

since we so openly proceed in justice,

which shall have due course,

even to the guilt or the purgation.

Produce the prisoner.

It is his highness'
pleasure that the queen

appear in person here in court.

Silence!

Read the indictment.

Hermione, queen to the worthy
Leontes, king of Sicilia,

thou art here accused and
arraigned of high treason,

in committing adultery with
Polixenes, king of Bohemia,

and conspiring with Camillo
to take away the life

of our sovereign lord the
king, thy royal husband

the pretense whereof
being by circumstances

partly laid open,

thou, Hermione, contrary
to the faith and allegiance

of a true subject, didst
counsel and aid them, for

their better safety, to fly away by night.

Since what I am to say must be but that

which contradicts my accusation

and the testimony on my part no other

but what comes from myself,
it shall scarce boot me

to say not guilty.

Mine integrity being counted falsehood,

shall, as I express it, be so received.

But thus if powers divine
behold our human actions,

as they do,

I doubt not then but innocence shall make

false accusation blush and
tyranny tremble at patience.

You, My Lord, best know,

who least will seem to do so,

my past life hath been as
continent, as chaste, as true,

as I am now unhappy.

Which is more than history
can pattern, though devised

and play'd to take spectators.

For behold me a fellow of
the royal bed, which owe

a moiety of the throne
a great king's daughter,

the mother to a hopeful
prince, here standing

to prate and talk for life and honor for

who please to come and hear.

For life, I prize it as I weigh
grief, which I would spare

for honor, 'tis a
derivative from me to mine,

and only that I stand for.

I appeal to your own conscience,
sir, before Polixenes

came to your court, how
I was in your grace.

How merited to be so since he came,

with what encounter so uncurrent I

have strained to appear
thus if one jot beyond

the bound of honor, or in act or will

that way inclining, harden'd be the hearts

of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin

cry fie upon my grave!

I ne'er heard yet that
any of these bolder vices

wanted less impudence
to gainsay what they did

than to perform it first.

That's true enough

through 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.

You will not own it.

More than mistress of

which comes to me in
name of fault, I must not

at all acknowledge.

For Polixenes, with whom
I am accused, I do confess

I loved him as in honor he required,

with such a kind of love as might become

a lady like me, with a love even such

so and no other, as yourself commanded

which not to have done
I think had been in me

both disobedience and ingratitude to you

and toward your friend,
whose love had spoke,

even since it could speak,
from an infant, freely

that it was yours.

Now, for conspiracy,

I know not how it tastes
though it be dished

for me to try how.

All I know of it is that
Camillo was an honest man

and why he left your
court, the gods themselves,

wotting no more than I, are ignorant.

You knew of his departure, as you know

what you have underta'en
to do in's absence.

Sir!

You speak a language
which I understand not.

My life stands in the
level of your dreams,

which I'll lay down.

Your actions are my dreams?

You had a bastard by Polixenes,

and I but dreamed it.

As you were past all shame,

those of your fact are
so, so past all truth

which to deny concerns more than avails,

for as thy brat hath been
cast out, like to itself,

no father owning it,

which is, indeed, more
criminal in thee than it!

So thou shalt feel our justice,
in whose easiest passage

look for no less than death.

Sir, spare your threats.

The bug which you would
fright me with I seek.

To me can life be no commodity,

the crown and comfort
of my life, your favor,

I do give lost for I do feel it gone,

but know not how it went.

My second joy and first fruits
of my body, from his presence

I am barred, like one infectious.

My third comfort starr'd most
unluckily, is from my breast,

the innocent milk in
its most innocent mouth,

haled out to murder.

Myself on every post proclaimed
a strumpet with immodest

hatred the child bed privilege denied,

which 'longs to women of all fashion.

Lastly, hurried here to this
place, i' the open air, before

I have got strength of limit.

Now, my liege, tell me what
blessings I have here alive,

that I should fear to die?

Therefore proceed.

But yet hear this mistake me not no life,

I prize it not a straw,
but for mine honor,

which I would free, if
I shall be condemned

upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else

but what your jealousies awake,

I tell you 'tis rigor and not law.

Your honors all, I do
refer me to the oracle

Apollo be my judge!

This your request is altogether just

therefore bring forth and
in Apollos name, his oracle.

The Emperor of Russia was my father.

O that he were alive, and here beholding

his daughter's trial!

That he did but see the
flatness of my misery,

yet with eyes of pity, not revenge!

You here shall swear upon
this sword of justice,

that you, Cleomenes and Dion
have been both at Delphos,

and from thence have brought

this sealed up oracle,
by the hand deliver'd

of great Apollo's priest
and that, since then,

you have not dared to break the holy seal

Nor read the secrets in't.

[Cleomenes And Dion] All this we swear.

Break up the seals and read.

Hermione is chaste,

Polixenes blameless,
Camillo a true subject,

Leontes a jealous tyrant, his
innocent babe truly begotten

and the king shall live
without an heir, if that

which is lost be not found.

[Group] Now blessed be the great Apollo!

Praised!

Hast thou read truth?

Ay, My Lord.

Even so as it is here set down.

There is no truth at all i' the oracle.

The sessions shall proceed
this is mere falsehood.

My lord the king, the king!

What is the business?

O sir, I shall be hated to report it!

The prince your son, with
mere conceit and fear

of the queen's speed, is gone.

How? gone!

Is dead.

Apollo's angry and the heavens themselves

do strike at my injustice.

How now there!

This news is mortal to the queen.

Look down and see what death is doing.

Take her hence.

Her heart is but o'ercharged,

she will recover.

I have too much believed
mine own suspicion.

Beseech you, tenderly apply
to her some remedies for life.

Apollo, pardon my great
profaneness 'gainst thine oracle!

I'll reconcile me to Polixenes.

New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo,

whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy.

For, being transported by my jealousies

to bloody thoughts and to revenge,

I chose Camillo for the minister to poison

my friend Polixenes which had been done,

but that the good mind of Camillo tardied

my swift command, though
I with death and with

reward did threaten and encourage him.

Not doing 't and being done.

He, most humane and filled
with honor, to my kingly guest

unclasp'd my practice,
quit his fortunes here,

which you knew great,
and to the certain hazard

of all encertainties himself commended,

no richer than his honor.

How he glisters thorough my rust!

And how his pity does my
deeds make the blacker!

Woe the while!

O, cut my lace, lest my
heart, cracking it, break too.

What fit is this, good lady?

What studied torments,
tyrant, hast for me?

What wheels, racks, fires, what flaying,

boiling in leads or oils?

What old or newer torture must I receive?

Whose every word deserves

to taste of thy most worst?

Thy tyranny together
working with thy jealousies,

fancies too weak for
boys, too green and idle

for girls of nine.

O, think what they have done
and then run mad indeed,

stark mad!

For all thy bygone fooleries
were but spices of it.

That thou betray'dst
Polixenes, 'twas nothing.

That did but show thee,
of a fool, inconstant

and damnable ingrateful nor was't much,

thou wouldst have poison'd
good Camillo's honor,

to have him kill a king poor trespasses!

More monstrous standing by,

whereof I reckon the
casting forth to crows

thy baby daughter to be or none or little,

though a devil would have shed
water out of fire ere done't.

Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death

of the young prince,
whose honorable thoughts,

thoughts high for one so tender,

cleft the heart that could
conceive a gross and foolish sire

blemish'd his gracious
dam this is not, no!

Laid to thy answer but the last.

O lords, when I have said, cry woe!

The queen, the queen!

The sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead!

And vengeance for't not dropped down yet.

The higher powers forbid!

I say she's dead I'll swear't.

If word nor oath prevail not,

go and see if you can bring
tincture or lustre in her lip,

her eye, heat outwardly or
breath within, I'll serve you

as I would do the gods.

But, O thou tyrant!

Do not repent these things,
for they are heavier

than all thy woes can stir,

therefore betake thee
to nothing but despair.

1000 knees 10000 years
together, naked, fasting

upon a barren mountain and still winter

in storm perpetual,
could not move the gods

to look that way thou wert.

Go on, go on.

Thou canst not speak
too much I have deserved

all tongues to talk their bitterest.

Say no more.

Howe'er the business
goes, you have made fault

i' the boldness of your speech.

I am sorry for't.

All faults I make, when I
shall come to know them,

I do repent.

Alas! I have show'd too much

the rashness of a woman.

He is touch'd to the noble heart.

What's gone and what's past help

should be past grief.

Do not receive affliction at my petition,

I beseech you, rather let me be punished,

that have minded you of
what you should forget.

Now, good my liege,

Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman.

The love I bore your queen,

lo, fool again!

I'll speak of her no
more, nor of your children

I'll not remember you of my own lord,

who is lost too take your patience to you,

and I'll say nothing.

Thou didst speak but
well when most the truth

which I receive much better
than to be pitied of thee.

Prithee, bring me to the dead
bodies of my queen and son.

One grave shall be for both.

Upon them shall the causes
of their death appear,

unto our shame perpetual.

Once a day I'll visit the
chapel where they lie,

and tears shed there

shall be my recreation so long as nature

will bear up with this exercise.

So long I daily vow to use it.

Come and lead me unto these sorrows.

[pants and sighs]

Thou art perfect then,

our ship hath touch'd upon
the deserts of Bohemia.

Ay, My Lord and fear we
have landed in ill time,

the skies look grimly.

And threaten present blusters.

In my conscience, the heavens
with that we have in hand

are angry and frown upon us.

Their sacred wills be done!

Now go, get aboard look to thy
bark I'll not be long before

I call upon thee.

Make your best haste,

and go not too far into the land,

'tis like to be loud weather.

Besides, this place is
famous for the creatures

of prey that keep upon't.

Now go thou away I'll follow instantly.

I am glad at heart to be
so rid o' the business.

Come, poor babe.

[baby cries]

I have heard, but not believed,

the spirits of the dead may walk again.

If such thing be,

thy mother appeared to me last night,

for ne'er was dream so like a waking.

To me comes a creature,

sometimes her head on
one side, some another

I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,

so filled and so becoming
in pure white robes,

like very sanctity, she did approach

my cabin where I lay
thrice bowed before me,

and gasping to begin some speech,

her eyes became two spouts,

the fury spent, anon
did this break from her.

Good Antigonus, since fate,
against thy better disposition,

hath made thy person for the thrower out

of my poor babe, according to thine oaths.

Places remote enough are in Bohemia,

there weep and leave it crying,

and for it the babe is
counted lost for ever.

Perdita, I prithee, call't.

For this ungentle business

put on thee by My Lord,

thou ne'er shalt see
thy wife Paulina more.

And so, with shrieks she melted into air.

Affrighted much, I did
in time collect myself

and thought this was so and
no slumber dreams are toys.

Yet for this once, yea, superstitiously,

I will be squared by this.

I do believe Hermione hath suffered death,

and Apollo would,

this being indeed the
issue of King Polixenes,

it should here be laid
either for life or death,

upon the earth of its right father.

Blossom, speed thee well!

There lie, and there thy character,

and there these which may,
if fortune please both

breed thee pretty, and still rest thine.

[storm roars]

The storm begins poor wretch,

that for thy mother's
fault art thus exposed

to loss and what may follow!

Weep I cannot, my heart bleeds.

And most accursed am I to
be by oath enjoined to this.

Farewell!

The day frowns more and more,

thou'rt like to have a lullaby too rough.

I never saw the heavens so dim by day.

-[thunder roars]
-[baby cries]

A savage clamor!

Well may I get aboard!

[bear growls]

This is the chase

I am gone for ever.

[bear growls]

[soft music]

I would there were no age between 10

and three and 20,

or that youth would sleep out the rest,

for there is nothing in the between

but getting wenches with
child, wronging the ancientry,

stealing, fighting.

Hark you now!

[dog barks]

Would any but these boiled brains of 19

or two and 20 hunt this weather?

They have scared away
two of my best sheep,

which I fear the wolf will
sooner find than the master,

if any where I have them,
'tis by the seaside,

browsing of ivy.

Good luck, an't be thy
will what have we here?

Mercy on us, a barne, a very pretty barne!

A boy or a child, I wonder?

A pretty one, a very pretty one.

Sure, some 'scape though I am not bookish,

yet I can read waiting
gentlewoman in the scape.

This has been some stair
work, some trunk work,

some behind-door-work.

They were warmer that got this,
than the poor thing is here.

I'll take it up for pity,

yet I'll tarry till my son
come he hallooed but even now.

-Hello, ho, hoa!
-Hilloa, loa!

What, art so near?

If thou'lt see a thing to
talk on when thou art dead

and rotten, come hither.

What ailest thou, man?

I have seen two such
sights, by sea and by land!

But I am not to say it is a
sea, for it is now the sky.

Betwixt the firmament
and it you cannot thrust

a bodkin's point.

Why, boy, how is it?

I would you did but see how
it chafes, how it rages,

how it takes up the shore!

But that's not the point.

O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls!

Sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em,

now the ship boring the
moon with her main-mast,

and anon swallowed with yest and froth,

as you'ld thrust a cork into a hogshead.

And then for land service,

to see how the bear tore
out his shoulder bone,

how he cried to me for help and
said his name was Antigonus,

a nobleman.

But to make an end of the ship,

to see how the sea flap-dragoned it.

But, first, how the poor souls roared,

the sea mocked them and how
the poor gentleman roared

and the bear mocked him,

both roaring louder
than the sea or weather.

Name of mercy, when was this, boy?

Now, now, I have not winked
since I saw these sights,

the men are not yet cold under water,

nor the bear half dined on the gentleman,

he's at it now.

Would I had been by, to
have helped the old man!

I would you had been by the ship side,

to have helped her, there your charity

would have lacked footing.

Heavy matters, heavy matters!

But look thee here, boy.

Now bless thyself thou
mettest with things dying,

I with things newborn.

Here's a sight for thee,

look thee, a bearing
cloth of a squire's child!

Look thee here take up, take up, boy.

Open it.

So, let's see it was
told me I should be rich

by the fairies.

This is some changeling open it.

What's within, boy?

You're a made old man,

if the sins of your
youth are forgiven you,

you're well to live.

Gold! All gold!

This is fairy gold,
boy, and will prove so.

Up with it, keep it close
home, home, the next way.

We are lucky, boy and
to be so still requires

nothing but secrecy.

Let my sheep go come, good
boy, the next way home.

Go you the next way with your findings.

I'll go see if the bear
be gone from the gentleman

and how much he hath eaten.

They are never curst,
but when they are hungry.

If there be any of him left, I'll bury it.

That's a good deed.

If thou mayest discern by
that which is left of him,

what he is, fetch me to the sight of him.

Marry, will I and you shall
help to put him i' the ground.

It is a lucky day boy, and
we'll do good deeds on't.

[soft flute music]

I, that please some,

try all, both joy and terror

of good and bad that
makes and unfolds error.

Now take upon me, in the name of time,

to use my wings.

Impute it not a crime, to
me or my swift passage,

that I slide o'er 16 years
and leave the growth untried

of that wide gap, since it is
in my power to o'erthrow law

and in one self-born hour to
plant and o'erwhelm custom.

Let me pass the same I am,
ere ancient'st order was

or what is now received.

I witness to the times
that brought them in,

and so shall I do to the
freshest things now reigning

and make stale the
glistering of this present,

as my tale now seems to it.

Your patience this allowing,

I turn my glass and give
my scene such growing

as you had slept between.

Leontes leaving, the effects
of his fond jealousies

so grieving that he shuts up himself,

imagine me, gentle spectators,

that I now, I'm in fair Bohemia,

and remember well, I
mentioned a son o' the king's,

which Florizel I now name to you.

And with speed so pace
to speak of Perdita,

now grown in grace.

Equal with wondering what of
her ensues I list not prophecy.

But let Time's news be known
when 'tis brought forth.

A shepherd's daughter,

and what to her adheres,
which follows after,

is the argument of time.

Of this allow, if ever you
have spent time worse ere now.

If never, yet that Time himself doth say,

he wishes earnestly you never may.

[soft music]

I pray thee, good Camillo,
be no more importunate,

'tis a sickness denying thee any thing

a death to grant this.

It is 15 years since I saw my country,

though I have for the most
part been aired abroad,

I desire to lay my bones there.

Besides, the penitent king, my master,

hath sent for me to whose feeling sorrows

I might be some allay, or
I o'erween to think so,

which is another spur to my departure.

As thou lovest me, Camillo,
wipe not out the rest

of thy services by leaving me now.

The need I have of thee,
thine own goodness hath made

better not to have had thee
than thus to want thee.

Thou, having made me businesses

which none without thee
can sufficiently manage,

must either stay to execute them thyself

or take away the very
services thou hast done.

Of that fatal country,
Sicilia, prithee speak no more,

whose very naming punishes
me with remembrance of that

penitent, as thou callest
him, and reconciled king,

my brother.

Whose loss of his most
precious queen and children

are even now to be afresh lamented.

Say to me, when sawest thou
the Prince Florizel, my son?

Kings are no less unhappy,
their issue not being gracious,

than they are in losing
them when they have

approved their virtues.

Sir, it is three days
since I saw the prince.

What his happier affairs
may be, are to me unknown

but I have missingly noted,

he is of late much retired from court,

and is less frequent to
his princely exercises

than formerly he hath appeared.

I have considered so much, Camillo,

and with some care so far that
I have eyes under my service

that look upon his removedness

from whom I have this intelligence,

that he is seldom from the house of a most

homely shepherd.

A man, they say, that from very nothing,

and beyond the imagination
of his neighbors,

is grown into an unspeakable estate.

I have heard, sir, of such a man,

who hath a daughter of most rare note.

The report of her is extended
more than can be thought

to begin from such a cottage.

That's likewise part
of my intelligence but,

I fear, the angle that
plucks our son thither.

Thou shalt accompany us to
the place where we will,

not appearing what we are,

have some question with the
shepherd from whose simplicity

I think it not hard to get the cause

of our son's resort to thither.

Prithee, be my present
partner in this business,

and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

[sighs]

I willingly obey your command.

My best Camillo!

We must disguise ourselves.

[sighs]

♪ When daffodils begin
to peer with heigh ♪

♪ The doxy over the dale ♪

♪ why, then comes in
the sweet o' the year ♪

♪ for the red blood reigns
in the winter's pale ♪

♪ The white sheet bleaching
on the hedge, with heigh ♪

♪ The sweet birds, O, how they sing ♪

♪ Doth set my pugging tooth on edge ♪

♪ for a quart of ale
is a dish for a king ♪

♪ The lark, that tirra-lyra
chants, with heigh ♪

♪ With heigh the thrush and the jay ♪

♪ are summer songs for me and me aunts ♪

♪ While we lie tumbling in the hay ♪

I have served Prince Florizel

and in my time wore three-pile

but now I am out of service.

♪ But shall I go mourn
for the heart my dear ♪

♪ The pale moon shines by night ♪

♪ and when I wander here and there ♪

♪ I then do most go right ♪

♪ If tinkers may have leave to live ♪

♪ and bear the sow skin budget ♪

♪ then my account I well may give ♪

♪ and in the stocks avouch it ♪

My traffic is sheets when the kite builds,

look to lesser linen.

My father named me Autolycus
who being, as I am,

littered under Mercury,
was likewise a snapper-up

of unconsidered trifles.

With die and drab I
purchased this caparison,

and my revenue is the silly cheat.

Gallows and knock are too
powerful on the highway,

beating and hanging are terrors to me,

for the life to come,

I sleep out the thought of it.

A prize, a prize!

Let me see,

every eleven wether tods every tod yields

pound and odd shilling.

1500 shorn, what comes the wool to?

If the springe hold, the cock's mine.

I cannot do it without counters.

Let me see what am I to buy
for our sheep-shearing feast?

Three pound of sugar, five
pound of currants, rice,

what will this sister
of mine do with rice?

But my father hath made
her mistress of the feast,

and she lays it on.

She hath made me four and 20
nose gays for the shearers,

three-man-song-men all,
and very good ones,

but they are most of them means and bases

but one puritan amongst them,

and he sings psalms to horn-pipes.

I must have saffron to
color the warden pies,

mace, dates?

None, that's out of my note.

Nutmegs, seven, a race or two of ginger,

but that I may beg, four pound of prunes,

and as many of raisins of the sun.

O that ever I was born!

I' the name of me

O, help me, help me!

Pluck but off these rags
and then, death, death!

Alack, poor soul!

Thou hast need of more
rags to lay on thee,

rather than have these off.

O sir, the loathsomeness
of them offends me more

than the stripes I have received,

which are mighty ones and millions.

Alas, poor man!

A million of beating may
come to a great matter.

I am robbed, sir, and beaten my money

and apparel ta'en from me,

and these detestable things put upon me.

What, by a horseman, or a footman?

A footman, sweet sir, a footman.

Indeed, he should be a
footman by the garments

he has left with thee,

if this be a horseman's coat,
it hath seen very hot service.

Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee.

Come, lend me thy hand.

O, good sir, tenderly, O!

Alas, poor soul!

O, good sir, softly, good sir!

I fear, sir, my shoulder-blade is out.

How now, canst stand?

Softly, dear sir,

O good sir, softly.

You ha' done me a charitable office.

Dost lack any money?

I have a little money for thee.

No, good sweet sir no, I beseech you, sir.

I have a kinsman not
past 3/4 of a mile hence,

unto whom I was going I
shall there have money,

or any thing I want offer me no money,

I pray you that kills my heart.

What manner of fellow
was he that robbed you?

A fellow, sir, that I have
known to go about with

troll-my-dames,

I knew him once a servant of the prince.

I cannot tell, good sir, for
which of his virtues it was,

but he was certainly
whipped out of the court.

His vices, you would say,
there's no virtue whipped

out of the court they cherish
it to make it stay there,

and yet it will no more but abide.

Vices, I would say, sir.

I know this man well,

he hath been since an
ape-bearer and a process-server,

a bailiff, then he compassed
a motion of the Prodigal Son,

and married a tinker's wife within a mile

where my land and living lies.

And, having flown over
many knavish professions,

he settled only in rogue.

Some call him Autolycus.

Out upon him!

Prig, for my life, prig he haunts wakes,

fairs and bear-baitings.

Very true sir, he sir, he that's the rogue

that put me into this apparel.

Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia,

if you had but looked big and
spit at him, he'd have run.

I must confess to you
sir, I am no fighter.

I am false of heart that
way and that he knew,

I warrant him.

How do you now?

Sweet sir, much better than I was.

I can stand and walk, I will
even take my leave of you,

and pace softly towards my kinsman's.

Shall I bring thee on the way?

No, good-faced sir no, sweet sir.

Then fare thee well.

I must go buy spices
for our sheep-shearing.

Prosper you, sweet sir!

Your purse is not hot enough
to purchase your spice [laughs]

I'll be with you at your shearing too.

If I make not this cheat bring out another

and the shearers prove
sheep, let me be unrolled

and my name put in the book of virtue!

♪ Jog on jog on, the footpath way ♪

♪ And merrily hent the stile-a ♪

♪ A merry heart goes all the day ♪

♪ Your sad tires in a mile-a ♪

[soft music]

These your unusual weeds
to each part of you

do give a life?

No shepherdess, but flora
peering in April's front.

This your sheep-shearing

is as a meeting of the petty
gods, and you the queen on't.

Sir, my gracious lord.

To chide at your extremes
it not becomes me,

O, pardon, that I name them!

Your high self, the
gracious mark o' the land,

you have obscured with a swain's wearing,

and me, poor lowly maid,
most goddess-like pranked up.

But that our feasts in
every mess have folly

and the feeders digest it with a custom,

I should blush to see you so attired,

sworn I think, to show myself a glass.

I bless the time when my
good falcon made her flight

across thy father's ground.

Now Jove afford you cause!

To me the difference forges dread,

your greatness hath not been used to fear.

Even now I tremble to think
your father, by some accident,

should pass this way as you did.

O, the fates!

How would he look, to
see his work so noble,

vilely bound up?

What would he say?

Or how should I, in these
my borrowed flaunts,

behold the sternness of his presence?

Apprehend nothing but jollity.

The gods themselves, humbling
their deities to love,

have taken the shapes of beasts upon them,

Jupiter became a bull, and bellowed,

the green Neptune a ram, and bleated

and the fire-robed god, Golden
Apollo, a poor humble swain,

As I seem now.

Their transformations were
never for a piece of beauty

rarer, nor in a way so chaste,

since my desires run
not before mine honor,

nor my lusts burn hotter than my faith.

O, but sir,

your resolution cannot
hold, when 'tis opposed,

as it must be, by the power of the king.

One of these two must be
necessities, which then will speak,

that you must change this
purpose, or I my life.

Thou dearest Perdita,

with these forced thoughts,
I prithee, darken not

the mirth of the feast.

Or I'll be thine, my
fair, or not my father's.

For I cannot be mine own,
nor any thing to any,

if I be not thine.

To this I am most constant
though destiny say no.

Be merry, gentle.

Strangle such thoughts
as these with any thing

that you behold the while.

[upbeat music]

Your guests are coming.

Lift up your countenance,
as it were the day

of celebration of that nuptial
which we two have sworn,

shall come.

O lady Fortune, stand you auspicious!

[upbeat music]

See, your guests approach.

Address yourself to
entertain them sprightly,

and let's be red with mirth.

[upbeat music]

Fie, daughter!

When my old wife lived upon
this day she was both pantler,

butler, cook, both dame and servant.

Welcomed all, served all.

Would sing her song and
dance her turn now here,

at upper end o' the table,

now i' the middle on his shoulder,

and his her face o' fire with labor

and the thing she took to quench it,

she would to each one sip.

[laughs]

You are retired.

As if you were a feasted
one and not the hostess

of the meeting pray you,
bid these unknown friends

to's welcome, for it is a way
to make us better friends,

more known.

Come, quench your blushes
and present yourself

that which you are, mistress
o' the feast come on,

and bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing.

[crown applauding]

As your good flock shall prosper.

[claps]

Sir, welcome.

It is my father's will I should take on me

the hostess-ship o' the day.

You're welcome, sir.

Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.

[crowd murmurs]

Reverend sirs,

for you there's rosemary and rue,

these keep seeming and
savor all the winter long.

Grace and remembrance be to you both,

and welcome to our shearing!

Shepherdess,

a fair one are you,

well you fit our ages
with flowers of winter.

[laughs]

Sir, the year growing ancient,

not yet on summer's
death, nor on the birth

of trembling winter,

the fairest flowers o' the season

are our carnations and streaked gillyvors,

which some call nature's bastards.

Of that kind our rustic garden's barren

and I care not to get slips of them.

Wherefore, gentle maiden,
do you neglect them?

For I have heard it said there is an art

to which in their piedness shares

with great creating nature.

Say there be.

Yet nature is made better by no mean,

but nature makes that mean,

so, over that art which
you say adds to nature,

is an art that nature makes.

You see, sweet maid, we
marry a gentler scion

to the wildest stock and make
conceive a bark of baser kind

by bud of nobler race.

This is an art which does
mend nature, change it rather,

but the art itself is nature.

So it is.

[laughs]

Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,

and do not call them bastards.

I'll not put the dibble in
earth to set one slip of them.

[chuckles]

No more than were I painted
I would wish this youth

should say 'twere well
and only therefore desire

to breed by me.

Here's flowers for you.

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,

the marigold, that goes
to bed with the sun

and with him rises weeping.

These are flowers of middle summer,

and I think they are given
to men of middle age.

[laughs]

You're very welcome.

I should leave grazing,
were I of your flock,

and only live by gazing.

Out, alas!

You'd be so lean, that blasts of January

would blow you through and through.

[laughs]

Now, my fairest friend,

I would I had some flowers
of the spring that might

become your time of day
and yours, and yours,

that wear upon your virgin branches yet

to your maidenheads growing.

O Proserpina!

For the flowers now, that
frighted thou let'st fall

from dis's wagon!

Daffodils, that come
before the swallow dares,

and take the winds of March with beauty.

Violets dim, but sweeter
than the lids of Juno's eyes

or Cytherea's breath.

Pale primroses that die
unmarried, ere they can behold

bright Phoebus in his strength,

a malady most incident to maids.

Bold oxlips and the crown imperial,

lilies of all kinds,

the flower-de-luce being one!

O, these I lack to make you garlands of,

and my sweet friend,

to strew him o'er and o'er!

What, like a corse?

No, like a bank for
love to lie and play on.

Not like a corse or if, not to be buried,

but quick and in mine arms.

Come, [chuckles]

take your flowers.

Methinks I play as I have seen
them do in Whitsun pastorals.

[laughs]

Sure this robe of mine
does change my disposition.

What you do still betters what is done.

When you speak, sweet.

I'ld have you do it ever when you sing,

I'ld have you buy and
sell so, so give alms,

pray so and, for the
ordering your affairs,

to sing them too when
you do dance, I wish you

a wave of the sea, that you might ever do

nothing but that move still, still so,

and own no other function each your doing,

so singular in each particular,
crowns what you are doing

in the present deed.

That all your acts are queens.

O Doricles,.

Your praises are too
large but that your youth,

and the true blood which
peepeth fairly through't,

do plainly give you out
an unstained shepherd,.

With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,

you wooed me the false way.

I think you have as little
skill to fear as I have purpose

to put you to it.

But come our dance, I pray.

Your hand, my Perdita so turtles pair,

that never mean to part.

I'll swear for 'em.

This is the prettiest
low born lass that ever

ran on the green sward
nothing she does or seems

but smacks of something
greater than herself.

Too noble for this place.

He tells her something

that makes her blood look out.

Oh good sooth, she is the
queen of curds and cream.

Come on, strike up!

Mopsa must be your mistress marry, garlic,

to mend her kissing with!

Now, in good time!

Not a word, a word we
stand upon our manners.

Come, strike up!

[soft music]

[guests applauds]

[laughs]

[guests chartering]

[upbeat music]

[guests claps]

Pray, good shepherd,

what fair swain is this which
dances with your daughter?

They call him Doricles and boasts himself

for a worthy feeding but I have it

on his own report and I
believe it He looks like sooth.

He says he loves my daughter.

I think so too for never gazed the moon

upon the water as he'll stand and read

as 'twere my daughter's eyes.

And to be plain I think there
is not half a kiss to choose

who loves another best.

She dances featly.

So she does any thing though I report it,

that should be silent.

If young Doricles do light upon her,

she shall bring him that
which he not dreams of.

[cheers]

[upbeat music]

[cheers and laughs]

O master!

Master!

If you did but hear
the pedlar at the door,

you would never dance again
after a tabor and pipe

no, the bagpipe could not move you,

he sings several tunes
faster than you'll tell money

he utters them as he had
eaten ballads and all men's

ears grew to his tunes.

He could never come
better he shall come in.

I love a ballad but even too well,

if it be doleful matter merrily set down,

or a very pleasant thing
indeed and sung lamentably.

He hath songs for man
or woman, of all sizes

no milliner can so fit
his customers with gloves,

he has the prettiest love songs for maids.

[yells]

So without bawdry, which is strange

with such delicate burthens of dildos.

[cheers]

Jump her and thump her' and
where some stretch-mouthed

rascal would, as it were, mean
mischief and break a foul gap

into the matter, he
makes the maid to answer.

Whoop, do me no harm, good man

puts him off, slights him,

with whoop, do me no harm, good man.

This is a brave fellow.

Believe me, thou talkest of
an admirable conceited fellow.

Has he any unbraided wares?

He hath ribbons of an the
colors i' the rainbow,

points more than all
the lawyers in Bohemia

can learnedly handle,

though they come to him
by the gross inkles,

caddisses, cambrics, lawns why,

he sings 'em over as they
were gods or goddesses.

You would think a smock were a she-angel,

he so chants to the
sleeve-hand and the work about

the square on't.

Prithee bring him in and
let him approach singing.

[crowd murmurs]

Forewarn him that he use no
scurrilous words in his tunes.

You have of these pedlars,
that have more in them

than you'ld think, sister.

Ay, good brother, or go about to think.

♪ Lawn as white as driven snow ♪

♪ Cyprus black as e'er was crow ♪

♪ Gloves as sweet as damask roses ♪

♪ Masks for faces and for noses ♪

♪ Bugle bracelet, necklace amber ♪

♪ Perfume for a lady's chamber ♪

♪ Golden quoifs and stomachers ♪

♪ For my lads to give their dears ♪

♪ Pins and poking-sticks of steel ♪

♪ What maids lack from head to heel ♪

♪ Come buy of me, come
come buy, come buy ♪

♪ Buy lads, or else your
lasses cry Come buy ♪

[claps]

If I were not in love with Mopsa,

thou shouldst take no money of me

but being enthralled as I am,
it will also be the bondage

of certain ribbons and gloves.

I was promised them against the feast

but they come not too late now.

He hath promised you more
than that, or there be liars.

He hath paid you all he
promised you may be, he has

paid you more, which will
shame you to give him again.

Is there no manners left among maids?

Will they wear their plackets where they

should bear their faces?

Is there not milking time,
when you are going to bed,

or kiln-hole, to whistle
off these secrets,

but you must be tittle-tattling
before all our guests?

'tis well they are whispering.

Clamor your tongues, and not a word more.

I have done.

Come, you promised me a tawdry-lace

and a pair of sweet gloves.

Have I not told thee how
I was cozened by the way

and lost all my money?

And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad

therefore it behooves men to be wary.

Fear not thou, man, thou
shalt lose nothing here.

I hope so, sir for I have about
me many parcels of charge.

What hast here?

Ballads.

Pray now, buy some I
love a ballad in print

a life, for then we
are sure they are true.

Here's one to a very
doleful tune, how a usurer's

wife was brought to bed of
twenty money-bags at a burthen,

and how she longed to
eat adders' heads and

toads carbonadoed.

Is it true, think you?

Very true, and but a month old.

Bless me from marrying a usurer!

Here's the midwife's name
to't, one mistress tale-porter,

and five or six honest
wives that were present.

Why should I carry lies abroad?

Pray you now, buy it.

Come on, lay it by and
let's first see more ballads

we'll buy the other things anon.

Here's another ballad of a fish,

that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday

the four-score of April,

40000 fathom above water,

and sung this ballad against
the hard hearts of maids,

it was thought she was a woman
and was turned into a cold

fish for she would not
exchange flesh with one that

loved her.

[guests gasps]

The ballad is very pitiful and as true.

Is it true too, think you?

Five justices' hands at
it, and witnesses more than

my pack will hold.

Lay it by too another.

This is a merry ballad,
but a very pretty one.

Let's have some merry ones.

[guests laughs and murmurs]

Why, this is a passing
merry one and goes to

the tune of 'Two maids wooing a man'

[yells]

There's scarce a maid westward
but she sings it 'tis in

request, I can tell you.

We can both sing it if
thou'lt bear a part, thou

shalt hear 'tis in three parts.

We had the tune on't a month ago.

I can bear my part you must know 'tis my

occupation have at it with you.

[guests murmuring]

[soft music]

♪ Get you hence, for I must go ♪

♪ Where it fits not you to know ♪

♪ Whither ♪

♪ O, whither ♪

♪ Whither ♪

♪ It becomes thy oath full well ♪

♪ Thou to me thy secrets tell ♪

♪ Me too, let me go thither ♪

♪ Or thou goest to the orange or mill ♪

♪ If to either, thou dost ill ♪

♪ Neither ♪

♪ What, neither ♪

♪ Neither ♪

♪ Thou hast sworn my love to be ♪

♪ Thou hast sworn it more to me ♪

♪ Then whither goest ♪

♪ say, whither ♪

[guests laughing]

We'll have this song out anon by ourselves

my father and the
gentlemen are in sad talk,

and we'll not trouble them.

Come, bring away thy pack after me.

Wenches, I'll buy for you both.

[guests gasping]

Pedlar, let's have the first choice.

Follow me, girls.

And you shall pay well for 'em.

♪ Will you buy any tape ♪

♪ Or lace for your cape ♪

♪ My dainty duck, my dear-a ♪

♪ Any silk, any thread ♪

♪ Any toys for your head ♪

♪ Of the new'st and
finest, finest wear-a ♪

♪ Come to the pedlar ♪

♪ Money's a medler ♪

♪ That doth utter all men's ware-a ♪

Is it not too far gone?

'Tis time to part them.

He's simple and tells much.

How now, fair shepherd?

Your heart seems full of
something that does keep your mind

from feasting.

Sooth, when I was young
and handed love as you do,

I was wont to load my she with knacks.

I would have ransacked the
pedlar's silken treasury

and have poured it to her acceptance.

You've let him go and
nothing marted with him.

If your lass interpretation
should abuse and call this

your lack of love or
bounty, you were straited

for a reply, at least if you make a care

of happy holding her.

Old sir, I know she prizes
not such trifles as these are.

The gifts she looks from
me are packed and locked

up in my heart which I have given already.

But not deliver'd.

O, hear me breathe my life
before this ancient sir,

which should seem hath sometime loved!

I take thy hand, this hand,
as soft as dove's down

and as white as it,

or Ethiopian's tooth, or the
fanned snow that's bolted

by the northern blasts twice o'er.

What follows this?

How prettily the young swain seems to wash

the hand was fair before!

I have put you out.

But to your protestation let
me hear what you profess.

Do, and be witness to it.

And this my neighbour too?

And he, and more than he, and
men, the earth, the heavens,

and all.

That, were I crowned the
most imperial monarch,

thereof most worthy,

were I the fairest youth
that ever made eye swerve,

had force and knowledge
more than was ever man's,

I would not prize them.

Without her love for her employ them all,

commend them and condemn
them to her service.

Or to their own perdition.

Fairly offered.

This shows a sound affection.

But, my daughter,

say you the like to him?

I cannot speak so well,

nothing so well no, nor mean better.

By the pattern of mine
own thoughts I cut out

the purity of his.

Take hands, a bargain!

And, friends unknown, you
shall bear witness to it.

I give my daughter to him, and will make

her portion equal his.

O, that must be the
virtue of your daughter,

one being dead, I shall have
more than you can dream of yet.

Enough then for your wonder.

But, come on, contract
us 'fore these witnesses.

Come, your hand and, daughter, yours.

Soft, swain awhile beseech you,

Have you a father?

I have but what of him?

Knows he of this?

He neither does nor shall.

By my white beard you offer
him, if this be so wrong

something unfilial,

reason my son should
choose himself a wife,

but as good reason.

The father, all whose
joy is fair posterity,

should hold some counsel
in such a business.

I yield all this.

But for some other reasons, my grave sir,

which 'tis not fit you
know, I not acquaint

my father of this business.

Let him know't.

He shall not.

I prithee, let him.

No, he must not.

Let him, my son he
shall not need to grieve

at knowing of thy choice.

Come, come, he must
not, mark our contract.

Mark your divorce, young sir.

Whom son I dare not call thou art too base

to be acknowledged thou a scepter's heir,

that thus affect'st a sheep hook!

Thou old traitor, I am sorry
that by hanging thee I can

but shorten thy life one week.

And thou, fresh piece
of excellent witchcraft,

who of force must know the
royal fool thou copest with.

O, my heart!

I'll have thy beauty
scratched with briers,

and made more homely than thy state.

For thee, fond boy, if I may
ever know thou dost but sigh

that thou no more shalt see this knack,

as never I mean thou shalt,

we'll bar thee from succession.

Not hold thee of our
blood, no, not our kin,

far than Deucalion off.

Mark thou my words follow us to the court.

Thou churl, for this time,
though full of our displeasure,

yet we free thee from the dead blow of it.

And now, enchantment.

Worthy enough a herdsman yea, him too,

but for our honor therein,

which makes him unworthy thee,

if ever henceforth thou
these rural latches

to his entrance open,

or hoop his body more with thy embraces,

I will devise a death as cruel for thee

as thou art tender to it.

Even here undone!

I was not much afeard for once
or twice I was about to speak

and tell him plainly,

the selfsame sun that
shines upon his court

hides not his visage from our
cottage but Looks on alike.

Will't please you, sir, be gone.

I told you what would come of this,

beseech you of your own state take care,

this dream of mine, being now awake,

I'll queen it no inch farther,
but milk my ewes and weep.

How now, father!

Speak ere thou diest.

I cannot speak, nor think

Nor dare to know that which I know.

O sir!

You have undone a man of fourscore three,

that thought to fill
his grave in quiet, yea,

to die upon the bed my father died,

to lie close by his honest bones but now,

some hangman must put
on my shroud and lay me

where no priest shovels in dust.

O cursed wretch.

That knew'st this was the
prince, and wouldst adventure

to mingle faith with him, undone! Undone!

If I might die within
this hour, I have lived

to die when I desire.

Why look you so upon me?

I am but sorry, not afeard
delayed but nothing altered,

what I was, I am.

More straining on for
plucking back, not following

my leash unwillingly.

Gracious My Lord,

you know your father's
temper at this time,

he will allow no speech, which I do guess

you do not purpose to him.

And as hardly Will he
endure your sight as yet,

I fear Then, till the fury
of his highness settle,

Come not before him.

I not purpose it.

I think, Camillo?

Even he, My Lord.

How often have I told
you it would be thus?

How often said, my dignity would last

but till 'twere known!

It cannot fail but by
the violation of my faith

and then let nature crush the
sides of the earth together

and mar the seeds within!

Lift up thy looks from my
succession wipe me father,

I am heir to my affection.

Be advised.

I am, and by my fancy if
my reason will thereto be

obedient, I have reason.

If not, my senses, better
pleased with madness,

do bid it welcome.

This is desperate, sir.

So call it but it does fulfill my vow

I needs must think it honesty.

Camillo, not for Bohemia,
nor the pomp that may

be thereat gleaned,

for all the sun sees or
the close earth wombs

or the profound sea
hides in unknown fathoms,

will I break my oath to
this my fair beloved,

therefore, I pray you, as you
have ever been my father's

honored friend, when he
shall miss me as, in faith,

I mean not to see him any more.

Cast your good counsels upon his passion,

let myself and fortune
tug for the time to come.

This you may know and so deliver.

I am put to sea with her whom
here I cannot hold on shore.

And most opportune to our
need I have a vessel rides

fast by, but not prepared for this design.

What course I mean to
hold shall nothing benefit

your knowledge, nor
concern me the reporting.

O My Lord!

I would your spirit
were easier for advice,

or stronger for your need.

Hark, Perdita,

I'll hear you by and by.

He's irremovable, resolved for flight.

Now were I happy, if
his going I could frame

to serve my turn.

Save him from danger,
do him love and honor,

purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia.

And that unhappy king, my master,

whom I so much thirst to see.

Now, good Camillo,

I am so fraught with curious business that

I leave out ceremony.

Sir, I think you've heard of
my poor services, i' the love

that I have borne your father?

Very nobly have you deserved
it is my father's music

to speak your deeds,
not little of his care

to have them recompensed as thought on.

Well, My Lord,

if you may please to
think I love the king,

and through him what is
nearest to him, which is

your gracious self,
embrace but my direction

if your more ponderous and settled project

may suffer alteration.

On mine honor, I'll point
you where you shall have

such receiving as shall
become your highness,

where you may enjoy your
mistress, from the whom, I see,

there's no disjunction to be made,

but by as heavens forfend
your ruin marry her.

And, with my best
endeavors in your absence,

your discontenting
father strive to qualify,

and bring him up to liking.

How, Camillo?

May this, almost a miracle, be done?

That I may call thee
something more than man

and after that trust to thee.

Have you thought on a
place whereto you'll go?

Not any yet,

but as the unthought on accident is guilty

to what we wildly do, so we
profess ourselves to be the

slaves of chance and flies
of every wind that blows.

Then list to me.

This follows, if you will
not change your purpose

but undergo you flight,

make for Sicilia, and
there present yourself

and your fair princess,
for so I see she must be,

'fore Leontes.

She shall be habited as it
becomes the partner of your bed.

Methinks I see Leontes opening
his free arms and weeping

his welcomes forth asks
thee the son forgiveness,

as twere i' the father's person.

Kisses the hands of your
fresh princess o'er and o'er

divides him 'twixt his
unkindness and his kindness,

the one he chides to hell
and bids the other grow

faster than thought or time.

Worthy Camillo, what color
for my visitation shall I

hold up before him?

Sent by the king your father to greet him

and to give him comforts.

Sir, the manner of your
bearing towards him,

with what you as from
your father shall deliver,

things known betwixt us three.

I'll write you down the
which shall point you forth

at every sitting what you must say

that he shall not
perceive but that you have

your father's bosom there
and speak his very heart.

I am bound to you.

There is some sap in this.

A cause more promising
than a wild dedication

of yourselves to unpathed
waters, undreamed shores,

besides you know prosperity's
the very bond of love,

whose fresh complexion
and whose heart together

affliction alters.

One of these is true.

I think affliction may subdue the cheek,

but not take in the mind.

Yea, say you so?

There shall not at your father's
house these seven years.

Be born another such.

My good Camillo, she is
as forward of her breeding

as she is i' the rear our birth.

I cannot say 'tis pity
she lacks instructions,

for she seems a mistress
to most that teach.

Your pardon, sir for this
I'll blush you thanks.

My prettiest Perdita!

But O, the thorns we stand upon!

Camillo, preserver of
my father, now of me,

the medicine of our
house, how shall we do?

We are not furnished like Bohemia's son.

Nor shall appear in Sicilia.

My lord, fear none of this.

I think you know my
fortunes do all lie there,

it shall be so my care to
have you royally appointed

as if the scene you play were mine.

For instance, sir,

that you may know you
shall not want, one word.

[laughs]

What a fool Honesty is!

And Trust, his sworn brother,
a very simple gentleman!

I have sold all my trumpery
not a counterfeit stone,

not a ribbon, glass, pomander,
brooch, table-book, ballad,

knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie,
bracelet, horn-ring,

to keep my pack from fasting.

They throng who should buy
first, as if my trinkets had been

hallowed and brought a
benediction to the buyer

by which means I saw
whose purse was best in

picture and what I saw, to my good use I

remembered.

My clown, who wants but
something to be a reasonable man,

grew so in love with the wenches' song,

that he would not stir his pettitoes

till he had both tune and
words which so drew the

rest of the herd to me
that all their other senses

stuck in ears you might
have pinched a placket,

it was senseless 'twas
nothing to geld a codpiece

of a purse I could have
filed keys off that

hung in chains no hearing, no
feeling, but my sir's song,

and admiring the nothing of it.

So that in this time of lethargy I picked

and cut most of their
festival purses and had

not the old man come in
with a whoo-bub against

his daughter and the king's
son and scared my choughs

from the chaff, I had
not left a purse alive

in the whole army.

Nay, but my letters, by
this means being there

so soon as you arrive,
shall clear that doubt.

And those that you'll
procure from King Leontes?

Shall satisfy your father.

Happy be you!

All that you speak shows fair.

Who have we here?

We'll make an instrument of this,

omit nothing may give us aid.

If they have overheard
me now, why, hanging.

How now, good fellow?

Why shakest thou so?

Fear not, man here's no
harm intended to thee.

I am a poor fellow, sir.

Why, be so still here's nobody
will steal that from thee

yet for the outside of thy poverty we must

make an exchange therefore
discase thee instantly,

thou must think there's a necessity in't,

and change garments with this gentleman,

now though the pennyworth
on his side be the worst,

yet hold thee,

there's some boot.

I am a poor fellow, sir.

I know ye well enough.

Nay, prithee, dispatch the gentleman

is half flayed already.

Are you in earnest, sir?

I smell the trick on't.

Dispatch, I prithee.

Indeed, I have had earnest but I cannot

with conscience take it.

Unbuckle, unbuckle.

Fortunate mistress,

let my prophecy come home to ye!

You must retire yourself into some covert,

take your sweetheart's hat
and pluck it o'er your brows,

muffle your face, dismantle
you, and, as you can,

disliken the truth of your
own seeming that you may,

for I do fear eyes over to
shipboard get undescried.

I see the play so lies
that I must bear a part.

No remedy.

Have you done there?

Should I now meet my father,
he would not call me son.

Nay, you shall have no hat.

Come, lady, come.

What I do next, shall be to tell the king

of this escape and whither they are bound.

Wherein my hope is I shall
so prevail to force him after

in whose company I shall
review Sicilia, for whose sight

I have a woman's longing.

Farewell my friend.

Adieu sir.

Fortune speed us!

Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side.

The swifter speed the better.

I understand the business, I hear it,

to have an open ear, a quick
eye, and a nimble hand,

is necessary for a cut-purse.

A good nose is requisite also,

in order to smell out
work for the other senses.

[chuckles]

I see this is the time that
the unjust man doth thrive.

What an exchange had
this been without boot!

What a boot is here with this exchange!

Sure the gods do this year connive at us,

and we may do any thing extempore.

The prince himself is
about a piece of iniquity,

stealing away from his father
with his clog at his heels.

If I thought it were a piece of honesty

to acquaint the king withal,

I wouldn't do it.

I hold it the more knavery to conceal it

and therein am I constant
to my profession.

Aside, aside here is more
matter for a hot brain,

every lane's end, every
shop, church, session,

hanging, yields a careful man work.

See, see what a man you are now!

There is no other way but
to tell the king she's a

changeling and none of
your flesh and blood.

Nay, but hear me.

Nay, but hear me.

Go to, then.

She being none of your flesh and blood,

your flesh and blood has
not offended the king

and so your flesh and blood
is not to be punished by him.

Show those things you found about her,

those secret things, all
but what she has with her.

This being done, let the law
go whistle I warrant you.

I will tell the king all, every word, yea,

and his son's pranks too who,
I may say, is no honest man,

neither to his father nor to me.

To go about to make me
the king's brother-in-law.

Indeed, brother-in-law
was the farthest off

you could have been to him,

and then your blood had been the dearer,

by I know how much an ounce.

Very wisely, puppies!

Let us to the king there
is that in this fardel,

will make him scratch his beard.

I know not what impediment this complaint

may be to the flight of my master.

Pray heartily he be at palace.

Though I am not naturally honest,

I am so sometimes by chance.

Let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement.

How now, rustics, whither are you bound?

To the palace, an it like your worship.

Your affairs there, what, with whom,

the condition of that fardel,
the place of your dwelling,

your names, your ages,
of what having, breeding,

and any thing that is fitting
to be known, discover.

We are but plain fellows, sir.

A lie you are rough and hairy.

Let me have no lying it
becomes none but tradesmen,

Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir?

Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier.

Seest thou not the air of the
court in these enfoldings?

Hath not my gait in it
the measure of the court?

Receives not thy nose court-odor from me?

reflect I not on thy
baseness court-contempt?

Thinkest thou, for that I insinuate,

or toaze from thee thy business,
I am therefore no courtier?

I am courtier cap-a-pe and one
that will either pluck back

or push on thy business there.

Whereupon I command
thee to open thy affair.

My business, sir, is to the king.

What advocate hast thou to him?

I know not, I aint like you sir.

Advocate's the court word for a pheasant,

say you have none.

None, sir I have no
pheasant, cock nor hen.

How blessed are we that
are not simple men!

Yet nature might have
made me as these are,

therefore I will not disdain.

This cannot be but a great courtier.

His garments are rich, but
he wears them not handsomely.

He seems to be the more
noble in being fantastical,

a great man, I'll warrant.

I know by the picking on his teeth.

The fardel there, what's i' the fardel?

Wherefore that box?

Sir, there lies such secrets
in this fardel and box,

which none must know but the king,

and which he shall know within the hour,

if I may come to the speech of him.

Age, thou hast lost thy labor.

Why, sir?

The king is not at the
palace he is gone aboard a

new ship to purge
melancholy and air himself,

for if thou beest capable
of things serious,

thou must know the king is full of grief.

So it is said, sir about his son,

that should have married
a shepherd's daughter.

If that shepherd be not
in hand-fast, let him fly.

The curses he shall have,
the tortures he shall feel,

will break the back of
man, the heart of monster.

Think you so, sir?

Not he alone shall suffer
what wit can make heavy

and vengeance bitter,

but those that are germane to
him, though 50 time removed,

shall all come under the
hangman which though it be

great pity, yet it is necessary.

An old sheep-whistling rogue a ram-tender,

to offer to have his
daughter come into grace!

Some say he shall be stoned
but that death is too soft

for him, say I.

Draw our throne into a sheep cote!

All deaths are too few,
the sharpest too easy.

Has the old man e'er a
son, sir, do you hear

an't like you, sir?

He has a son, who shall
be flayed alive then

'nointed over with honey,
set on the head of a

wasp's nest there stand till he be 3/4

and a dram dead.

Then recovered again with aqua vitae

or some other hot infusion then,

raw as he is, and in the
hottest day prognostication

proclaims, shall be be
set against a brick-wall,

the sun looking with a
southward eye upon him,

where he is to behold him
with flies blown to death.

But what talk we of
these traitorly rascals,

their miseries are to be smiled at,

their offenses being so capital?

Tell me, for you seem
to be honest plain men,

what you have to the king?

Being something gently
considered, I'll bring you

where he is aboard, tender
your persons to his presence,

whisper him in your
behalfs and if it be in man

besides the king to effect your suits,

here is man shall do it.

He seems to be of great
authority close with him,

give him gold and though
authority be a stubborn bear,

yet he is oft led by the nose with gold.

Show the inside of your purse
to the outside of his hand,

and no more ado.

Remember stoned, and flayed alive.

An't please you, sir, to
undertake the business for us,

here is that gold I have,

I'll make it as much more and
leave this young man in pawn

till I bring it you.

After I have done what I promised?

Ay, sir.

Well, give me the moiety.

Are you a party in this business?

In some sort, sir but though
my case be a pitiful one,

I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.

[laughs]

O, that's the case of the shepherd's son.

[laughs]

Hang him, he shall be made an example.

Comfort, good comfort!

We must to the king and
show our strange sights,

he must know 'tis none of
your daughter nor my sister,

we are gone else.

Sir, I will give you as
much as this old man does

when the business is performed,
and remain, as he says,

your pawn till it be brought you.

I will trust you.

Walk before toward the
sea-side go on the right hand.

I will but look upon the
hedge and follow you.

We are blest in this man,
as I may say, even blest.

Let us before as he bids us.

He was provided to do us good.

[laughs]

If I had a mind to be honest,

I see fortune would not suffer me.

She drops booties in my mouth.

I am courted now with a double
occasion, gold and a means

to do the prince my master
good which who knows how

that may turn back to my advancement?

I will bring these two moles,
these blind ones, aboard him.

If he think it fit to shore
them again and that the

complaint they have to the
king concerns him nothing,

let him call me rogue for
being so far officious.

For I am proof against that title

and what shame else belongs to it.

To him will I present them
there may be matter in it.

Sir, you have done
enough, and have performed

a saint-like sorrow no fault
could you make which you have

not redeemed indeed, paid
down more penitence than done

trespass at the last, do
as the heavens have done,

forget your evil with
them forgive yourself.

And whilst I remember her and her virtues,

I cannot forget my blemishes in them,

and so still think of
the wrong I did myself

which was so much, that
heirless it hath made my kingdom

and destroyed the sweet'st
companion that e'er man

bred his hopes out of.

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 killed would be

unparalleled.

I think so, killed!

She I killed, I did so but
thou strikest me sorely,

to say I did it is as bitter
upon thy tongue as in my

thought now good now, say so but seldom.

Not at all, good lady.

You might have spoken a
1000 things that would

have done the time more benefit and graced

your kindness better.

You are one of those.

Would have him wed again.

If you would not so,
you pity not the state,

nor the remembrance of
his most sovereign name

consider little what dangers,
by his highness fail of issue,

may drop upon his kingdom and
devour incertain lookers on.

What were more holy than 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 again

with a sweet fellow to it?

There is none worthy,
respecting her that's gone.

Besides, the gods will have
fulfilled 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 heir

"Till his lost child be found?"

Which that it shall, as all as
monstrous to our human reason

as my Antigonus to break his
grave and come again to me who,

on my life, did perish with the infant.

'Tis your counsel My Lord should
to the heavens be contrary.

Oppose against their wills.

Care not for issue, the
crown will find an heir,

Great Alexander left his to
the worthiest so his successor

was like to be the best.

Good Paulina, who hast
the memory of Hermione,

I know, in honor.

O, that ever I had
squared me to thy counsel!

Then, even now, I might have
looked upon my queen's full

eyes, have taken treasure from her lips.

And left them more rich
for what they yielded.

Thou speak'st truth.

No more such wives
therefore, no wife one worse,

and better used, would make her
sainted spirit again possess

her corpse, and on this stage,
where we're offenders now,

appear soul vexed and begin,

Why to me?

Had she such power, she had just cause.

She had and would incense
me to murder her I married.

I should so.

Were I the ghost that
walked, I'ld bid you mark

her eye, and tell me
for what dull part in't

you chose her then I'd
shriek, that even your ears

should rift to hear me and
the words that followed

should be remember mine.

Stars, stars, and all
eyes else dead coals!

Fear thou no wife

I'll have no wife, Paulina.

Will you swear

never to marry but by my free leave?

Never, Paulina so be blest my spirit!

Then, good My Lords,
bear witness to his oath.

You tempt him over much.

Unless another, as like
Hermione as is her picture,

affront his eye.

Good madam.

I have done.

Yet, if My Lord will marry,

if you will, sir,

no remedy, but you will give me the office

to choose you a queen
she shall not be so young

as was your former but she shall be such

as, walked your first queen's
ghost, it should take joy

to see her in your arms.

My true Paulina, we shall not
marry till thou bid'st us.

That shall be when your
first queen's again in breath

never till then.

One that gives out
himself Prince Florizel,

son of Polixenes, with his
princess, she the fairest

I have yet beheld, desires
access to your high presence.

What with him?

He comes not Like to his
father's greatness his approach,

so out of circumstance
and sudden, tells us

it is not a visitation framed,

but forced by need and accident.

What train?

But few, and those but mean.

His princess, say you, with him?

Ay, the most peerless
piece of earth, I think,

that e'er the sun shone bright on.

O Hermione, as every present
time doth boast itself

above a better gone, so
must thy grave give way

to what's seen now!

Sir, you yourself have said and writ so,

but your writing now is
colder than that theme.

She had not been, nor
was not to be equaled,

thus your verse flowed
with her beauty once

it is shrewdly ebbed, to
say you have seen a better.

Pardon, madam.

The one I have almost forgot, your pardon.

The other, when she has obtained your eye,

will have your tongue too.

This is a creature,
would she begin a sect,

might quench the zeal
of all professors else,

make proselytes of who she but bid follow.

How, not women?

Women will love her, that she is a woman.

More worth than any man men, that she is

the rarest of all women.

Go, Cleomenes.

Yourself, assisted with
your honored friends,

bring them to our embracement.

Still, 'tis strange he
thus should steal upon us.

Had our prince, jewel of
children, seen this hour,

he had paired well with this lord,

there was not full a month
between their births.

Prithee, no more cease thou
know'st he dies to me again

when talked of sure, when
I shall see this gentleman,

thy speeches will bring me
to consider that which may

unfurnish me of reason.

They are come.

Your mother was most
true to wedlock, prince.

For she did print your royal father off,

conceiving you were I but 21.

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 wildly
by us performed before.

Most dearly welcome!

And your fair princess, goddess!

O, alas!

I lost a couple, that
'twixt heaven and earth

might thus have stood begetting wonder as

you, 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 life once more to look on him.

By his command have I here touched Sicilia

and from him give you all
greetings that a king, at friend,

can send his brother and, but
infirmity which waits upon

worn times hath something
seized his wished ability,

he had himself the lands and
waters 'twixt your throne

and his measured to look
upon you whom he loves.

He bade me say so more
than all the scepters

and those that bear them living.

O my brother, good gentleman!

The wrongs I have done
thee stir afresh within me,

and these thy offices, so rarely kind,

are as interpreters of
my behind hand slackness.

Welcome hither, as is
the spring to the earth.

And hath he too exposed this
paragon to the fearful usage,

at least ungentle, of
the dreadful Neptune,

to greet a man not worth
her pains, much less

the adventure of her person?

Good My Lord, she came from Libya.

Where the warlike Smalus,

that noble honored lord,
is feared and loved?

Most royal sir, from thence
from him, whose daughter

his tears proclaimed his,
parting with her thence,

a prosperous south-wind
friendly, we have crossed,

to execute the charge my father gave me

for visiting your highness my best train

I have from your Sicilian shores dismissed

who for Bohemia bend, to signify

not only my success in Libya, sir,

but my arrival and my wife's
in safety here where we are.

The blessed gods purge
all infection from our air

whilst you do 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 blest,

as he from heaven merits it, with you

worthy his goodness.

What might I have been,
might I a son and daughter

now have looked on, such
goodly things as you!

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
with a shepherd's daughter.

Where's Bohemia?

Speak.

Here in your city I now came from him.

I speak amazedly and it becomes
my marvel and my message.

To your court whiles he was
hastening, in the chase,

it seems, of this fair
couple, meets he on the way

the father of this seeming lady and

her brother, having
both their country quit

with this young prince.

Camillo has betrayed me

whose honor and whose honesty till now

endured all weathers.

Lay't so to his charge.

He's with the king your father.

Who? Camillo?

Camillo, sir I spake with him who now

has these poor men in question.

Never saw I wretches so quake they kneel,

they kiss the earth
forswear themselves as often

as they speak, Bohemia stops
his ears, and threatens them

with divers deaths in death.

O my poor father!

The heaven sets spies
upon us, will not have

our contract celebrated.

You are married?

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.

My lord,

is this the daughter of a king?

She is, when once she is my wife.

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 sorry

your choice is not so
rich in worth as beauty,

that you might well enjoy her.

Dear, look up though
Fortune, visible an enemy,

should chase us with
my father, power no jot

hath she to change our loves.

Beseech you, sir,

remember since you owed no more to time

than I do now with thought
of such affections,

step forth mine advocate at your request

my father will grant
precious things as trifles.

Would he do so, I'ld beg
your precious mistress,

which he counts but a trifle.

Sir, my liege,

your eye hath too much
youth in't not a month

for your queen died, she
was more worth such gazes

than what you look on now.

I thought of her,

even in these looks I made.

But your petition is yet unanswered.

I will to your father

your honor not o'erthrown by your desires,

I am friend to them and
you upon which errand

I now go toward him therefore follow me

and mark what way I
make come, good My Lord.

Beseech you, sir, were you
present at this relation?

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

heard the shepherd say,
he found the child.

I would most gladly know the issue of it.

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

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

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.

Here comes a gentleman
that haply knows more.

The news, Rogero?

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.

Here comes the Lady
Paulina's steward he can

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?

Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by

circumstance that which you
hear you'll swear you see,

there is such unity in the proofs.

The mantle of Queen Hermione
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

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?

[Nobles] No.

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 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 favor.

Our king, being ready to
leap out of himself for joy

of his found daughter,
as if that 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 his

daughter with clipping
her now he thanks the old

shepherd, which stands
by like a weather-bitten

conduit of many kings' reigns.

I never heard of such another
encounter, which lames report

to follow it and undoes
description to do it.

What, pray you, became of Antigonus,

who carried hence the child?

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

handkerchief and rings of
his that Paulina knows.

What became of his bark and his followers?

Wrecked the same instant
of his master's death

and in the view of the
shepherd so that all the

instruments which aided
to expose the child were

even then lost when it was found.

But oh, 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,

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.

The dignity of this act
was worth the audience

of kings and princes for
by such was it acted.

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,

and the manner how she came to it,

bravely confessed and
lamented by the king,

how attentiveness wounded
his daughter till, from one

sign of dolor 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 color,

some swooned, all
sorrowed if all the world

could have seen it, the
woe had been universal.

Are they returned to the court?

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 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 answer,

thither with all greediness
of affection are they gone,

and there they intend to sup.

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 house.

Shall we thither and with our
company piece the rejoicing?

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.

Let's along.

Now, had I not the dash
of my former life in me,

would preferment drop on my head.

I took 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 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 it is all one to me for
had I been the finder out

of this secret, it would not have relished

among my other discredits.

Here come those I have done
good to against my will,

and already appearing in the
blossoms of their fortune.

Come, boy I am past more
children, but thy sons and

daughters will be all gentlemen born.

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 these
robes are not gentlemen born,

give me the lie, do, and
try whether I am not now

a gentleman born.

I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.

Ay, and have been so any
time these four hours.

And so have I, boy.

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 so we wept, and there
was the first gentleman-like

tears that ever we shed.

We may live, son, to shed many more.

Ay or else 'twere hard luck, being in so

preposterous estate as we are.

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.

Prithee, son, do for we must be gentle,

now we are gentlemen.

Thou wilt amend thy life?

Ay, an it like your good worship.

Give me thy hand I will
swear to the prince thou

art as honest a true fellow
as any is in Bohemia.

You may say it, but not swear it.

Not swear it, now I am a gentleman?

Let boors and franklins
say it, I'll swear it.

How if it be false, son?

If it be ne'er so false,
a true gentleman may swear

it in the behalf of his
friend and I'll swear to

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.

I will prove so, sir, to my power.

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 queen's picture.

Come, follow us we'll be thy good masters.

[crowd shouts]

[soft flute music]

O grave and good Paulina,
the great comfort

I have had of thee!

What, sovereign sir,

I did not well I meant well.

All my services you
have paid home but that

you have vouchsafed,

with your crowned brother
and these your contracted

heirs of your kingdoms,
my poor house to visit,

it is a surplus of your grace, which never

my life may last to answer.

O Paulina,

we honor you with trouble but we came

to see the statue of
our queen your gallery

have we passed through,
not without much content

in many singularities but we saw not

that which my daughter came to look upon,

the statue of her mother.

As she lived peerless,

so her dead likeness, I do well believe,

excels whatever yet you looked upon

or hand of man hath
done therefore I keep it

lonely, apart.

But here it is prepare to
see the life as lively mocked

as ever still sleep mocked death.

Behold, and say it is well.

I like your silence, it the more shows off

your wonder but yet speak
first, you, my liege,

comes it not something near?

Her natural posture!

Chide me, dear stone,
that I may say indeed

thou art Hermione or rather, thou art she

in thy not chiding, for she was as tender

as infancy and grace.

But yet, Paulina, Hermione was
not so much wrinkled, nothing

so aged as this seems.

O, not by much.

So much the more our carver's excellence

which lets go by some
16 years and makes her

as she lived now.

As now she might have done,

so much to my good comfort, as it is

now piercing to my soul.

O, thus she stood, even
with such life of majesty,

warm life, as now it coldly
stands, when first I wooed her!

I am ashamed does not the
stone rebuke me for being more

stone than it?

O royal piece, there's
magic in thy majesty,

which has my evils conjured to remembrance

and from thy admiring
daughter took the spirits,

standing like stone with thee.

And give me leave,

and do not say 'tis superstition, that

I kneel and then implore her blessing.

Lady, dear queen, that
ended when I but began,

Give me that hand of yours to kiss.

O, patience!

The statue is but newly
fixed, the color's not dry.

My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,

which 16 winters cannot blow away,

so many summers dry scarce any joy

did ever so long live no sorrow but killed

itself much sooner.

Dear my brother, let
him that was the cause

of this have power to take off
so much grief from you as he

will piece up in himself.

Indeed, My Lord.

If I had thought the
sight of my poor image

would thus have wrought
you, for the stone is mine

I'ld not have showed it.

Do not draw the curtain.

No longer shall you gaze
on't, lest your fancy

may think anon it moves.

Let be, let be.

would I were dead, but
that, methinks, already

what was he that did make it?

See, My Lord, would you
not deem it breathed?

And that those veins
did verily bear blood?

Masterly done.

The very life seems warm upon her lip.

The fixture of her eye has motion in't,

as we are mocked with art.

I'll draw the curtain
My Lord's almost so far

transported that he'll
think anon it lives.

O sweet Paulina,

make me to think so 20 years together!

No settled senses of the
world can match the pleasure

of that madness.

Let it alone.

I am sorry, sir, I have
thus far stirred you but

I could afflict you farther.

Do, Paulina for that
affliction has a taste as sweet

as any cordial comfort.

Still, methinks, there
is an air comes from her

what fine chisel could
ever yet cut breath?

Let no man mock me, for I will kiss her.

Good My Lord, forbear the
ruddiness upon her lip is wet

you'll mar it if you
kiss it, stain your own

with oily painting,
shall I draw the curtain?

No, not these 20 years.

So long could I stand by, a looker on.

Either forbear, quit presently the chapel,

or resolve you for more amazement.

If you can behold it, I'll
make the statue move indeed,

descend and take you by the
hand but then you'll think

which I protest against,

I am assisted by wicked powers.

What you can make her do,
I am content to look on

what to speak, I am content
to hear for it is as easy

to make her speak as move.

It is required you do awake your faith.

Then all stand still on those that think

it is unlawful business I
am about, let them depart.

Proceed no foot shall stir.

Music, awake her strike!

[soft music]

is time descend be stone no more approach

strike all that look upon with marvel.

Come, I'll fill your grave
up stir, nay, come away.

Bequeath to death your numbness,

for from him dear life redeems you.

You perceive she stirs start not,

her actions shall be holy as
you hear my spell is lawful

do not shun her until
you see her die again

for then you kill her double.

Nay, present your hand

when she was young you
wooed her now in age

is she become the suitor?

[soft music]

O, she's warm!

If this be magic, let it
be an art lawful as eating.

She embraces him.

She hangs about his neck,

if she pertain to life let her speak too.

Ay, and make it manifest
where she has lived,

or how stolen from the dead.

That she is living,

were it but told you, should be hooted at

like an old tale but it appears she lives.

Though yet she speak not.

Mark a little while
please you to interpose,

fair madam kneel and pray
your mother's blessing.

Turn, good lady,

our Perdita is found.

You gods, look down

and from your sacred
vials pour your graces

upon my daughter's head!

Tell me, mine own.

Where hast thou been preserved?

Where lived?

How found thy father's court?

For thou shalt hear that
I, knowing by Paulina that

the oracle gave hope thou wast in being,

have preserved myself to see the issue.

There's time enough for that.

Lest they desire upon this push to trouble

your joys with like relation.

Go together.

[laughs]

You precious winners all
your exultation partake

to every one.

I, an old turtle, will wing
me to some withered bough

and there my mate, that's
never to be found again,

Lament till I am lost.

O, peace, Paulina!

Thou shouldst a husband
take by my consent,

as I by thine a wife this is a match,

and made between's by vows.

Thou hast found mine but
how, is to be questioned

for I saw her, as I thought, dead,

and have in deed said many
a prayer upon her grave.

I'll not seek far for him,
I partly know his mind

to find thee an honorable husband.

Come, Camillo, and take her by the hand,

whose worth and honesty is richly noted

and here justified by us, a pair of kings.

Let's from this place.

What?

Look upon my brother both your pardons,

that e'er I put between your
holy looks my ill suspicion.

This is your son-in-law,
and son unto the king,

who, heavens directing, is
troth-plight to your daughter.

Good Paulina, lead us from hence,

where we may leisurely each one
demand an answer to his part

performed in this wide
gap of time since first

we were dissevered hastily lead away.

[upbeat music]