The Winter's Tale Part 11

CLEOMENES. You tempt him over-much.

PAULINA. Unless another, As like Hermione as is her picture, Affront his eye.

CLEOMENES. Good madam- PAULINA. I have done.

Yet, if my lord will marry- if you will, sir, No remedy but you will- give me the office To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young As was your former; but she shall be such As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy To see her in your arms.

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

PAULINA. That Shall be when your first queen's again in breath; Never till then.

Enter a GENTLEMAN

GENTLEMAN. 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.

LEONTES. What with him? He comes not Like to his father's greatness. His approach, So out of circ.u.mstance and sudden, tells us 'Tis not a visitation fram'd, but forc'd By need and accident. What train?

GENTLEMAN. But few, And those but mean.

LEONTES. His princess, say you, with him?

GENTLEMAN. Ay; the most peerless piece of earth, I think, That e'er the sun shone bright on.

PAULINA. O Hermione, As every present time doth boast 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 equall'd.' Thus your verse Flow'd with her beauty once; 'tis shrewdly ebb'd, To say you have seen a better.

GENTLEMAN. Pardon, madam.

The one I have almost forgot- your pardon; The other, when she has obtain'd your eye, Will have your tongue too. This is a creature, Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal Of all professors else, make proselytes Of who she but bid follow.

PAULINA. How! not women?

GENTLEMAN. Women will love her that she is a woman More worth than any man; men, that she is The rarest of all women.

LEONTES. Go, Cleomenes; Yourself, a.s.sisted with your honour'd friends, Bring them to our embracement. Exeunt Still, 'tis strange He thus should steal upon us.

PAULINA. Had our prince, Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd Well with this lord; there was not full a month Between their births.

LEONTES. Prithee no more; cease. Thou know'st He dies to me again when talk'd of. Sure, When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches Will bring me to consider that which may Unfurnish me of reason.

Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and ATTENDANTS

They are come.

Your mother was most true to wedlock, Prince; For she did print your royal father off, Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one, Your father's image is so hit in you His very air, that I should call you brother, As I did him, and speak of something wildly By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!

And your fair princess- G.o.ddess! 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.

FLORIZEL. By his command Have I here touch'd 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 seiz'd His wish'd ability, he had himself The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his Measur'd, to look upon you; whom he loves, He bade me say so, more than all the sceptres And those that bear them living.

LEONTES. 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 th' earth. And hath he too Expos'd this paragon to th' fearful usage, At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune, To greet a man not worth her pains, much less Th' adventure of her person?

FLORIZEL. Good, my lord, She came from Libya.

LEONTES. Where the warlike Smalus, That n.o.ble honour'd lord, is fear'd and lov'd?

FLORIZEL. Most royal sir, from thence; from him whose daughter His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her; thence, A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd, To execute the charge my father gave me For visiting your Highness. My best train I have from your Sicilian sh.o.r.es dismiss'd; 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.

LEONTES. The blessed G.o.ds 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 look'd on, Such goodly things as you!

Enter a LORD

LORD. Most n.o.ble 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.

LEONTES. Where's Bohemia? Speak.

LORD. 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 hast'ning- 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 quitted With this young prince.

FLORIZEL. Camillo has betray'd me; Whose honour and whose honesty till now Endur'd all weathers.

LORD. Lay't so to his charge; He's with the King your father.

LEONTES. Who? Camillo?

LORD. Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who 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.

PERDITA. O my poor father!

The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have Our contract celebrated.

LEONTES. You are married?

FLORIZEL. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be; The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first.

The odds for high and low's alike.

LEONTES. My lord, Is this the daughter of a king?

FLORIZEL. She is, When once she is my wife.

LEONTES. That 'once,' I see by your good father's speed, Will come on very slowly. I am sorry, Most sorry, you have broken from his liking Where you were tied in duty; and as sorry Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty, That you might well enjoy her.

FLORIZEL. Dear, look up.

Though Fortune, visible an enemy, Should chase us with my father, pow'r no jot Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir, Remember since you ow'd 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.

LEONTES. Would he do so, I'd beg your precious mistress, Which he counts but a trifle.

PAULINA. Sir, my liege, Your eye hath too much youth in't. Not a month Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes Than what you look on now.

LEONTES. I thought of her Even in these looks I made. [To FLORIZEL] But your pet.i.tion Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father.

Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires, I am friend to them and you. Upon which errand I now go toward him; therefore, follow me, And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord. Exeunt

SCENE II.

Sicilia. Before the palace of LEONTES

Enter AUTOLYCUS and a GENTLEMAN

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

FIRST GENTLEMAN. 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.

AUTOLYCUS. I would most gladly know the issue of it.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. I make a broken delivery of the business; but the changes I perceived in the King and Camillo were very notes of admiration. They seem'd 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 look'd as they had heard of a world ransom'd, or one destroyed. A notable pa.s.sion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder that knew no more but seeing could not say if th' importance were joy or sorrow-but in the extremity of the one it must needs be.

Enter another GENTLEMAN

Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more. The news, Rogero?

SECOND GENTLEMAN. Nothing but bonfires. The oracle is fulfill'd: 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.

Enter another GENTLEMAN

Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward; he can deliver you more.

How goes it now, sir? This news, which is call'd true, is so like an old tale that the verity of it is in strong suspicion. Has the King found his heir?

THIRD GENTLEMAN. Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by circ.u.mstance. That which you hear you'll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione's; 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 n.o.bleness 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?

SECOND GENTLEMAN. No.

THIRD GENTLEMAN. Then you have 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 seem'd sorrow wept to take leave of them; for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenance of such distraction that they were to be known by garment, not by favour.

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 he 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.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child?

THIRD GENTLEMAN. Like an old tale still, which will have matter to rehea.r.s.e, 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.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. What became of his bark and his followers?

THIRD GENTLEMAN. Wreck'd the same instant of their 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, O, the n.o.ble combat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in Paulina! She had one eye declin'd for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfill'd. 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.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted.

THIRD GENTLEMAN. One of the prettiest touches of all, and that which angl'd for mine eyes- caught the water, though not the fish- was, when at the relation of the Queen's death, with the manner how she came to't bravely confess'd and lamented by the King, how attentivenes wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of dolour 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 colour; some swooned, all sorrowed. If all the world could have seen't, the woe had been universal.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. Are they returned to the court?

THIRD GENTLEMAN. 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 perform'd 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.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. 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?

FIRST GENTLEMAN. 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.

Exeunt GENTLEMEN AUTOLYCUS. Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would preferment drop on my head. I brought 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 over-fond 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 undiscover'd. But 'tis all one to me; for had I been the finder-out of this secret, it would not have relish'd among my other discredits.