The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
Act 2 - Scene 1
A room in LEONTES’ palace.
Hermione : Take the boy to you: he so troubles me,
[p]'Tis past enduring.
First Lady : Come, my gracious lord,
[p]Shall I be your playfellow?
Mamillius : No, I'll none of you.
First Lady : Why, my sweet lord?
Mamillius : You'll kiss me hard and speak to me as if
[p]I were a baby still. I
love you better.
Second Lady : And why so, my lord?
Mamillius : Not for because
[p]Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they
say,
[p]Become some women best, so that there be not
[p]Too much hair
there, but in a semicircle
[p]Or a half-moon made with a pen.
Second Lady : Who taught you this?
Mamillius : I learnt it out of women's faces. Pray now
[p]What colour are your
eyebrows?
First Lady : Blue, my lord.
Mamillius : Nay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's nose
[p]That has been blue,
but not her eyebrows.
First Lady : Hark ye;
[p]The queen your mother rounds apace: we shall
[p]Present
our services to a fine new prince
[p]One of these days; and then
you'ld wanton with us,
[p]If we would have you.
Second Lady : She is spread of late
[p]Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her!
Hermione : What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now
[p]I am for you again:
pray you, sit by us,
[p]And tell 's a tale.
Mamillius : Merry or sad shall't be?
Hermione : As merry as you will.
Mamillius : A sad tale's best for winter: I have one
[p]Of sprites and goblins.
Hermione : Let's have that, good sir.
[p]Come on, sit down: come on, and do your
best
[p]To fright me with your sprites; you're powerful at it.
Mamillius : There was a man--
Hermione : Nay, come, sit down; then on.
Mamillius : Dwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly;
[p]Yond crickets shall
not hear it.
Hermione : Come on, then,
[p]And give't me in mine ear.
Leontes : Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him?
First Lord : Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never
[p]Saw I men scour so on
their way: I eyed them
[p]Even to their ships.
Leontes : How blest am I
[p]In my just censure, in my true opinion!
[p]Alack,
for lesser knowledge! how accursed
[p]In being so blest! There may be
in the cup
[p]A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,
[p]And yet
partake no venom, for his knowledge
[p]Is not infected: but if one
present
[p]The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known
[p]How he
hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
[p]With violent hefts. I
have drunk,
[p]and seen the spider.
[p]Camillo was his help in this,
his pander:
[p]There is a plot against my life, my crown;
[p]All's
true that is mistrusted: that false villain
[p]Whom I employ'd was
pre-employ'd by him:
[p]He has discover'd my design, and I
[p]Remain a
pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick
[p]For them to play at will. How came
the posterns
[p]So easily open?
First Lord : By his great authority;
[p]Which often hath no less prevail'd than
so
[p]On your command.
Leontes : I know't too well.
[p]Give me the boy: I am glad you did not nurse
him:
[p]Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you
[p]Have too much
blood in him.
Hermione : What is this? sport?
Leontes : Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her;
[p]Away with him! and
let her sport herself
[p]With that she's big with; for 'tis
Polixenes
[p]Has made thee swell thus.
Hermione : But I'ld say he had not,
[p]And I'll be sworn you would believe my
saying,
[p]Howe'er you lean to the nayward.
Leontes : You, my lords,
[p]Look on her, mark her well; be but about
[p]To say
'she is a goodly lady,' and
[p]The justice of your bearts will thereto
add
[p]'Tis pity she's not honest, honourable:'
[p]Praise her but for
this her without-door form,
[p]Which on my faith deserves high speech,
and straight
[p]The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands
[p]That
calumny doth use--O, I am out--
[p]That mercy does, for calumny will
sear
[p]Virtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha's,
[p]When you
have said 'she's goodly,' come between
[p]Ere you can say 'she's
honest:' but be 't known,
[p]From him that has most cause to grieve it
should be,
[p]She's an adulteress.
Hermione : Should a villain say so,
[p]The most replenish'd villain in the
world,
[p]He were as much more villain: you, my lord,
[p]Do but
mistake.
Leontes : You have mistook, my lady,
[p]Polixenes for Leontes: O thou
thing!
[p]Which I'll not call a creature of thy place,
[p]Lest
barbarism, making me the precedent,
[p]Should a like language use to
all degrees
[p]And mannerly distinguishment leave out
[p]Betwixt the
prince and beggar: I have said
[p]She's an adulteress; I have said
with whom:
[p]More, she's a traitor and Camillo is
[p]A federary with
her, and one that knows
[p]What she should shame to know
herself
[p]But with her most vile principal, that she's
[p]A
bed-swerver, even as bad as those
[p]That vulgars give bold'st titles,
ay, and privy
[p]To this their late escape.
Hermione : No, by my life.
[p]Privy to none of this. How will this grieve
you,
[p]When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
[p]You thus
have publish'd me! Gentle my lord,
[p]You scarce can right me
throughly then to say
[p]You did mistake.
Leontes : No; if I mistake
[p]In those foundations which I build upon,
[p]The
centre is not big enough to bear
[p]A school-boy's top. Away with her!
to prison!
[p]He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty
[p]But
that he speaks.
Hermione : There's some ill planet reigns:
[p]I must be patient till the heavens
look
[p]With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,
[p]I am not
prone to weeping, as our sex
[p]Commonly are; the want of which vain
dew
[p]Perchance shall dry your pities: but I have
[p]That honourable
grief lodged here which burns
[p]Worse than tears drown: beseech you
all, my lords,
[p]With thoughts so qualified as your
charities
[p]Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so
[p]The king's
will be perform'd!
Leontes : Shall I be heard?
Hermione : Who is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness,
[p]My women may be
with me; for you see
[p]My plight requires it. Do not weep, good
fools;
[p]There is no cause: when you shall know your mistress
[p]Has
deserved prison, then abound in tears
[p]As I come out: this action I
now go on
[p]Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord:
[p]I never wish'd
to see you sorry; now
[p]I trust I shall. My women, come; you have
leave.
Leontes : Go, do our bidding; hence!
First Lord : Beseech your highness, call the queen again.
Antigonus : Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice
[p]Prove violence; in
the which three great ones suffer,
[p]Yourself, your queen, your son.
First Lord : For her, my lord,
[p]I dare my life lay down and will do't,
sir,
[p]Please you to accept it, that the queen is spotless
[p]I' the
eyes of heaven and to you; I mean,
[p]In this which you accuse her.
Antigonus : If it prove
[p]She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where
[p]I lodge
my wife; I'll go in couples with her;
[p]Than when I feel and see her
no farther trust her;
[p]For every inch of woman in the world,
[p]Ay,
every dram of woman's flesh is false, If she be.
Leontes : Hold your peaces.
First Lord : Good my lord,--
Antigonus : It is for you we speak, not for ourselves:
[p]You are abused and by
some putter-on
[p]That will be damn'd for't; would I knew the
villain,
[p]I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd,
[p]I have
three daughters; the eldest is eleven
[p]The second and the third,
nine, and some five;
[p]If this prove true, they'll pay for't:
[p]by
mine honour,
[p]I'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see,
[p]To
bring false generations: they are co-heirs;
[p]And I had rather glib
myself than they
[p]Should not produce fair issue.
Leontes : Cease; no more.
[p]You smell this business with a sense as cold
[p]As
is a dead man's nose: but I do see't and feel't
[p]As you feel doing
thus; and see withal
[p]The instruments that feel.
Antigonus : If it be so,
[p]We need no grave to bury honesty:
[p]There's not a
grain of it the face to sweeten
[p]Of the whole dungy earth.
Leontes : What! lack I credit?
First Lord : I had rather you did lack than I, my lord,
[p]Upon this ground; and
more it would content me
[p]To have her honour true than your
suspicion,
[p]Be blamed for't how you might.
Leontes : Why, what need we
[p]Commune with you of this, but rather
follow
[p]Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative
[p]Calls not your
counsels, but our natural goodness
[p]Imparts this; which if you, or
stupefied
[p]Or seeming so in skill, cannot or will not
[p]Relish a
truth like us, inform yourselves
[p]We need no more of your advice:
the matter,
[p]The loss, the gain, the ordering on't, is
all
[p]Properly ours.
Antigonus : And I wish, my liege,
[p]You had only in your silent judgment tried
it,
[p]Without more overture.
Leontes : How could that be?
[p]Either thou art most ignorant by age,
[p]Or thou
wert born a fool. Camillo's flight,
[p]Added to their
familiarity,
[p]Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture,
[p]That
lack'd sight only, nought for approbation
[p]But only seeing, all
other circumstances
[p]Made up to the deed, doth push on this
proceeding:
[p]Yet, for a greater confirmation,
[p]For in an act of
this importance 'twere
[p]Most piteous to be wild, I have dispatch'd
in post
[p]To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple,
[p]Cleomenes and
Dion, whom you know
[p]Of stuff'd sufficiency: now from the
oracle
[p]They will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had,
[p]Shall
stop or spur me. Have I done well?
First Lord : Well done, my lord.
Leontes : Though I am satisfied and need no more
[p]Than what I know, yet shall
the oracle
[p]Give rest to the minds of others, such as he
[p]Whose
ignorant credulity will not
[p]Come up to the truth. So have we
thought it good
[p]From our free person she should be
confined,
[p]Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence
[p]Be left
her to perform. Come, follow us;
[p]We are to speak in public; for
this business
[p]Will raise us all.
Antigonus : [Aside]
[p]To laughter, as I take it,
[p]If the good truth were
known.
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