The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
Act 5 - Scene 2
Before LEONTES’ palace.
Autolycus : Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?
First Gentleman : I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old
[p]shepherd
deliver the manner how he found it:
[p]whereupon, after a little
amazedness, we were all
[p]commanded out of the chamber; only this
methought I
[p]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
[p]changes I
perceived in the king and Camillo were
[p]very notes of admiration:
they seemed almost, with
[p]staring on one another, to tear the cases
of their
[p]eyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language
[p]in
their very gesture; they looked as they had heard
[p]of a world
ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable
[p]passion of wonder appeared in
them; but the wisest
[p]beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could
not
[p]say if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in
the
[p]extremity of the one, it must needs be.
[p][Enter another
Gentleman]
[p]Here comes a gentleman that haply knows more.
[p]The
news, Rogero?
Second Gentleman : Nothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled; the
[p]king's daughter
is found: such a deal of wonder is
[p]broken out within this hour that
ballad-makers
[p]cannot be able to express it.
[p][Enter a third
Gentleman]
[p]Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward: he can
[p]deliver
you more. How goes it now, sir? this news
[p]which is called true is
so like an old tale, that
[p]the verity of it is in strong suspicion:
has the king
[p]found his heir?
Third Gentleman : Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by
[p]circumstance: that which
you hear you'll swear you
[p]see, there is such unity in the proofs.
The mantle
[p]of Queen Hermione's, her jewel about the neck of
it,
[p]the letters of Antigonus found with it which they
[p]know to be
his character, the majesty of the
[p]creature in resemblance of the
mother, the affection
[p]of nobleness which nature shows above her
breeding,
[p]and many other evidences proclaim her with
all
[p]certainty to be the king's daughter. Did you see
[p]the meeting
of the two kings?
Second Gentleman : No.
Third Gentleman : Then have you lost a sight, which was to be seen,
[p]cannot be spoken
of. There might you have beheld one
[p]joy crown another, so and in
such manner that it
[p]seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for
their
[p]joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes,
[p]holding
up of hands, with countenances of such
[p]distraction that they were
to be known by garment,
[p]not by favour. Our king, being ready to
leap out of
[p]himself for joy of his found daughter, as if
that
[p]joy were now become a loss, cries 'O, thy mother,
[p]thy
mother!' then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then
[p]embraces his
son-in-law; then again worries he his
[p]daughter with clipping her;
now he thanks the old
[p]shepherd, which stands by like a
weather-bitten
[p]conduit of many kings' reigns. I never heard of
such
[p]another encounter, which lames report to follow it
[p]and
undoes description to do it.
Second Gentleman : What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried
[p]hence the child?
Third Gentleman : Like an old tale still, which will have matter to
[p]rehearse, though
credit be asleep and not an ear
[p]open. He was torn to pieces with a
bear: this
[p]avouches the shepherd's son; who has not only
his
[p]innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but
a
[p]handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.
First Gentleman : What became of his bark and his followers?
Third Gentleman : Wrecked the same instant of their master's death and
[p]in the view of
the shepherd: so that all the
[p]instruments which aided to expose the
child were
[p]even then lost when it was found. But O, the
noble
[p]combat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in
[p]Paulina!
She had one eye declined for the loss of
[p]her husband, another
elevated that the oracle was
[p]fulfilled: she lifted the princess
from the earth,
[p]and so locks her in embracing, as if she would
pin
[p]her to her heart that she might no more be in danger
[p]of
losing.
First Gentleman : The dignity of this act was worth the audience of
[p]kings and
princes; for by such was it acted.
Third Gentleman : One of the prettiest touches of all and that which
[p]angled for mine
eyes, caught the water though not
[p]the fish, was when, at the
relation of the queen's
[p]death, with the manner how she came to't
bravely
[p]confessed and lamented by the king, how
[p]attentiveness
wounded his daughter; till, from one
[p]sign of dolour to another, she
did, with an 'Alas,'
[p]I would fain say, bleed tears, for I am sure
my
[p]heart wept blood. Who was most marble there changed
[p]colour;
some swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world
[p]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,
[p]which is in the
keeping of Paulina,--a piece many
[p]years in doing and now newly
performed by that rare
[p]Italian master, Julio Romano, who, had he
himself
[p]eternity and could put breath into his work,
would
[p]beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her
[p]ape:
he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that
[p]they say one would
speak to her and stand in hope of
[p]answer: thither with all
greediness of affection
[p]are they gone, and there they intend to
sup.
Second Gentleman : I thought she had some great matter there in hand;
[p]for she hath
privately twice or thrice a day, ever
[p]since the death of Hermione,
visited that removed
[p]house. Shall we thither and with our company
piece
[p]the rejoicing?
First Gentleman : Who would be thence that has the benefit of access?
[p]every wink of
an eye some new grace will be born:
[p]our absence makes us unthrifty
to our knowledge.
[p]Let's along.
Autolycus : Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me,
[p]would preferment
drop on my head. I brought the old
[p]man and his son aboard the
prince: told him I heard
[p]them talk of a fardel and I know not what:
but he
[p]at that time, overfond of the shepherd's daughter,
[p]so he
then took her to be, who began to be much
[p]sea-sick, and himself
little better, extremity of
[p]weather continuing, this mystery
remained
[p]undiscovered. But 'tis all one to me; for had I
[p]been
the finder out of this secret, it would not
[p]have relished among my
other discredits.
[p][Enter Shepherd and Clown]
[p]Here come those I
have done good to against my will,
[p]and already appearing in the
blossoms of their fortune.
Old Shepherd : Come, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and
[p]daughters will
be all gentlemen born.
Clown : You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me
[p]this other day,
because I was no gentleman born.
[p]See you these clothes? say you see
them not and
[p]think me still no gentleman born: you were best
say
[p]these robes are not gentlemen born: give me the
[p]lie, do, and
try whether I am not now a gentleman born.
Autolycus : I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.
Clown : Ay, and have been so any time these four hours.
Old Shepherd : And so have I, boy.
Clown : So you have: but I was a gentleman born before my
[p]father; for the
king's son took me by the hand, and
[p]called me brother; and then the
two kings called my
[p]father brother; and then the prince my brother
and
[p]the princess my sister called my father father; and
[p]so we
wept, and there was the first gentleman-like
[p]tears that ever we
shed.
Old Shepherd : We may live, son, to shed many more.
Clown : Ay; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so
[p]preposterous estate as we
are.
Autolycus : I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the
[p]faults I have
committed to your worship and to give
[p]me your good report to the
prince my master.
Old Shepherd : Prithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are
[p]gentlemen.
Clown : Thou wilt amend thy life?
Autolycus : Ay, an it like your good worship.
Clown : Give me thy hand: I will swear to the prince thou
[p]art as honest a
true fellow as any is in Bohemia.
Old Shepherd : You may say it, but not swear it.
Clown : Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and
[p]franklins say it,
I'll swear it.
Old Shepherd : How if it be false, son?
Clown : If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear
[p]it in the
behalf of his friend: and I'll swear to
[p]the prince thou art a tall
fellow of thy hands and
[p]that thou wilt not be drunk; but I know
thou art no
[p]tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt
be
[p]drunk: but I'll swear it, and I would thou wouldst
[p]be a tall
fellow of thy hands.
Autolycus : I will prove so, sir, to my power.
Clown : Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow: if I do not
[p]wonder how thou
darest venture to be drunk, not
[p]being a tall fellow, trust me not.
Hark! the kings
[p]and the princes, our kindred, are going to see
the
[p]queen's picture. Come, follow us: we'll be thy
[p]good
masters.
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Next: Act 5 - Scene 3
