| ACT II SCENE I | A room in Leontes' palace. | |
| [Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and Ladies] |
| HERMIONE | Take the boy to you: he so troubles me, |
| 'Tis past enduring. |
| First Lady | Come, my gracious lord, |
| Shall I be your playfellow? |
| MAMILLIUS | No, I'll none of you. | 5 |
| First Lady | Why, my sweet lord? |
| MAMILLIUS | You'll kiss me hard and speak to me as if |
| I were a baby still. I love you better. |
| Second Lady | And why so, my lord? |
| MAMILLIUS | Not for because | 10 |
| Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say, |
| Become some women best, so that there be not |
| Too much hair there, but in a semicircle |
| Or a half-moon made with a pen. |
| Second Lady | Who taught you this? | 15 |
| MAMILLIUS | I learnt it out of women's faces. Pray now |
| What colour are your eyebrows? |
| First Lady | Blue, my lord. |
| MAMILLIUS | Nay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's nose |
| That has been blue, but not her eyebrows. | 20 |
| First Lady | 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'ld wanton with us, |
| If we would have you. | 25 |
| Second Lady | She is spread of late |
| Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her! |
| HERMIONE | What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now |
| I am for you again: pray you, sit by us, |
| And tell 's a tale. | 30 |
| MAMILLIUS | Merry or sad shall't be? |
| HERMIONE | As merry as you will. |
| MAMILLIUS | A sad tale's best for winter: I have one |
| Of sprites and goblins. |
| HERMIONE | Let's have that, good sir. | 35 |
| Come on, sit down: come on, and do your best |
| 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; | 40 |
| Yond crickets shall not hear it. |
| HERMIONE | Come on, then, |
| And give't me in mine ear. |
| [Enter LEONTES, with ANTIGONUS, Lords and others] |
| LEONTES | Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him? |
| First Lord | Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never | 45 |
| Saw I men scour so on their way: I eyed them |
| Even to their ships. |
| LEONTES | How blest am I |
| In my just censure, in my true opinion! |
| Alack, for lesser knowledge! how accursed | 50 |
| In being so blest! There may be in the cup |
| A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart, |
| And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge |
| Is not infected: but if one present |
| The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known | 55 |
| 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; | 60 |
| All's true that is mistrusted: that false villain |
| Whom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him: |
| He has discover'd my design, and I |
| Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick |
| For them to play at will. How came the posterns | 65 |
| So easily open? |
| First Lord | By his great authority; |
| Which often hath no less prevail'd than so |
| On your command. |
| LEONTES | I know't too well. | 70 |
| 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. |
| HERMIONE | What is this? sport? |
| LEONTES | Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her; | 75 |
| Away with him! and let her sport herself |
| With that she's big with; for 'tis Polixenes |
| Has made thee swell thus. |
| HERMIONE | But I'ld say he had not, |
| And I'll be sworn you would believe my saying, | 80 |
| Howe'er you lean to the nayward. |
| LEONTES | You, my lords, |
| Look on her, mark her well; be but about |
| To say 'she is a goodly lady,' and |
| The justice of your bearts will thereto add | 85 |
| 'Tis pity she's not honest, honourable:' |
| 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-- | 90 |
| 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, | 95 |
| She's an adulteress. |
| HERMIONE | Should a villain say so, |
| The most replenish'd villain in the world, |
| He were as much more villain: you, my lord, |
| Do but mistake. | 100 |
| LEONTES | 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 | 105 |
| 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 | 110 |
| 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. | 115 |
| HERMIONE | 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 publish'd me! Gentle my lord, |
| You scarce can right me throughly then to say | 120 |
| You did mistake. |
| LEONTES | No; if I mistake |
| In those foundations which I build upon, |
| The centre is not big enough to bear |
| A school-boy's top. Away with her! to prison! | 125 |
| He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty |
| But that he speaks. |
| HERMIONE | There's some ill planet reigns: |
| I must be patient till the heavens look |
| With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords, | 130 |
| 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 honourable grief lodged here which burns |
| Worse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords, | 135 |
| With thoughts so qualified as your charities |
| Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so |
| The king's will be perform'd! |
| LEONTES | Shall I be heard? |
| HERMIONE | Who is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness, | 140 |
| 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 | 145 |
| Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord: |
| I never wish'd to see you sorry; now |
| I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave. |
| LEONTES | Go, do our bidding; hence! |
| [Exit HERMIONE, guarded; with Ladies] |
| First Lord | Beseech your highness, call the queen again. | 150 |
| ANTIGONUS | Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice |
| Prove violence; in the which three great ones suffer, |
| Yourself, your queen, your son. |
| First Lord | For her, my lord, |
| I dare my life lay down and will do't, sir, | 155 |
| Please you to accept it, that the queen is spotless |
| I' the eyes of heaven and to you; I mean, |
| In this which you accuse her. |
| ANTIGONUS | If it prove |
| She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where | 160 |
| I lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her; |
| Than 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. |
| LEONTES | Hold your peaces. | 165 |
| First Lord | Good my lord,-- |
| ANTIGONUS | It is for you we speak, not for ourselves: |
| You are abused and by some putter-on |
| That will be damn'd for't; would I knew the villain, |
| I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd, | 170 |
| I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven |
| The second and the third, nine, and some five; |
| If this prove true, they'll pay for't: |
| by mine honour, |
| I'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see, | 175 |
| To bring false generations: they are co-heirs; |
| And I had rather glib myself than they |
| Should not produce fair issue. |
| LEONTES | Cease; no more. |
| You smell this business with a sense as cold | 180 |
| 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. |
| ANTIGONUS | If it be so, |
| We need no grave to bury honesty: | 185 |
| There's not a grain of it the face to sweeten |
| Of the whole dungy earth. |
| LEONTES | What! lack I credit? |
| First Lord | I had rather you did lack than I, my lord, |
| Upon this ground; and more it would content me | 190 |
| To have her honour true than your suspicion, |
| Be blamed for't how you might. |
| LEONTES | Why, what need we |
| Commune with you of this, but rather follow |
| Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative | 195 |
| 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, | 200 |
| The loss, the gain, the ordering on't, is all |
| Properly ours. |
| ANTIGONUS | And I wish, my liege, |
| You had only in your silent judgment tried it, |
| Without more overture. | 205 |
| LEONTES | 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 touch'd conjecture, | 210 |
| That lack'd 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 | 215 |
| Most piteous to be wild, I have dispatch'd in post |
| To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple, |
| Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know |
| Of stuff'd sufficiency: now from the oracle |
| They will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had, | 220 |
| Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well? |
| First Lord | Well done, my lord. |
| LEONTES | 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 | 225 |
| 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; | 230 |
| We are to speak in public; for this business |
| Will raise us all. |
| ANTIGONUS | [Aside] |
| To laughter, as I take it, |
| If the good truth were known. | 235 |
| [Exeunt] |
The Winter's Tale: Plot Summary