| ACT I SCENE I | Antechamber in Leontes' palace. | |
| [Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS] |
| ARCHIDAMUS | 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. |
| CAMILLO | I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia | 5 |
| means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him. |
| ARCHIDAMUS | Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be |
| justified in our loves; for indeed-- |
| CAMILLO | Beseech you,-- |
| ARCHIDAMUS | Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: | 10 |
| we cannot with such magnificence--in so rare--I know |
| not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks, |
| that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience, |
| may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse |
| us. | 15 |
| CAMILLO | You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. |
| ARCHIDAMUS | Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me |
| and as mine honesty puts it to utterance. |
| CAMILLO | Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. |
| They were trained together in their childhoods; and | 20 |
| there rooted betwixt them then 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 | 25 |
| 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. The heavens continue their loves! | 30 |
| ARCHIDAMUS | I think there is not in the world either malice or |
| matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable |
| comfort of your young prince Mamillius: it is a |
| gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came |
| into my note. | 35 |
| CAMILLO | 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. | 40 |
| ARCHIDAMUS | Would they else be content to die? |
| CAMILLO | Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should |
| desire to live. |
| ARCHIDAMUS | If the king had no son, they would desire to live |
| on crutches till he had one. | 45 |
| [Exeunt] |
The Winter's Tale: Plot Summary