| ACT V SCENE I | A room in Leontes' palace. | |
| [Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and Servants] |
| CLEOMENES | Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd |
| A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make, |
| Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down |
| More penitence than done trespass: at the last, |
| Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil; | 5 |
| With them forgive yourself. |
| LEONTES | Whilst I remember |
| Her and her virtues, I cannot forget |
| My blemishes in them, and so still think of |
| The wrong I did myself; which was so much, | 10 |
| That heirless it hath made my kingdom and |
| Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man |
| Bred his hopes out of. |
| PAULINA | True, too true, my lord: |
| If, one by one, you wedded all the world, | 15 |
| Or from the all that are took something good, |
| To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd |
| Would be unparallel'd. |
| LEONTES | I think so. Kill'd! |
| She I kill'd! I did so: but thou strikest me | 20 |
| Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter |
| Upon thy tongue as in my thought: now, good now, |
| Say so but seldom. |
| CLEOMENES | Not at all, good lady: |
| You might have spoken a thousand things that would | 25 |
| Have done the time more benefit and graced |
| Your kindness better. |
| PAULINA | You are one of those |
| Would have him wed again. |
| DION | If you would not so, | 30 |
| You pity not the state, nor the remembrance |
| Of his most sovereign name; consider little |
| What dangers, by his highness' fail of issue, |
| May drop upon his kingdom and devour |
| Incertain lookers on. What were more holy | 35 |
| Than to rejoice the former queen is well? |
| What holier than, for royalty's repair, |
| For present comfort and for future good, |
| To bless the bed of majesty again |
| With a sweet fellow to't? | 40 |
| PAULINA | There is none worthy, |
| Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods |
| Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes; |
| For has not the divine Apollo said, |
| Is't not the tenor of his oracle, | 45 |
| That King Leontes shall not have an heir |
| Till his lost child be found? which that it shall, |
| Is all as monstrous to our human reason |
| As my Antigonus to break his grave |
| And come again to me; who, on my life, | 50 |
| Did perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel |
| My lord should to the heavens be contrary, |
| Oppose against their wills. |
[To LEONTES] |
| Care not for issue; |
| The crown will find an heir: great Alexander | 55 |
| Left his to the worthiest; so his successor |
| Was like to be the best. |
| LEONTES | Good Paulina, |
| Who hast the memory of Hermione, |
| I know, in honour, O, that ever I | 60 |
| Had squared me to thy counsel! then, even now, |
| I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes, |
| Have taken treasure from her lips-- |
| PAULINA | And left them |
| More rich for what they yielded. | 65 |
| LEONTES | Thou speak'st truth. |
| No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse, |
| And better used, would make her sainted spirit |
| Again possess her corpse, and on this stage, |
| Where we're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd, | 70 |
| And begin, 'Why to me?' |
| PAULINA | Had she such power, |
| She had just cause. |
| LEONTES | She had; and would incense me |
| To murder her I married. | 75 |
| PAULINA | I should so. |
| Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark |
| Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't |
| You chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your ears |
| Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd | 80 |
| Should be 'Remember mine.' |
| LEONTES | Stars, stars, |
| And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife; |
| I'll have no wife, Paulina. |
| PAULINA | Will you swear | 85 |
| Never to marry but by my free leave? |
| LEONTES | Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit! |
| PAULINA | Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath. |
| CLEOMENES | You tempt him over-much. |
| PAULINA | Unless another, | 90 |
| 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, | 95 |
| 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 | 100 |
| 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; | 105 |
| 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. | 110 |
| LEONTES | What with him? he comes not |
| Like to his father's greatness: his approach, |
| So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us |
| 'Tis not a visitation framed, but forced |
| By need and accident. What train? | 115 |
| 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. | 120 |
| 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 | 125 |
| 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: | 130 |
| 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 | 135 |
| 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. | 140 |
| LEONTES | Go, Cleomenes; |
| Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends, |
| Bring them to our embracement. Still, 'tis strange |
[Exeunt CLEOMENES and others] |
| He thus should steal upon us. |
| PAULINA | Had our prince, | 145 |
| 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, | 150 |
| When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches |
| Will bring me to consider that which may |
| Unfurnish me of reason. They are come. |
[Re-enter CLEOMENES and others, with FLORIZEL and PERDITA] |
| Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince; |
| For she did print your royal father off, | 155 |
| 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! | 160 |
| And your fair princess,--goddess!--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, | 165 |
| 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 | 170 |
| Give you all greetings that a king, at friend, |
| Can send his brother: and, but infirmity |
| Which waits upon worn times hath something seized |
| His wish'd ability, he had himself |
| The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his | 175 |
| Measured 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 | 180 |
| 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 the earth. And hath he too |
| Exposed this paragon to the fearful usage, | 185 |
| At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune, |
| To greet a man not worth her pains, much less |
| The adventure of her person? |
| FLORIZEL | Good my lord, |
| She came from Libya. | 190 |
| LEONTES | Where the warlike Smalus, |
| That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and loved? |
| 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, | 195 |
| To execute the charge my father gave me |
| For visiting your highness: my best train |
| I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd; |
| Who for Bohemia bend, to signify |
| Not only my success in Libya, sir, | 200 |
| But my arrival and my wife's in safety |
| Here where we are. |
| LEONTES | The blessed gods |
| Purge all infection from our air whilst you |
| Do climate here! You have a holy father, | 205 |
| 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 | 210 |
| 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 noble sir, |
| That which I shall report will bear no credit, | 215 |
| 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 | 220 |
| 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 | 225 |
| Whiles he was hastening, 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. | 230 |
| FLORIZEL | Camillo has betray'd me; |
| Whose honour and whose honesty till now |
| Endured all weathers. |
| Lord | Lay't so to his charge: |
| He's with the king your father. | 235 |
| 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: | 240 |
| 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. | 245 |
| 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, | 250 |
| 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, | 255 |
| 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: | 260 |
| Though Fortune, visible an enemy, |
| Should chase us with my father, power no jot |
| Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir, |
| Remember since you owed no more to time |
| Than I do now: with thought of such affections, | 265 |
| Step forth mine advocate; at your request |
| My father will grant precious things as trifles. |
| LEONTES | Would he do so, I'ld beg your precious mistress, |
| Which he counts but a trifle. |
| PAULINA | Sir, my liege, | 270 |
| 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. | 275 |
[To FLORIZEL] |
| But your petition |
| 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 | 280 |
| And mark what way I make: come, good my lord. |
| [Exeunt] |
The Winter's Tale: Plot Summary