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issTHE WINTER’S TALE.

WITH

PANDOSTO; OR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME.ALTEMUS’ EDITION
TH

WINTER’S TALE

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
WITH PANDOSTO;
OR, THE TRIUMPH OF' TIME

PHILADELPHIA

HENRY ALTEMUSINTRODUCTION.

———_*o—"

RoBERT GREENE published in 1588 a novel called “ Pan-
dosto ; or, the Triumph of Time.” It has been said that it
was founded on a story of the treatment of his wife by
a Duke Masovius Zemoyitus, of which there is an account
by Tcharikovski, Archbishop of Gnesen, in the second
volume of Sommersberg’s “Rerum Silesiarum Scriptores.”
It has been suggested also that some Latin version of
that story may have been seen by Lope de Vega as well
as by Robert Greene, and that thus points of resemblance
between Greene’s “ Pandosto” and Lope de Vega’s “ El
Marmol de Felisardo” may have arisen. However that
may be, Shakespeare’s “ Winter’s Tale”? was founded only
upon Greene’s novel of “ Pandosto,” which (after Greene’s
death in 1592) was reprinted in 1607 and 1609, both years
being probably before that in which Shakespeare wrote
the play. The popularity of Greene’s story continued to
the end of the seventeenth century. It was again re-
printed in 1614, translated into French in 1615, again
reprinted in English in 1619, and in 1629, and in 1632,
and in 1636. Then it appeared as “ The Pleasant History
of Dorastus and Fawnia” in seven more editions before
the end of the century, and yet again at the beginning
of Queen Anne’s reign, in 1703, making the sixteenth

edition ; and it was again printed as a chap-book in 1735.
ned so long in demand,

No other novel of Greene’s remal

or has been so frequently reprinted. Next in popularity
was the next novel written by Greene in euphuistic style,
“ Ciceronis Amor : Tullies Love,” first published in 1589,6 INTRODUCTION.

which went through nine editions, the last being in 1639.
The demand for it then came to an end, and it was never
again printed for the public at large, because it had been
read rather for its euphuism than for any story in it.
“Pandosto” alone lived on by virtue of a story which
was good enough to have caught Shakespeare’s fancy,
and which acquired, of course, for some readers a new
interest from that fact.

“ Pandosto ” was first published nine years after Lyly’s
“Euphues,” and abounded in ingenious speeches and anti-
thetical conflicts of love passion, daintily worked ont in
the true euphuistic fashion. As Shakespeare made no
use of these, and they grow to the story like the barnacles
on a ship’s bottom that delay its course, I have removed
them (leaving note always of the places where they stuck),
and have thereby obtained space enough to give, without
other abridgment, the whole tale on which Shakespeare’s
play is founded, in the same book with the play itself, for
readiest comparison.

Shakespeare's play of the “Winter’s Tale” was first
printed in the folio of 1623. Dr. Simon Forman records in
his diary, of which the MS. is in the Ashmolean Museum
at Oxford, that he saw the “ Winter’s Tale” acted at the
Globe Theatre on Wednesday, the 15th of May, 1611.
“ Observe there how Leontes, King of Sicilia, was overcome
with jealousy of his wife with the King of Bohemia, his
friend that came to see him, and how he contrived his
death, and would have had his cup-bearer to have poisoned.
who gave the Kirig of Bohemia warning t]

1ereof, and fled
with him to Bohemia.

temember also how he sent to the
oracle of Apollo, and the answer of Apollo tl]
guiltless, and that the king was jealous, &e., and how,
except the child was found again that was lost, the king
should die without issue ; for the cl
Bohemia, and there laid in a forest, a
shepherd ; and the King of Bohe

lat she was

1ild was carried to
nd brought up by a
mia’s son married thatINTRODUCTION. ”

wench, and how they fled into Sicilia to Leontes ; and
the shepherd having showed the letter of the nobleman
whom Leontes sent, it was that child, and the jewels
found about her, she was known to be Leontes’ daughter,
and was then sixteen years old. Remember also the
rogue that came in all tattered, like Coll Pipci, and how
he feigned him sick, and to have been robbed of all he
had ; and how he cozened the poor man of all his money,
and after came to the sheep-shear with a pedlar’s pack,
and there cozened them again of all their money. And
how he changed apparel with the King of Bohemia’s son,
and then how he turned courtier, &c. Beware of trusting
feigned beggars or fawning fellows.” Remember, we
may add, how this was an impression taken from the
play as acted by Shakespeare’s company in Shakespeare’s
time, and how Autolycus hit the vein of the day that
delighted in small books upon the ingenuities of cozeners
and cony-catchers.

In the office-book of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the
Revels, under date the 19th of August, 1623, Edmond
Malone found this entry : “ For the King’s Players. An
old play called ‘ Winter’s Tale,’ formerly allowed of by
Sir George Buck, and likewise by me on Mr. Hemmings
his word that there was noshing profane added or re-
formed, though the allowed book was missing: and
therefore I returned it without a fee this 19th of August,
1623.” Sir George Buck, who is referred to as the first
licenser, was appointed to his office in October, 1610,
Although it has been argued by Chalmers that Sir George
Buck obtained in 1603 a grant of the reversion of the
office of Master of the Revels, and himself licensed many
plays before 1610, there is ground for a strong opinion,
though not for absolute belief, that the play was a new
play when Dr. Simon Forman saw it at the Globe in May,

1611.
If we look now to Shakespeare’s variations fromS INTRODUCTION.

Greene’s novel, we find that the great change made is in
the restoration to Leontes of his queen, together with his
daughter. In Greene’s novel both the queen and her son
die after the decision of the oracle has, to the satisfaction
of Pandosto, proved the queen’s innocence. To change a
real into a supposed death, required invention of means
of concealment, and this requirement was met by the
creation of the character of Paulina. In the exposure of
the new-born infant, Shakespeare avoided the sheer im-
possibility of the survival of an infant, drenched and
tossed alone in a boat on the sea without food or nursing,
until it has been cast ashore in a storm upon a distant
coast. It is the coast of Sicily in Greene. Shakespeare,
transposing the homes of the two royal friends, places
Leontes in Sicily, not in Bohemia. Bohemia had be-
longed to Austria since 1526, and it was easy to con-
found in romance its inland mountains with the mountain
districts of Illyria, which were also Austrian. Greene
could in the telling slip over an impossible survival of a
new-born infant after a few weeks of total starvation
and exposure to storm and salt water by night and day,
even after it had been finally rolled up as a waif upon a
stormy shore; but it would not bear the realisation that
is of the essence of a play. Shakespeare gives, therefore,
a husband to Paulina, Antigonus, who is of gentle heart,
though he obeys the evil bidding of the king, and the
infant is committed to the waves, surrounded by the
tenderest care until the hour of its exposure upon a coast
not found by chance, but chosen at the bidding of a
dream. ‘This done, the poet gets rid of the men who are
no longer wanted in the story, and who would be in its
way if they lived and returned to Sicily. He gives
emphasis at the same time to the peril of the child by
destroying the ship and its crew in a storm at sea, and
giving Antigonus to a wild beast on land, “so that all
\he instruments which aided to expose the child wereINTRODUCTION. 9

even then lost when it was found.” In the following
scenes dramatic life could not have been put into the
telling of the tale without addition of the shepherd’s son,
His wife, who is in Greene’s tale, could not have been
used for the purposes served by Shakespeare’s invention
of the clownish son and of the rogue Autolycus. Greene
uses the shepherd’s wife as means for bringing about the
solution of the plot, and has the shepherd carried off by
force upon the ship of the offended king. Shakespeare
removes several improbabilities, and gets rid of incidents
that mar the grace of the tale, including Pandosto’s
animal love for his unrecognised daughter. His changes
in the manner of bringing about the solution of the plot,
as far as concerns Florizel and Perdita, are mainly pro-
duced by his invention of Autolycus, the merry rogue—a
cashiered courtier—who sings his songs at the sheep-
shearing, fleeces the rustics, and half in hope to recover
favour with the prince, sends the witnesses who can untie
the knot of the tale on board the prince’s ship to Sicily.
It is enough then to suggest playfully that Florizel and
Perdita were too full of their own affairs to ask many
questions of other people, and that-they were sea-sick as
well as love-sick. The reader who follows attentively
Shakespeare’s use of Autolycus as a means of putting
dramatic life into the solution of the plot without spoiling
the pastoral grace and playfulness of that part of the
story, will see that but for his trick in sending the
bearers of the fardel to the Prince’s ship instead of to
the King. Perdito must have been identified before the
persons of the story were about Leontes in the close.
Garrick cut the play down into three acts of the
“ Winter’s Tale; or, Florizel and Perdita,” in 1756, with
many alterations and additions of hisown. In thatform
it was revived from time to time till the end of the
century. In 1802 Shakespeare’s play was revived at
Drury Lane by John Kemble, with only a partial use ofINTRODUCTION.

7

Garrick’s work upon it. In 1837 Macready opened his
management of Covent Garden with the “ Winter’s Tale,”
for he liked the part of Leontes, which he had played.
In November, 1845, the play was produced at Sadler’s
Wells by Samuel Phelps, for whose benefit it had been acted
at Drury Lane on the 30th of May, 1843, by probably the
best body of actors that ever joined together in its repre-
sentation. In April, 1856, the “ Winter’s Tale ” was pro-
duced in the course of Mr. Charles Kean’s management
of the Princess’s Theatre, with all that false emphasis of
archxological spectacle for which his management was
famous. In that play Miss Hllen Terry, then a child,
took the child’s part of Mamillius. The “ Winter’s Tale”
was acted at Drury Lane in 1878, again by the Meiningen
Company during its visit to London in 1881, and again at
the Lyceum in 1887.

Shakespeare’s treatment of the story suggested rightly
the last lines of a ballad-monger’s version of it, printed
in 1664: “By this we see that nothing can prevent the
powers divine.” In the midst of the play we hear the
voice of Apollo. The lapse of years in the story shows
what Greene’s second title described as “the Triumph of
Time,” by the divine guidance that turns all to good,
however man mayerr. The error that here breaks the
harmony of life, Shakespeare interprets not as crime, but
as an outbreak of insanity. The jealousy of Leontes is
painted throughout as an insane delusion. Itis a form
of delusion very common. When the mind becomes
touched with insanity, delusions run along the line of
any old deep feeling, are about religion or are about love,
and sexual. A good man so afflicted, and all the more if
his love to his wife has been strong and his marriage
happy, may suddenly, in such disorder of the brain, be
possessed with insane delusions of a sexual kind that
touch his wife, and spread to friends whom in his time
of health he has most trusted. It is hard for any man toINTRODUCTION. Al

have lived long in a wide circle of kinsmen, friends, and
acquaintance, and never to have seen Leontes. Beyond the
bounds of one insane dose his mind is healthy enough
for the daily work of life; though the disease, curable
only at an early stage, may spread till other powers of
thought are Boel In Leontes Shakespeare paints
so faithfully this form of madness that he, too, may
perhaps have seen it. Love for a child born in the years
of health, though pestered with crazy doubts, is not in-
volved in the sexual delusions that create insane aversion
to the wife. The mad certainty,. based on no reason,
impatient of contradiction, conjuring up insane suspl-
cions; the restless troubled mind, the sleeplessness that
makes all worse, are in Leontes; and Shakespeare shows
this outbreak 1F disease of mind to be acute and sudden.
When of old standing, it is not curable; if recent, cure
is possible: and a sudden shock to the ind, in which the
weight of the stroke falls straight on the growing delu-
sion, may destroy it for a time. It may depend then
upon after-treatment whether it will spring up again:
Shakespeare follows nature when he destroys the delusion
of Leontes by a great Soc to his mind. In Greene’s
story Pandosto at once believes the oracle that oleate his
wife. In the “ Winter’s Tale” the madness of Leontes
makes him sweep aside the answer of Apollo, as he swept
aside the warnings and the pleadings of his friends; but
then comes the confirming stroke of his boy’s death, the
boy to whom his heart was bound: and his wife’s death, as
it seems, immediately follows. Then the delusion breaks.
It might return ; most probaby it would, if Hermione were
now restored to him. But in the after-treatment of the
case Paulina is his good physician, keeping his mind
fixed on his wife’s worth, and checking every disposition
to stray from a full sense of it, through fifteen years of
watchfulness, while the queen waits fulfilment of the
implied promise of the oracle. The end is, for LeontesINTRODUCTION.

and Hermione, unclouded evening of a troubled day ; and
from the mad act of the exposure of the child, the
merciful gods have shaped for them a happy issue. In
our worst troubles, in the mad confusions of life, we may
possess our souls in patience, and be sure that God is
good to them that wait for Him. So Shakespeare inter-
prets for us “the Triumph of Time.”

It is from this point of view that Shakespeare gives to
Hermione a quiet tenderness and a great patience. When
the play opens, we have the old love shown in the first
scene of Leontes with his wife and friend, and the first
crack across it by the sudden outbreak of insanity, which
had not yet disclosed itself, although it may have been
at work within. Hermione speaks freely her love to
Leontes—

“ Good deed, Leontes,
I love thee not a jar o’ the clock behind
What lady should her lord.”

When she is persuading Polixenes to stay, her speech to
her husband’s friend has her own love for her husband
involved in it. When he and her husband were boys,

‘© Was not my lord the verier wag of the two?”

There is sense here of a Leontes cheerful in his day of
health, and to Hermione as yet no sign that health is
gone. Leontes was not conceived by Shakespeare as @
moody tyrant. When the madness comes, Shakespeare
takes pains to show that, outside the bounds of his delu-
sion, he is no tyrant. In our boyhood, says Polixenes of
himself and his friend—

We knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, no, nor dreamed
That any did.”

But the sick dream of Hermione’s ill-doing now fills the
mind of Leontes; the last words of breaking health are inINTRODUCTION. 13

the recalling of the hour in which she first opened her
white hand and clapped herself his love—

“‘Then didst thou utter,
‘IT am yours for ever.”

Hermione. It is grace, indeed !
Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice :
The one, for ever, earned a royal husband ;
The other, for some while, a friend.”

Doubt of the “for ever” was in the reminding of the
promise, for here the paroxysm of insanity begins;
but certainty of the “for ever” is assured by course
of time. Shakespeare not only represents a truth of life
in the mingling of love for the child with sudden out-
break of a mad aversion for the mother (“I have tremor
cordis on me; my heart dances”), but he has dramatic
purpose in strong indication, both in this and in another
scene, of the great affection of Leontes for the child, that
we may: know the force of the shock to him when tidings
of the boy’s death follow straight on his repudiation of
the oracle. The mother, too, in urging the prolonged
stay of Polixenes, admits that if love to his child draws
him away he is bound to go.

There is wild madness in the outbreak against Ca-
millo’s pleading to Leontes to “be cured of this diseased
opinion, and betimes ; for ’tis most dangerous.”—“ Say it
be; ‘tis true.”—“No, no, my lord.”—‘“It is; you hie,
you lie; I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee.”
All that follows is the reasoning of the insane. And it
is now first that Polixenes observes the changed counten-
ance of his friend. He had come to Sicily by cordial in-
vitation ; had been feasted royally ; the old cheerful tone
of his healthy life is in the opening dialogue of the play;
but the coming crack within the mind is lightly indicated
by brevity of speechin Leontes. But the first signs of dis-
ordered intellect are seen first by Hermione and Polixenes,
when they are seen first by the spectator of the play.INTRODUCTION.

There is exquisite suggestion of the gentle wife within
a day or two of second motherhood in the scene of Her-
mione and her women at the opening of the Second Act,
which closes with loving attention to the child’s tale in
herear. “Asad Tale’s best for Winter,” says the child, as,
with the entrance of Leontes, the sad tale begins, of which
its own death, by stricken love, will be a part. With
gentle affection Hermione meets the gross suggestions of
the husband whom she loves—
‘‘There’s some ill planet reigns §

I must be patient, till the heayens look

With an aspect more favourable.—Good my lords,

Tam not proneto weeping, as our sex

”»

Commonly are ;

and thenceforth all is patience to the end, with love ever
abiding. Love, patience, purity, and faith in the powers
above, shine through all words and acts of the afflicted
queen. She embodies a main part of the conception of
the play. In her answer to the charges made in open
court, she speaks calm truth, beginning, as in Greene’s
tale, with the trust in powers above, and ending with
appeal to Heaven—
‘‘T do refer me to the oracle $

”

Apollo be my judge.
Then follows the long patience of years, while Paulina
watches the mind of Leontes and retains it true to its old
love, until fulfilment of the oracle and fulness of the
time for which, in settled faith, Hermione is waiting.
The grace of her unswerving tenderness and patience, is
suggested when Leontes sees in Hermione her natural
posture, and adds—

‘©Or, rather thou art she
In thy not chiding, for she was as tender

As infancy and grace.’
2 £THE

DRAMA

LEONTES, King of Sieilia.

MAMILLIUS, Young Prince of
Sicilia.

CAMILLO,

UE Lords of Sicilia.
CLEOMENES, °
DION,

Roaero, a Gentleman of
Sicilia.

PoLIxeNnEs, King of Bohemia.

FLORIZEL, Prince of Bohenvia.

ARCHIDAMUS, a Lord of
Bohemia.

A Mariner.

A Gaoler.

An Old Shepherd,
Father of Perdita.

reputed

WINTER'S TALE.

 

TS PERSON 4.

Clown, his Son.
AUTOLYCUS, a Rogue.
Time, the Chorus.

HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes.
Perpitra, Daughter to Leontes
and Hermione.

PauLINA, Wife to Antigonus.
EMILIA, a Lady attending the
Queen.

Mops

Douciy \ Shepherdessas.

Lords, Ladies, and Genile-
men, Officers, and Servants,
Shepherds, and Shepherd-
esses, Guards, &c.

SCEN ESometimes in SICILIA, sometimes in BOHEMIA.

ACT

Scene L—Sicilia.

if

An Ante-chamber in the

Palace of LEONTES.

Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS.

Arch. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit

Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my services

v

are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said,[Act I.

  

16 THE WINTER'S TALE.

great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your
Sicilia.

Cam. I think this coming summer, the King of
Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which
he justly owes him.

Arch. Wherein our entertainment shall shame
us, we will be justified in our loves: for, indeed—

Cam. ’Beseech you—

Arch. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my
knowledge: 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.

Cam. You pay a great deal too dear for what’s
given freely.

Arch. Believe me, I speak as my understanding
instructs me, and.as mine honesty puts it to
utterance.

Cam. Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to
Bohemia. ‘They were trained together in their
childhoods ; and 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 royallyScene 1.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 17

attorneyed 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 !

Arch. I think there is not in the world either
malice or matter to alter it. You have an un-
speakable comfort of your young Prince Mamillius:
it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever
came into my note.

Cam. 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.

Arch. Would they else be content to die 1

Cam. Yes, if there were no other excuse why
they should desire to live.

Arch. If the king had no son, they would desire

to live on crutches till he had one. [ Laeunt.THE WINTER'S TALE.

ScenE II.—Sicilia. A Room of State in the

Palace.

Enter LrEontTES, PoLIxENES, Hermione, Mamit-
LIUS, CAMILLO, and Attendants.

Pol. Nine changes of the watery star have been
The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne
Without a burden: time as long again
Would be filled up, my brother, with our thanks,
And yet we should for perpetaity
Go hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher,
Yet standing in rich place, I multiply
With one ‘We thank you’ many thousands more
That go before it.

Leon. Stay your thanks awhile,

And pay them when you part.

Pol. Sir, that’s to-morrow
I am questioned by my fears of what may chance
Or breed upon our absence ; that may blow
No sneaping winds at home to make us say,

‘This is put forth too truly!’ Besides, I have
stayed
To tire your royalty.

Leon. We are tougher, brother,
Than you can put us to ’t.Scene 2.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 19

Pol. No longer stay.
Leon. One seven-night longer.
Pol. Very sooth, to-morrow.
Leon. We’ll part the time between’s then ; and
in that,
I ll no gainsaying.
Pol. Press me not, "beseech you, so.
There is no tongue that moves, none, none 1’ the
world
So soon as yours, could win me; so it should now
Were there necessity in your request, although
’T were needful I denied it. My affairs
Do even drag me homeward ; which to hinder
Were, in your love, a whip to me, my stay,
To you a charge and trouble : to save both,
Farewell, our brother. |
Leon. Tongue-tied, our queen? speak you.
Her. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace
until
You had drawn oaths from him not tostay. You,
sir,
Charge him too coldly : tell him, you are sure
Allin Bohemia’s well: this satisfaction
The by-gone day proclaimed. Say this to him,
Te’s beat from his best ward.

Leon. Well said, Hermione,THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act I.

  

Her. To tell he longs to see his son were strong:

But let him say so then, and let him go;
i But let him swear.so, and he shall not stay,

Well thwack him hence with distaffs.—

[Zo Pouixenes.] Yet of your royal presence I'll

adventtre

The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia

You take my lord, I’ll give him my commission

To let him there a month behind the gest

Prefixed for’s parting: yet, good deed, Leontes,

I love thee not a jar o’ the clock behind

What lady she her lord.—You'll stay ?

Pol. No, madam.
Her. Nay, but you will ?
Pol. I may not, verily.

Her. Verily !
You put me off with limber vows; but I,
Though you would seek to unsphere the stars with
oaths,

’

Should yet say, ‘Sir, no going.’ Verily,

You shall not go: a lady’s ‘verily’ is

As potent as a lord’s. ‘Will you go yet?

Force me to keep you as a prisoner,

Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees
When you depart, and save your thanks. How

say you tScene 2. | THE WINTERS TALE. 21

My prisoner, or my guest? by your dread ‘ verily,’
One of them you shall be.

Pol. Your guest then, madam :
To be your prisoner should import offending ;

This is for me less easy to commit
Than you to punish.

Her. Not your gaoler then,

But your kind hostess. Come, Ill question you

Of my lord’s tricks and yours, when you were
boys ;

You were pretty lordings then.

Pol. We were, fair queen,
Two lads, that thought there was no more behind
But such a day to-morrow as to-day,

And to be boy eternal.
Her. Was not my lord the verier wag o’ the
two 4
Pol. We were as twinned lambs that did frisk
i the sun,
And bleat the one at the other: what we changed,
Was innocence for innocence; we knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, ner dreamed
That any did. Had we pursued that life,
And our weak spirits ne’er been higher reared
With stronger blood, we should have answered

heavenTHE WINTER'S TALE

Boldly, ‘not guilty, ’ the imposition cleared,
Hereditary ours.
i Fler. By this we gather,
You have tripped since.
Pol. O, my most sacred lady,
Temptations have since then been born to ’s; for
In those unfledged days was my wife a girl :
Your precious self had then not crossed the eyes
Of my young playfellow.
Her. Grace to boot!
Of this make no conclusion, lest you say
Your queen and I are devils: yet, go on ;
The offences we have made you do, we’ll answer
If you first sinned with us, and that with us
You did continue fault, and that you slipped not

With any but with us.

Leon. Is he won yet?
Her. He’ll stay, my lord.
Leon. At my request he would not

I{ermione, my dearest, thou ne’er spok’st
To better purpose.
Her. Never ?
Leon. Never, but once.
Her. What, have I twice said well ? when was’t
before 4

I pr’ythee, tell me. Cram’s with praise, and make ’sScene 2,] THE WINTER'S TALE. 23

As fat as tame things: one good deed, dying
tongueless,
Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.
Our praises are our wages: you may ride’s
With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere
With spur we heat an acre. But to the goal :—
My last good deed was to entreat his stay ;
What was my first? it has an elder sister,
Or I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace!
But once before I spoke to the purpose : when 1
Nay, let me have ’t; I long.
Leon. Why, that was when
Three crabbéd months had soured themselves to
death
Ere I could make thee open thy white hand
And clap thyself my love: then didst thou utter,
‘T am yours for ever.’
Her. 'T is Grace, indeed.—
Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose
twice :
The one for ever earned a royal husband,
The other for some while a friend.
[Giving her hand to PouixEnes.
Leon. [Aside. | Too hot, too hot !
To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.

I have tremor cordis on me :—my heart dances,24 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act I

But not for joy, not joy.—This entertainment
May a free face put on ; derive a liberty
J if )
From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom
) J) ?
And well become the agent: ’t may, I grant ;
But to be paddling palms, and pinching fingers,

As now they are ; and making practised smiles

 

As ina looking-glass ;—and then to sigh, as ’t were
The mort o’ the deer; O, that is entertainment
My bosom likes not, nor my brows.—Mamillius,
Art thou my boy ?

Mam. Ay, my good lord,

Leon. I’ fecks ?
Why, that’s my bawcock. What, hast smutch’d
‘ thy nose !—

They say, it is a copy out of mine: Come, captain,
We must be neat ; not neat, but cleanly, captain :
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf,
Are all called neat.—Still virginalling
Upon his palm ?—How now, you wanton calf,
Art thou my calf?
Mam. Yes, if you will, my lord.
Leon. Thou want’st a rough pash, and the shoots
that I have,
To be full like me :—yet, they say, we are
Almost as like as eggs ; women say so,

That will say anything: but were they falseScene 2.]

 

THE WINTER'S TALE.

As o’er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false
As dice are to be wished by one that fixes

No bourn ’twixt his and mine ; yet were it true

 

To say this boy were like me.—Come, sir page,

Look on me with your welkin eye: sweet villain,

Most dear’st, my collop,—Can thy dam %—may ’t
be +—

Affection, thy intention stabs the centre:

Thou dost make possible things not so held,

Communicat’st with dreams ;—how can this be ?—

With what ’s unreal thou co-active art,

And fellow’st nothing. Then, ’t is very credent,

Thou may’st co-join with something; and thou
dost,—

And that beyond commission ; and [| find it;

And that to the infection of my brains,

And hardening of my brows.

Pol. What means Sicilia?

Her. He something seems unsettled.

Pol. How, my lord!
What cheer ? how is ’t with you, best brother ?
Her. You look

As if you held a brow of much distraction :
Are you moved, my lord?
Leon. No, in good earnest.—

How sometimes nature will betray its folly,26 THE WINTER’S TALE. [Act I,

Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines
Of my boy’s face, methoughts I did recoil
Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreeched,
In my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled,
Lest it should bite its master, and so prove,
As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.
How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,
This squash, this gentleman.—Mine honest friend,
Will you take eggs for money ?

Mam. No, my lord, I'll fight,

Leon. You will? why, happy man be’s dole !—

My brother,

Are you so fond of your young prince as we
Do seem to be of ours ?

Pol. If at home, sir,
He’s all my exercise, my mirth, my matter:
Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy ;
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.
He makes a July’s day short as December ;
And with his varying childness cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.

Leon. So stands this squire
Officed with me. We two will walk, my lord,
And leave you to your graver steps.— Hermione,

How thou lov’st us, show in our brother’s welcome ;Scene 2,] THE WINTER'S TALE.

Let what is dear in Sicily, be cheap.
Next to thyself and my young rover, he’s
Apparent to my heart.
fler. If you would seek us,
We are yours i’ the garden: shall’s attend you
there 4
Leon. To your own bents dispose you: you’ll be
found,
3e you beneath the sky.—[ Aside.]_ I am angling
now,
Though you perceive me not how I give line.
Go to, go to!
How she holds up the neb, the bill to him ;
And arms her with the boldness of a wife
To her allowing husband !
[Laeunt Potixenes, Hermione, and Attendants.
Gone already ;
Inch-thick, knee-deep, o’er head and ears a forked
one !|—
Go play, boy, play ;—thy mother plays, and I
Play too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue
Will hiss me to my grave: contempt and clamour
Will be my knell.—Go play, boy, play.—There
have been,
Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now ;

And many a man there is (even at this present,98 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act I.

Now, while I speak this) holds his wife by the arm,
That little thinks she has been sluiced in’s absence,
And his pond fished by his next neighbour, by
Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there ’s comfort
in ’t
Whiles other men have gates, and those gates
opened
As mine, against their will. Should all despair
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hang themselves. Physic for ’t there is
none:
It is a bawdy planet, that will strike
Where *tis predominant; and ’tis powerful,
think it,
From east, west, north, and south ; be it concluded,
No barricado for a belly ; know ’t ;
It will let in and out the enemy,
With bag and baggage. - Many a thousand on ’s
Have the disease, and feel ’t not.—How now, boy 4
Mam. I am like you, they say.
Leon. Why, that ’s some comfort —
What! Camillo there ?
Cam. Ay, my good lord.
Leon. Go play, Mamillius; thou’rt an honest
man.— [ Zait MAmMILLIUS,

Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.Scene 2.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 29

Cam. You had much ado to make his anchor
hold :
When you cast out, it still came home.
Leon. Didst note it 4
Cam. He would not stay at your petitions; made
His business more material,
Leon. Didst perceive it ?—
They ’re here with me already; whispering,
rounding,
‘Sicilia is a—so forth.’ ’T is far gone,
When I shall gust it last.—Hew came ’t, Camillo,
That he did stay ?
Cam. At the good queen’s entreaty.
Leon. At the queen’s, be ’t: good should be per
tinent ;
But so it is, it is not. Was this taken
By any understanding pate but thine?
For thy conceit is soaking ; will draw in
More than the common blocks: not noted, is ’t,
But of the finer natures? by some severals
Of head-piece extraordinary ¢ lower messes,
Perchance, are to this business purblind: say.
Cam. Business, my lord? I think, most under-
stand
Bohemia stays here longer.
Leon. Ha?THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act I.

Cam. Stays here longer.

i Leon. Ay, but why?
Cam. To satisfy your highness, and the entreaties
Of our most gracious mistress.

Lecn. Satisfy
The entreaties of your mistress !—satisfy 1—
Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,
With all the nearest things to my heart, as well
My chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou
Hast cleansed my bosom ; I from thee departed
Thy penitent reformed : but we have been
Deceived in thy integrity, deceived
In that which seems so.

Cam. Be it forbid, my lord !

Leon. To bide upon ’t,—thou art not honest ; or
If thou inclin’st that way, thou art a coward,
Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining
From course required ; or else thou must be counted
A servant grafted in my serious trust,
And therein negligent ; or else a fool
That seest a game played home, the rich stake drawn,
And tak’st it all for jest.

Cam. My gracious lord,
I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful ;
In every one of these no man is free,

But that his negligence, his folly, fear,Scene 2. ] THE WINTER’S TALE.

Amongst the infinite doings of the world,
Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,
If ever I were wilful-negligent,

It was my folly ; if industriously

i played the fool, it was my negligence,

Not weighing well the end ; if ever fearful

To do a thing where I the issue doubted,
Whereof the execution did cry out

Against the non-performance, ’t was a fear
Which oft infects the wisest. These, my lord,
Are such allowed infirmities that honesty

Is never free of. But, beseech your grace,
Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass
By its own visage ; if I then deny it,

’T is none of mine.

Leon. Ha’ not you seen, Camillo,—
But that’s past doubt: you have, or your eye-glass
Is thicker than a cuckold’s horn—or heard,—
For, to a vision so apparent, rumour
Cannot be mute—or thought,—for cogitation
Resides not in that man that does not think—
My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess—

Or else be impudently negative,

To have nor eyes, nor thought,—then say

My wife ’s a hobbyhorse, deserves a name

As rank as any flax-wench that puts toer

ET ns

32 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act I,

Before her troth-plight ; say ’t, and justify ’t.

Cam. I would not be a stander-by to hear
My sovereign mistress clouded so without
My present vengeance taken. “Shrew my heart,
You never spoke what did become you less
Than this ; which to reiterate were sin
As deep as that, though true.

Leon. Is whispering nothing 1
Is leaning cheek to cheek ? is meeting noses ?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career

Of laughter with a sigh ?—a note infallible

 

Of breaking honesty—horsing foot on foot?

Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?

Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes

Blind with the pin and web, but theirs, theirs
only,

That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing ?

Why, then the world and all that’s in ’t is nothing ;

The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing ;

My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these
nothings

If this be nothing.

Cam. Good my lord, be cured
Of this diseased opinion, and betimes ;

For “t is most dangerous.

Say, it be; ’t is true,Scene 2.] THE WINTER'S TALE.

Cam. No, no, my lord.
Leon. It is ; you lie, you lie:
I say, thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee ;
Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,
Or else a hovering temporiser, that
Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,
Inclining to them both ; were my wife’s liver
Infected as her life, she would not live
The running of one glass.
Cam. Tho does infect her %
Leon. Why, he that wears her like her medal,
hangirg
About his neck, Bohemia: who, if I
Had servants true about me, that bare eyes
To-see alike mine honour as their profits,
Their own particular thrifts, they would do that
Which should undo more doing: ay, and thou,
His cup-bearer, whom I from meaner form
Have benched, and reared to worship; who may’st
see,
Plainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven,
How I am galléd,—inight’st bespice a cup,
To give mine enemy a lasting wink ;
Which draught to me were cordial.
Cam. Sir, my lord |
I could do this, and that with no rash potion,34 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act I.

But with a lingering dram that should not work
Maliciously like poison: but I cannot
Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress
So sovereignly being honourable.—
I have loved thee,—

Leon. Make that thy question, and go rot !
Dost think, I am so muddy, so unsettled,
To appoint myself in this vexation, sully
The purity and whiteness of my sheets, —
Which to preserve is sleep ; which, being spotted,
Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps,—
Give scandal to the blood o’ the prince, my son,—
Who, I do think, is mine, and love as mine—
Without ripe moving to ’t? Would I do this}
Could man so blench ?

Cam. I must believe you, sir:
I do; and will fetch off Bohemia for ’t ;
Provided, that when he’s removed, your highness
Will take again your queen as yours at first,
Even for your son’s sake, and thereby for sealing
The injury of tongues, in courts and kingdoms
Known and allied to yours.

Leon. Thou dost advise me
Even so as I mine own course have set down.
I’ll give no blemish to her honour, none.

Cam. My lord,Scene 2.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 35

Go then ; and with a countenance as clear
As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia
And with your queen. I am his cup-bearer ;
If from me he have wholesome beverage,
Account me not your servant.
Leon. This is all:
Do’t, and thou hast the one half of my heart ;
Do’t not, thou splitt’st thine own.
Cam. I'll do ’t, my lord.
Leon. I will seem friendly, as thou hast advised

me. [ Lacie

 

Cam. O miserable lady !—But, for me,

What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner

Of good Polixenes ; and my ground to do ’t

Is the obedience to a master ; one

Who, in rebellion with himself, will have

All that are his so too.—To do this deed,

Promotion follows. If I could find example

Of thousands that had struck anointed kings

And flourished after, I’d not do ’t ; but since

Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not
one,

Let villainy itself forswear ’t. I must

Forsake the court: to do ’t, or no, is certain

To me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now!

Here comes Bohemia.WINTER’S TALE.

Enter PoLIxENEs.
Pol. This is strange. Methinks,
My favour here begins to warp. Not speak }—

Good day, Camillo.

Cam. Hail, most royal sir !
Pol. What is the news 7’ the court ?
Cam. None rare, my lord.

Pol. The king hath on him such a countenance
As he had lost some province, and a region
Loved as he loves himself: even now I met him
With customary compliment, when he,
Waftting his eyes to the contrary, and falling
A lip of much contempt, speeds from me, and
So leaves me to consider what is breeding
That changes thus his manners.

Cam. I dare not know, my lord.

Pol. How! dare nott—Do not? Do you know,

and dare not

Be intelligent tome? ‘Tis thereabouts ;
For to yourself what you do know, you must,
And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,
Your changed complexions are to me a mirror,
Which shows me mine changed too; for I must be
A party in this alteration, finding
Myself thus altered with ’t.Scene 2.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 37

Cam. There is a sickness
Which puts some of us in distemper ; but
I cannot name the disease, and it is caught
Of you, that yet are well.

Pol. How caught of me?
Make me not sighted like the basilisk :
I have looked on thousands, who have sped the

better

By my regard, but killed none so. Camillo,—
As you are certainly a gentleman ; thereto
Clerk-like experienced, which no less adorns

Our gentry than our parents’ noble names

 

In whose success we are gentle,—I beseech you,
If you know aught which does behove my know-
ledge
Thereof to be informed, imprison ’t not
In ignorant concealment.
Cam. I may not answer.
Pol. A sickness caught of me, and yet I well?
I must be answered.—Dost thou hear, Camillo,
I conjure thee, by all the parts of man
Which honour does acknowledge,—whereof the
least
Is not this suit of mine,—that thou declare
What incidency thou dost guess of harm
Is creeping towards me ; how far off, how near ;oO THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act L

Which way to be prevented, if to be:
If not, how best to bear it.
Cam. Sir, I will tell you ;
Since I am charged in honour, and by him
That I think honourable. Therefore, mark my
counsel,
Which must be even as swiftly followed as
I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me
Cry ‘lost,’ and so good night.
Pol: On, good Camillo.
Cam. I am appointed him to murder you.
Pol. By whom, Camillo ?

Came. By the king,

] ] I

Pol. For what!

eS oe

Cam. He thinks, nay, with all confidence he
swears,

As he had seen ’t or been an instrument

To vice you to’t,—that you have touched his
queen
Forbiddenly.
Pol, QO, then my best blood turn
To an infected jelly, and my name
Be yoked with his that did betray the Best!
Turn then my freshest reputation to
A savour that may strike the dullest nostril

Where [ arrive, and my approach be shunned,Scene 2.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 39

Nay, hated too, worse than the great’st infection
That e’er was heard, or read !
Cam. Swear his thought over
By each particular star in heaven and
By all their influences, you may as well
Forbid the sea for to obey the moon,
As, or by oath, remove, or counsel, shake,
The fabric of his folly, whose foundation
Is piled upon his faith, and will continue
The standing of his body.
Pol. How should this grow?
Cam. I know not; but, I am sure, ’tis safer to
Avoid what’s grown than question how ’t is born.
If therefore you dare trust my honesty,
That lies encloséd in this trunk which you
Shall bear along impawned, away to-night !
Your followers I will whisper to the business ;
And will, by twos and threes, at several posterns,
Clear them o’ the city. For myself, Il) put
My fortunes to your service, which are here
By this discovery lost, Be not uncertain ;
For, by the honour of my parents, I
Have uttered truth, which if you seek to prove,
I dare not stand by ; nor shall you be safer
Than one condemned by the king’s own mouth,

thereon40 THE WINTER’ TALE. {Act L

His execution sworn.
Pol. I do believe thee:
I saw his heart in’s face. Give me thy hand:
Be pilot to me, and thy places shall
Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready, and
My people did expect my hence departure
Two days ago.—This jealousy
Is for a precious creature: as she’s rare,
Must it be great ; and, as his person’s mighty,
Must it be violent ; and, as he does conceive
He is dishonoured by a man which ever
Professed to him, why, his revenge must
In that be made more bitter. Fear o’ershades me:
Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing
Of his ill-ta’en suspicion ! Come, Camillo:
I will respect thee as a father, if
Thou bear’st my life off hence. Let us avoid.
Cam. It is in mine authority to command
The keys of all the posterns. Please your highness
To take the urgent hour Come, sir: away !

| Haewne.Scene 1.] THE WINTER'S TALE.

AG TE
Scene I.—Sicilia. Within the Palace of Leontes.
Enter Hermione, Mamiuuius, and Ladies.

Her, Take the boy to you: he so troubles me,
‘Tis past enduring,

1 Lady. Come, my gracious lord:
Shall I be your playfellow ?

Mam. No, I’ll none of you.

1 Lady. Why, my sweet lord?

Mam. You'll kiss me hard, and speak to me

as if
I were a baby still.—I love you better. ~

2 Lady. And why so, my lord?

Mam. * Not for because
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.

2 Lady. Who taught you this?

Mam. I learned it out of women’s faces.—Pray

now,
What colour are your eyebrows ?

1 Lady. Blue, my lord.42 THE WINTER’S TALE. [Act IL

Mam. Nay, that’s a mock: I have seen a lady’s
' nose
That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.

2 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’d wanton with us,
If we would have you.

1 Lady. She is spread of late
Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her !

Her. What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come,

sir; now
I am for you again: pray you, sit by us
And tell’s a tale.

Mam. Merry, or sad, shall’t be?
Her. As merry as you will.
Mam. A sad tale’s best for winter.

I have one of sprites and goblins.
Her. Let ’s have that, good sir.
Come on, sit down: come on, and do your best
To fright me with your sprites: you’re powerful
at it.
Mam. There was a man,—
Ter. Nay, come, sit down ; then on.
Mam. Dwelt by a churchyard.—I will tell it
softly ;Scone 1.] THE WINTER’S TALE. — 43

Yond crickets shall not hear it.
Her. Come on then,
And give ’t me in mine ear.

Enter Leontres, AntTiaconus, Lords, and others.

Leon. Was he met there? his train? Camillo
with him ?
1 Lord. Behind the tuft of pines I met them:
never
Saw I men scour so on their way. I eyed them
Even to their ships.
Leon. How blest am I
In my just censure, in my true opinion !—
Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accursed
In being so blest !—There may be in the cup
A spider steeped, and one may drink, depart,
And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge
Is not infected ; but if one present
The abhorred ingredient to his eye make known
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, lis pander !—
There is a plot against my life, my crown :
All’s true that is mistrusted :—that false villain,
Whom I employed, was pre-employed by him.44, THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act Il.

He has discovered my design, and I
Remain a pinched thing ; yea, a very trick
For them to play at will—How came the posterns
So easily open 1
1 Lord. By his great authority ;
Which often hath no less prevailed than so,
On your command.
Leon. I know ’t too well.—
Give me the boy. [Zo Hermionz.] I am glad
you did not nurse him :
Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you
Have too much blood in him.
fer. What is this? sport?
Leon. Bear the boy hence; he shall not come
about her.
Away with him, and let her sport herself
With that she’s big with, for tis Polixenes
Has made thee swell thus.

Her. But I’d say he had not,
And, I’ll be sworn, you would believe my saying,
Howe’er you lean to the nayward.

Leon. You, my lords,
Look on her, mark her well: be but about
To say, ‘she is a goodly lady,’ and
The justice of your hearts will thereto add,

“’'T is pity she’s not honest, honourable :’

>Scene 1.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 45

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,
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,

She’s an adult’ress.

Her. Should a villain say so,
The most replenished villain in the world,
He were as much more villain : you, my lord,
Do but mistake.

Leon. 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,
And mannerly distinguishment leave out
Betwixt the prince and beggar !—I have said
She’s an adult’ress ; I have said with whom:
More, she’s a traitor ; and Camillo is
A federary with her, and one that knows46 THE WINTERS TALE. [Act IL

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.

Her. 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 published me? Gentle my lord,
You scarce can right me throughly then, to say
You did mistake.

Leon. No: if I mistake
Tn those foundations which I build upon,
The centre is not big enough to bear
A school-boy’s top.—Away with her to prison |
He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty,
But that he speaks.

Her. There ’s some ill planet reigns:
I must be patient, till the heavens look
With an aspect more favourable.—Good my lords,
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,Scene 1.] THE YINTERS TALE. 47

With thoughts so q”alified as your charities
Shall best instru«*, you, measure me: and so
The king’s will. Se performed.
Leon. Shall I be heard ?
Her. Who is’t, that goes with me?—Beseech
ycar highness
My women may be with me; for, you see,
My rlizht 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,
Is for my better grace.—Adieu, my lord:
i never wished to see you sorry ; now,
I trust I shall My women, come ; you have leave.
Leon. Go, do our bidding: hence!
| Hxeunt QUEEN and Ladves.
1 Lord. ’Beseech your highness, call the queen
again.
Ant. Be certain what you do, sir, lest your
justice
Prove violence, in the which three great ones
suffer,
Yourself, your queen, your son.
1 Lord. For her, my lord,

I dare my life lay down, and will do 't, sir,THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act I.

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.
Ant, If it prove
She ’s otherwise, I’ll keep my stables where
I lodge my wife ; I ll go in couples with her ;
Than when I feel and see her, no further trust her ;
For every inch of woman in the world,
Ay, every dram of woman’s flesh, is false,
If she be.
Leon. Hold your peaces !
1 Lord. Good my lord,—
Ant. It is for you we speak, not for ourselves.
You are abused, and by some putter-on,
That will be damned for’t; would I knew the
villain,
I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flawed,—
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,
Ill geld them all; fourteen they shall not see,
To bring false generations ; they are co-heirs ;
And I had rather glib myself, than they
Should not produce fair issue.

Leon. Cease ! no more.Scene 1.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 49

You smell this business with a sense as cold
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.
Ant. If it be so,
We need no grave to bury honesty :
There’s not a grain of it the face to sweeten
Of the whole dungy earth.
Leon. What? lack I credit?
1 Lord. I had rather you did lack, than I, my
lord,
Upon this ground ; and more it would content me
To have her honour true, than your suspicion ;
Be blamed for ’t how you might.
Leon. Why, what need we
Commune with you of this, but rather follow
Our forcible instigation? Our prerogative
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,
The loss, the gain, the ordering on ’t, is all
) 5 7 °o ’

Properly ours.

Ant. And I wish, my liege,
You had only in your silent judgment tried it,50 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act L

Without more overture.

Leon. 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 touched conjecture,
They lacked sight only, nought for approbation,

o, all other circumstances

But only seeing,

Made up to the deed—doth push on this proceeding :
Yet, for a greater confirmation,—
For in an act of this importance ’t were
Most piteous to be wild—I have despatched in post,
To sacred Delphos, to Apollo’s temple,
Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know
Of stuffed sufficiency. Now, from the oracle
They will bring all ; whose spiritual counsel had,
Shall stop, or spur me. Have I done well ?

1 Lord. Well done, my lord.

Leon. 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
Whose ignorant credulity will not
Come up tothe 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:Scene 2.] THE WINTER'S TALE. ol

We are to speak in public ; for this business
Will raise us all.
Ant. [Aside.| To laughter, as I take it,

If the good truth were known. [ Laewnt,

Scenz II.—The Same. The outer Room of a
Prison.
Enter Pavttna and Attendants.
Paul. The keeper of the prison,—eall to him ;
Let him have knowledge who [ am.-—Good lady !
[Lait an Attendant.
No court in Europe is too good for thee !
What dost thou then in prison }—

Re-enter Attendant, with the Gaoler.
Now, good sir,

You know me, do you not}

Gaoler. For a worthy lady,
And one whom much I honour.

Paul. Pray you then,
Conduct me to the queen.

Gaoler. I may not, madam: to the contrary
I have express commandment.

Paul. Here’s ado,

To lock up honesty and honour from52 THE WINTERS TALE. [Act IL

The access of gentle visitors !—-Is ’t lawful,
Pray you, to see her women? any of them ?
Emilia ?

Gaoler. So please you, madam,
To put apart these your attendants, I

Shall bring Emilia forth.

Paul. I pray now, call her.—
Withdraw yourselves. [ Lxeunt Attendants.
Gaoler. And, madam,

IT must be present at your conference.
Paul. Well, le’t so, pr’ythee. [ Lait Gaoler.
Here’s such ado to make no stain a stain

As passes colouring.

fte-enter Gaoler, with EmIta.
Dear gentlewoman,
How fares our gracious lady ?

Emi. As well as one so great and so forlorn,
May hold together. On her frights and griefs—
Which never tender lady hath borne greater—
She is, something before her time, delivered.

Paul. A boy?

Emil. A daughter ; and a goodly babe,
Lusty, and like to live: the queen receives
Much comfort in ’t, says, ‘ My poor prisoner,

I am innocent as you.’Scene 2.] THE WINTER’S TALE. da

Paul, I dare be sworn :—
These dangerous, unsafe lunes 7? the king, beshrew
them !

He must be told on’t, and he shall: the office
Becomes a woman best; [ll take ’t upon me.
If I prove honey-mouthed let my tongue blister,
And never to my red-looked anger be
The trumpet any more.—Pray you, Emilia,
Commend my best obedience to the queen ;
If she dares trust me with her little babe,
Ill show ’t the king, and undertake to be
Her advocate to the loud’st.. We do not know
How he may soften at the sight o’ the child ;
The silence often of pure innocence
Persuades, when speaking fails,

Emil. Most worthy madam,
Your honour, and your goodness is so evident,

hat your free undertaking cannot miss
A thriving issue: there is no lady living
So meet for this great errand. Please your lady-

ship

To visit the next room, Ill presently
Acquaint the queen of your most noble offer,
Who, but to-day, hammered of this design,
But durst not tempt a minister of honour,
Lest she should be denied.04 THE WINTER'S TALE.

Paul. Tell her, Emilia,
Ill use that tongue I have: if wit flow from ’t,
As boldness from my bosom, let ’t not be doubted
I shall do good.
Emu. Now, be you blest for it!
I’ll to the queen.—Please you, come something
nearer.
Gaoler. Madam, if’t please the queen to send the
babe,
I know not what I shall incur to pass it,
Having no warrant.
Paul. You need not fear it, sir:
The child was prisoner to the womb, and is,
By law and process of great nature, thence
Freed and enfranchised ; not a party to
The anger of the king, nor guilty of,
If any be, the trespass of the queen.
Gaoler. I do believe it.
Paul. Do not you fear : upon mine honour, I

Will stand betwixt you and danger. [ ZaewntTHE WINTER'S TALE.

ScenE IIJ.—The Same. A Room in the Palace.

Enter LrontEes, ANTIGONUS, Lords, and other
Attendants.

Leon. Nor night nor day, no rest. It is but
weakness
To bear the matter thus, mere weakness. If
The cause were not in being,—part o’ the cause,
She, the adult’ress ; for the harlot king
Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank
And level of my brain, plot-proof ; but she,
I can hook to me :—say, that she were gone,
Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest
Might come to me again.— Who’s there ?

1 Atten. My lord.
Leon. How does the boy ?
1 Atten. He took good rest to-night ;

'T is hoped, his sickness is discharged.

Leon. To see his nobleness *
Conceiving the dishononr of his mother,
He straight declined, drooped, took it deeply,
Fastened and fixed the shame on’t in himself,
Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,
And downright languished—Leave me solely :-—

£9,}
i
t
f

 

 

     
  
   
   
   
  
  
   
 
   
   
  
   
   

THE WINTER’S TALE. [Act I.

See how he fares. [Hatt Attendant. ]—Fie, fie! no
thought of him:

The very thought of my revenges that way

Recoil upon.me: in himself too mighty,

And in his parties, his alliance ;—let him be,

Until a time may serve. For present vengeance,

Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes

Laugh at me ; make their pastime at my sorrow:

They should not laugh, if I could reach them ; nor

Shall she, within my power.

Enter Pauuina, with a Child.
1 Lord. You must not enter.
Paul. Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to
me.
Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,
Than the queen’s life? a gracious innocent soul,
More free than he is jealous.
Ant. That ’s enough.
1 Atten. Madam, he hath not slept to-night.
commanded
None should come at him.
Paul. Not so hot, good sir ;
I come to bring him sleep. ’T is such as you,
That creep like shadows by him, and do sigh

At each his needless heavings, such as youScene 3.] THE WINTER'S TALE. o7

Nourish the cause of his awaking. I
Do come with words as med’cinal as true,
Honest as either, to purge him of that humour
That presses him from sleep.
Leon. What noise there, ho ?
Paul. No noise, my lord; but needful con-
ference,
About some gossips for your highness.
Leon. How ?—
Away with that audacious lady. Antigonus,
I charged thee that she should not come about
me:
I knew she would.
Ant. I told her so, my lord,
On your displeasure’s peril and on mine,
She should not visit you.
ean, = What, canst not rule her 4
Paul. From all dishonesty he can : in this,—
Unless he take the course that you have done,
Commit me for committing honour—trust it,
He shall not rule me.
Ant. Lo you now, you hear
When she will take the rein, [ let her run ;
But shell not stumble.
Paul. Good my liege, I come, —

And, I beseech you, hear me, who profess58 THE WINTER'S TALE [Act IL

Myself your loyal servant, your physician,
Your most obedient counsellor, yet that dares
Less appear so in comforting your evils,
Than such as most seem yours,—I say, I come
From your good queen.
Leon. Good queen!
Paul. Good queen, my lord, good queen: I say,
good queen ;
And would by combat make her good, so were I
A man, the worst about you.
Leon. Force her hence.
Paul. Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes
First hand me. On mine own accord I[’l off,
3ut first 1711 do my errand.—The good queen,
For she is good, hath brought you forth a
daughter :
Here ’t is ; commends it to your blessing.
[Laying down the Child.
Leon. Out!
A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o’ door:
A most intelligencing bawd!
Paul. Not so:
I am as ignorant in that, as you
In so entitling me, and no less honest
Than you are mad: which is enough, I'll warrant,

As this world goes, to pass for honest.Scene 3.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 59

Leon. Traitors !

}
I

Will you not push her out? Give her the bas-
tard. —
[Zo Anticonus.|] Thou, dotard, thou art woman-

tired, unroosted

 

By thy dame Partlet here.—Take up the bastard:
J i

Take’t up, I say ; give ’t to thy crone.

Paul. For ever
Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou
Tak’st up the princess by that forcéd baseness
Which he has put upon’t!

Leon. He dreads his wife.

Paul. So I would you did: then’t were past all

doubt
You ’d call your children yours,

Leon. A nest of traitors |

Ant. I am none, by this good light.

Paul. Nor I; nor any,
But one that’s here, and that’s himself; for he
The sacred honour of himself, his queen’s,

His hopeful son’s, his babe’s, betrays to slander,

Whose sting is sharper than the sword’s, and will
not—

For, as the case now stands, it is a curse

He cannot be compelled to’t— once reniove

The root of his opinion, which is rottenTHE WINTERS TALE.

  
   
 
 
 
 
    
  
 
 
 
 
    
  
    
 
   

60

 

As ever oak, or stone, was sound.
Leon. A callat
FT Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her hus-
band
And now baits me !—This brat is none of mine:
It is the issue of Polixenes.
Hence with it ; and, together with the dam,
Commit them to the fire.
Paul. It is yours ;
And, might we lay the old proverb to your charge,
So like you, ’tis the worse.—Behold, my lords,
Although the print be little, the whole matter
And copy of the father : eye, nose, lip,
The trick of’s frown, his forehead ; nay, the valley,
The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his
smiles ;
The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger.—
And thou good goddess Nature, which hast
made it
So like to him that got it, if thou hast
The ordering of the mind too, ’mongst all colours
No yellow in’t; lest she suspect, as he does,
Her children not her husband’s.
Leon. A gross hag !—
And, lozel, thou art worthy to be hanged

That wilt not stay her tongue.Scene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 61

Ant. Hang all the husbands
That cannot do that feat, you’ll leave yourself
Hardly one subject.

Leon. Once more, take her hence.

Paul. A most unworthy and unnatural lord
Can do no more.

Leon. I'll have thee burned.

Paul. I care not:
It is an heretic that makes the fire,

Not she which burns in’t I7ll not call you
tyrant ;

But this most cruel usage of your queen—

Not able to produce more accusation

Than your own weak-hinged fancy—something
savours

Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you,

Yea, scandalous to the world.

Leon. On your allegiance,
Out of the chamber with her! Were.I a tyrant,
Where were her life? she durst not call me so,

If she did know me one. Away with her!

Paul. I pray you, do not push me; I'll be gone.

Look to your babe, my lord; ’tis yours: Jove send
her

A better guiding spirit !—What needs these

hands !—THE WINTER'S TALE. {Act IL.

You that are thus so tender o’er his follies

| Will never do him good, not one of you.

So, so :—farewell; we are gone. [ Hactt.
Leon. Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to
;
this.—

My child? away with ’t !—even thou, that hast
F | A heart so tender o’er it, take it hence,
| And see it instantly consumed with fire:
Even thou, and none but thou. Take it up
straight.
Within this hour bring me word ’t is done—
And by good testimony—or I'll seize thy life,
Vith what thou else call’st thine. If thou refuse,
And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so ;
The bastard brains with these my proper hands
Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire,
For thou sett’st on thy wife.
Ant. T did not, sir:
These lords, my noble fellows, if they please,
Can clear me in’t.
1 Lord. We can: my royal liege,
He is not guilty of her coming hither.
Leon. You are liars all.
1 Lord. ’Beseech your highness, give us better
credit.

We have always truly served you, and beseechScene 3.] THE WINTER'S TALE.

So to esteem of us; and on our knees we beg,
As recompense of our dear services,
Past, and to come, that you do change this pur-
pose ;
Which, being so horrible, so bloody, must
Lead on to some foul issue. We all kneel.
Leon. I am a feather for each wind that blows.
Shall I live on, to see this bastard kneel
And call me father? Better burn it now,
Than curse it then. But, be it; let it live :—
It shall not neither.—[7’o Anxticonvus.] You, sir,
come you hither;
You, that have been so tenderly officious
With Lady Margery, your midwife, there,
To save this bastard’s life—for ’t is a bastard,
So sure as this beard’s grey—what will you ad-
venture
To save this brat’s life ?
Ant. Anything, my lord,
That my ability may undergo,
And nobleness impose : at least, thus much ;
Ill pawn the little blood which I have left,
To save the innocent; anything possible.
Leon. Jt shall be possible. Swear by this sword,
Thou wilt perform my bidding.
Ant. I will, my lord.64 THE WINTER'S TALE. (Act II.

| Leon. Mark and perform it, seest thou, for the

fail

| Of any point in ’t shall not only be

Death to thyself, but to thy lewd-tongued wife,

Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,

a As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry

| This female bastard hence ; and that thou bear it

To some remote and desert place, quite out

Of our dominions; and that there thou leave it,

Without more mercy, to its own protection,

And favour of the climate. As by strange fortune

It came to us, I do in justice charge thee,

On thy soul’s peril and thy body’s torture,

That thou commend it strangely to some place,

Where chance may nurse, or end it, Take it up.
Ant. I swear to do this, though a present death

Had been more merciful.—Come on, poor babe :

Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens,

To be thy nurses! Wolves, and bears, they say,

Casting their savageness aside, have done

Like offices of pity.—Sir, be prosperous

In more than this deed doth require !—And

blessing
Against this cruelty fight on thy side,
Poor thing, condemned to loss !

[Lait with the Child.THE WINTER'S TALE.

 

Scene 3.]

Leon. No, Ill not rear
Another’s issue.

1 Atten. Please your highness, posts
From those you sent to the oracle are come
An hour since: Cleomenes and Dion,

Being well arrived from Delphos, are both landed,
Hasting to the court.

1 Lord. So please you, sir, their speed
Hath been beyond account.

Leon, Twenty-three days
They have been absent : ’t is good speed, foretells,
The great Apollo suddenly will have
The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords:
Summon a session, that we may arraign
Our most disloyal lady ; for, as she hath
Been publicly accused, so shall she have
A just and open trial. While she lives
My heart will be a burden to me, Leave me,
And think upon my bidding. [ Zaewnt.ARS ETE

+ eee

 

  

THE WINTERS TALE. [Act III.

ACT SLE
Scengz I.—Sicily. A Street in some Town.
Enter CLEOMENES and DION.

Cleo. The climate’s delicate, the air most sweet,
Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing
The common praise it bears.

Dion. I shall report,

For most it caught me, the celestial habits—

Methinks, I so should term them—and the
reverence

Of the grave wearers. OQ, the sacrifice,

How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly

It was i’ the offering!

Cleo. But, of all, the burst
And the ear-deafening voice o’ the oracle,

Kin to Jove’s thunder, so surprised my sense,
That I was nothing.

Dion. If the event o’ the journey
Prove as successful to the queen—O, be ’t so !—
As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy,

The time is worth the use on ’t.

Cleo. ‘ Great Apollo,

Turn all to the best! These proclamations,Scene 2. | THE WINTER’S TALE. : 67

So forcing faults upon Hermione,
I little like.
Dion. The violent carriage of it
Will clear or end the business, when the oracle—
Thus by Apollo’s great divine sealed up—
Shall the contents discover, something rare
Even then will rush to knowledge.—Go, fresh
horses ;—

And gracious be the issue! [ Haewnt.

Scene II.—The Same. A Court of Justice.
Enter Luontss, Lords, and Officers.
Leon. This sessions—to our great grief we pro:
nounce—
Even pushes ’gainst our heart: the party tried,
The daughter of a king, our wife, and one
Of us too much beloved.—Let us be cleared
Of being tyrannous, since we so openly
Proceed in justice, which shall have due course,
Even to the guilt or the purgation.
Produce the prisoner.
Of: It is his highness’ pleasure that the queen
Appear in person here in court.—Silence !WINTER'S TALE. (Act III.

Enter HERMIONE, guarded ; PAULINA and

Ladves attending.

Leon. Read the indictment.

Of. ‘Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes,
King of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned
of high treason, in committing adultery with
Polixenes, King of Bohemia, and conspiring with
Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign lord
the king, thy royal husband: the pretence whereof
being by circumstances partly laid open, thou,
Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of
a true subject, didst counsel and aid them, for
their better safety, to fly away by night.’

Her. Since what I am to say must be but that
Which contradicts my accusation, and
The testimony on my part no other
But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me

To say, ‘ Not guilty ;’ mine integrity,
Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,

Be so received. But thus :—if powers divine

 

Behold our human actions—as they do—

I doubt not then but innocence shall make
False accusation blush and tyranny

Tremble at patience.—You, my lord, best know

—Who least will seem to do so—-my past lifeScene 2.] THE WINTER’S TALE.

Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,
As I am now unhappy ; which is more
Than history can pattern, though devised
And played to take spectators ; for behold me,
A fellow of the royal bed, which owe
A moiety of the throne, a great king’s daughter,
The mother to a hopeful prince, here standing
To prate and talk for life and honour ’fore
Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it
As I weigh grief which I would spare : for honour,
’'T is a derivative from me to mine ;
And only that I stand for. I appeal
To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes
Came to your court, how I was in your grace,
How merited to be so; since he came,
With what encounter so uncurrent I
Have strained, to appear thus: if one jot beyond
The bound of honour, or in act or will
That way inclining, hardened be the hearts
Of all that hear me, and my near’st of kin
Cry ‘ Fie!’ upon my grave!

Leon. I ne’er heard yet
That any of these bolder vices wanted
Less impudence to gainsay what they did
Than to perform it first.

Her. That’s true enough ,jTHE WINTER'S TALE.

 

70 [Act II

Though ’t is a saying, sir, not due to me.

Leon. You will not own it.

F | Her. More than mistress of,
| Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not
At all acknowledge. For Polixenes—

| With whom I am accused—lI do confess,

I loved him as in honour he required,
With such a kind of love as might become
A lady like me; with a love, even such,
So and no other, as yourself commanded :
Which not to have done, I think, had been in me
Both disobedience and ingratitude
To you, and toward your friend, whose love had
spoke
Even since it could speak, from an infant, freely,
That it was yours. Now, for conspiracy,
I know not how it tastes ; though it be dished
For me to try how: all I know of it
Is, that Camillo was an honest man ;
And why he left your court the gods themselves,
Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.
Leon. You knew of his departure, as you know
What you have underta’en to do in ’s absence.
Her. Sir,
You speak a language that I understand not:

My life stands in the level of your dreams,Scene 2.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 71

Which I ll lay down.

Leon. Your actions are my dreams :
You had a bastard by Polixenes,

And I but dreamed it.—As you were past all
shame,

—Those of your fact are so,—so past all truth,

Which to deny concerns more than avails; for as

Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,

No father owning it—which is, indeed,

More criminal in thee than it,—so thou

Shalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage

Look for no less than death.

Her. Sir, spare your threats :
The bug which you would fright me with I seek,
To me can life be no commodity :

The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,
I do give lost; for I do feel it gone,

But know not how it went. My second joy,
And first-fruits of my body, from his presence

I am barred, like one infectious. My third comfort,
Starred most unluckily, is from my breast,

The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth,
Haled out to murder: myself on every post
Proclaimed a strumpet : with immodest hatred,
The childbed privilege denied, which ’longs

To women of all fashion: lastly, hurriedTHE WINTER'S TALE. [Act III

Here to this place, i’ the open air, before

I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,

STE PEER cp

Tell me what blessings I have here alive,
That I should fear to die? Therefore, proceed.
But yet hear this ; mistake me not ;—no life,
I prize it not a straw ; but for mine honour
Which I would free, if I shall be condemned
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you,
’T is rigour and not law.—Your honours all,
I do refer me to the oracle :
Apollo be my judge.

1 Lord. This your request
Is altogether just. Therefore, bring forth,
And in Apollo’s name, his oracle.

[| Laxeunt several Officers

Her. The Emperor of Russia was my father :
O! that he were alive, and here beholding
His daughtev’s trial; that he did but see
The flatness of my misery,—yet with eyes
Of pity, not revenge !

Re-enter Officers, with CLEOMENEs and Dion.
Off. You here shall swear upon this sword of
justice
That you, Cleomenes and Dion, haveScene 2.] THE WINTER'S TALE, 73

Been both at Delphos; and from thence have
brought

This sealed-up oracle, by the hand delivered

Of great Apollo's priest ; and that, since then,

You have not dared to break the holy seal,

Nor read the secrets in ’t.

Cleo., Dion. All this we swear.

Leon. Break up the seals, and read.

Of. [Reads.| ‘Hermione is chaste; Polixenes
blameless; Camillo a true subject; Leontes a
jealous tyrant; his innocent babe truly begotten :
and the king shall live without an heir, if that
which is lost be not found !’

Lords. Now, blesséd be the great Apollo!

Her. Praised !
Leon. Hast thou read truth ?
Of: Ay, my lord ; even so

As it is here set down.
Leon. There is no truth at all ? the oracle.

The sessions shall proceed: this is mere falsehood.

Enter a Servant, hastily.

Serv. My lord the king, the king!

Leon. What is the business 4
Serv. O sir, I shall be hated to report it!

The prince your son, with mere conceit and fearTHE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IIL

Of the queen’s speed, is gone.

Leon. How! gone?

Serv. Is dead.

Leon. Apollo’s angry, and the heavens themselves
Do strike at my injustice. [Hermione /faints.]

How now there!
Paul. This news is mortal to the queen.—Look
down,
And see what death is doing.

Leon. Take her hence:
Her heart is but o’ercharged ; she will recover.—
I have too much believed mine own suspicion :—
’Beseech you, tenderly apply to her
Some remedies for life.—

[Zxewnt Pauuina and Ladies, with HERMIONE
Apollo, pardon
My great profaneness ’gainst thine oracle |!—
I'll reconcile me to Polixenes,
New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo,
Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy :
For, being transported by my jealousies
To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose
Camillo for the minister to poison
My friend Polixenes; which had been done,
But that the good mind of Camillo tardied
My swift command, though I with death and withScene 2.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 75

Reward did threaten and encourage him,

Not doing it, and being done: he, most humane,
And filled with honour, to my kingly guest
Unclasped my practice, quit his fortunes here,
Which you knew great, and to the certain hazard
Of all incertainties himself commended,

No richer than his honour :—how he glisters
Thorough my rust! and how his piety

Does my deeds make the blacker !

Re-enter PAULINA.

Paul. Woe the while ;
O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,
Break too!

1 Lord. What fit is this, good lady ?

Paul, What studied torments, tyrant, hast for

me 1

What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying ? boiling,
Tn leads, or oils ? what old or newer torture
Must I receive, whose every word deserves
To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny,
Together working with thy jealousies—
Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle
For girls of nine—O! think, what they have done,
And then run mad, indeed,—stark mad ! for all
Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.76 THE WINTERS TALE. [Act ITL

That thou betray’dst Polixenes, ’t was nothing ;

That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant,

And damnable ingrateful; nor was ’t much,

Thou wouldst have poisoned good Camillo’s honour,

To have him kill a king ; poor trespusses,

More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon

The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter,

To be’or none, or little,—though a devil

Would have shed water out of fire, ere done ’t:

Nor is’t directly laid to thee, the death

Of the young prince, whose honourable thoughts—

Thoughts high for one so tender—cleft the heart

That could conceive a gross and foolish sire

Blemished his gracious dam: this is not, no,

Laid to thy answer: but the last,—O lords!

When I have said, cry ‘Woe!’—the queen, the
queen,

The sweet’st dear’st creature’s dead; and ven-
geance for ’t

Not dropped down yet.

1 Lord. The higher powers forbid !
Paul. I say, she’s dead ; I’ll swear’t: if word

nor oath

Prevail not, go and see. If you can bring

Tincture or lustre in her lip, her eye,

Heat outwardly or breath within, I ’ll serve youScene 2.] THE WINTER'S TALE.

As I would do the gods.—But, O thou tyrant !
Do not repent these things, for they are heavier
Than all thy woes can stir ; therefore, betake thee
To nothing but despair. A thousand knees
Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,
Upon a barren mountain, and still winter,
In storm perpetual, could not move the gods
To look that way thou wert.
Leon. Go on, go on;
Thou canst not speak too much: I have deserved
All tongues to talk their bitterest.
1 Lord. Say no more:
Howe’er the business goes, you have made fault
I the boldness of your speech.
Paul. I am sorry for’t:
All faults I make, when I shall come to know
them,

I do repent. Alas, I have showed too much

The rashness of a woman. He is touched

To the noble heart.—What’s gone, and what’s
past help,

Should be past grief: do not receive affliction

At my petition ; I beseech you rather,

Let me be punished, that have minded you

Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege,

Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman ;@
‘
& |
i

  

 

78 THE WINTER’S TALE. [Act OI

The love I bore your queen,—lo, fool again !—
I ll speak of her no more, nor of your children ;
Tl not remember you of my own lord,

Who is lost too. ‘Take your patience to you,
And I'll say nothing.

Leon. hou didst speak but well,
When most the truth, which I receive much better
Than to be pitied of thee. Pr’ythee, bring me
To the dead bodies of my queen and son.

One grave shall be for both: upon them shall
The causes of their death appear, unto

Our shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit
The chapel where they lie ; and tears shed there
Shall be my recreation : so long as nature

Will bear up with this exercise, so long

I daily vow to use it. Come, and lead me

To these sorrows. [ Laxeunt

Scene IIJ.—Bohemia. A Desert Country near
the Sea.
Enter ANTIGONUS, with the Babe; and a Mariner.
Ant. Thou art perfect then, our ship hath

touched upon
The deserts of Bohemia ?Scene 3.] THE WINTER’ TALE.

 

Mar. Ay, my lord ; and fear
We have landed in ill time: the skies look grimly,
And threaten present blusters. In my conscience,
The heavens with that we have in hand are angry,
And frown upon’s.

Ant. Their sacred wills be done !—Go, get

aboard ;
Look to thy bark : Ill not be long before
I call upon thee.

Mar. Make your best haste, and go not
Too far 7’ the land: ’t is like to be loud weather;
Besides, this place is famous for the creatures
Of prey that keep upon ’t.

Ant. Go thou away :

I'll follow instantly.
Mar. I am glad at heart

To be so rid o’ the business. [ Hovis.
Ant. Come, poor babe :—

I have heard—but not believed—the spirits o’ the
dead

May walk again: if such thing be, thy mother

Appeared to me last night, for ne’er was dream

So like a waking. To me comes a creature,

Sometimes her head on one side, some another ;

I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,

So filled, and so becoming: in pure white robes,80 THE WINTERS TALE. [Act IIL

Like very sanctity, she did approach
My cabin where I lay, thrice bowed before me,
And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes
Became two spouts : the fury spent, anon
Did this break from her: ‘Good Antigonus,
Since fate, against thy better disposition,
F | Hath made thy person for the thrower-out

Of my poor babe, according to thine oath,—
Places remote enough are in Bohemia,
There weep, and leave it crying; and, for the

babe

Ts counted lost for ever, Perdita,
I pr’ythee, call ’t: for this ungentle business,
2 Put on thee by my lord, thou ne’er shalt see

Tlty wife Paulina more :’—and so, with shrieks,

 

She melted into air. Affrighted much,

TI did in time collect myself, and thought

This was so, and no slumber. Dreams are toys;
Yet for this once, yea, superstitiously,

I will be squared by this. I do believe,
Hermione hath suffered death ; and that

Apollo would, this being indeed the issue

Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid,
Either for life or death, upon the earth

Of its right father.—Blossom, speed thee well!

[Laying down the Babe.Scene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 8]

There lie; and there thy character: there these,
[Laying down a bundle.

Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee,
pretty,

And still rest thine.—The storm begins.—Poor
wretch,

That for thy mother’s fault art thus exposed

To loss, and what may follow !—Weep I cannot,

But my heart bleeds, and most accursed am I,

To be by oath enjoined to this.—Farewell !—

The day frowns more and more :—thou art like to
have

A lullaby too rough :—I never saw

The heavens so dim by day. <A _ savage cla-

mour,—
Well may I get aboard !—this is the chase :—
I am gone for ever. [ Hait, purswed by a bear.

Enter an Old Shepherd.

Shep. I would there were no age between ten
and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep
out the rest; for there is nothing in the between
but getting wenches with child, wronging the
ancientry, stealing, fighting—Hark yon now !—
Would any but these boiled-brains of nineteen and

two-and-twenty hunt this weather? They haveae

THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IIL

scared away two of my best sheep; which, I fear,
the wolf will sooner find than the master: if any-
where I have them, ’t is by the seaside, browsing
of ivy. Good luck, an’t be thy will !—What
have we here? [Zaking up the Babe.] Mercy
on’s,a barn; a very pretty barn! A boy, or a
child, I wonder? A pretty one; a very pretty
one. Sure, some scape: though I am not bookish,
yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape.
This has some stair-work, some trunk work, some
behind-door-work : they were warmer that got this
than the poor thing is here. I[’ll take it up for

pity; yet I'll tarry till my son come: he hollaed

 

but even now.— Whoa, ho hoa!

Clo. [ Without.] Hilloa, loa !

Shep. What! art so near? If thou’lt see a
thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten,
come hither.

Enter Clown.
What ail’st thou, man ?

Clo. I have seen two such sights, by sea and by
land—but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now
the sky : betwixt the firmament and it you cannot
thrust a bodkin’s point.

Shep. Why, boy, how is it?

Clo. I would you did but see how it chafes, howScene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 83

it rages, how it takes up the shore! but that’s not
to the point. O, the most piteous ery of the poor
souls! sometimes to see’em, and not to see em ;
now the ship boring the moon with her mainmast,
and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you’d
thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the
land-service :—to see how the bear tore out his
shoulder-bone ; how he cried to me for help, and
said his name was Antigonus, a nobleman.—But to
make an end of the ship :—to see how the sea flap-

dragoned it ;—but, first, how the poor souls roared,

 

and the sea mocked them ;—and how the poor
gentleman roared, and the bear mocked him, both
roaring louder than the sea or weather.

Shep. Name of mercy! when was this, boy ?

Clo. Now, now; Ihave not winked since I
saw these sights: the men are not yet cold under
water, nor the bear half-dined on the gentleman :
he’s at it now.

Shep. Would I had been by, to have helped the
old man !

Clo. I would you had been by the ship’s side, to
have helped her: there your charity would have
lacked footing.

Shep. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look

thee here, boy. Now bless thyself. Thou mettestTHE WINTER'S TALE, [Act III.

with things dying, I with thingsnew-born. Here ’s
a sight for thee! Look thee, a bearing-cloth®for a
squire’s child! Look thee here :—take up, take up,
boy ; open’t. So, let’s see. It was told me, I
should be rich by the fairies: this is some change-
ling. —Open’t :—what’s within, boy ?

Clo. You’re a made old man: if the sins of your
youth are forgiven you, you’re well to live. Gold !
all gold!

Shep. This is fairy gold, boy, and ’t will prove so :
up with ’t, keep it close; home, home, the next
way. We are lucky, boy; and to be so still, re-
quires nothing but secrecy.—Let my sheep go.—
Come, good boy, the next way home.

Clo. Go you the next way with your findings :
I'll gosee if the bear be gone from the gentleman,
and how much he hath eaten. They are never
curst, but when they are hungry. If there be any
of him left, Ill bury it.

Shep. That’s a good deed. If thou may’st dis-
cern by that which is left of him what he is, fetch
me to the sight of him.

Clo. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put
him i’ the ground.

Shep. "Lis a lucky day, boy, and we’ll do good

deeds on ’t. | Lxeunt.Scene 1.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 85

ACT JY.
Enter Tre, as Chorus.
Time. I,—that please some, try all; both joy
and terror
Of good and bad; that make, and unfold error, —
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
To me or my swift passage, that I slide
O’er sixteen years and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap; since it is in my power
To o’erthrow law, and in one self-born hour
To plant and o’erwhelm custom. Let me pass,
The same I am, ere ancient’st order was,
Or what is now received: I witness to
The times that brought them in; so shall I do
To the freshest things now reigning, and make stale
The glistering of this present, as my tale
Now seems toit. Your patience this allowing
I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing
As you had slept between. Leontes leaving,
The effects of his fond jealousies so grieving
That he shuts up himself,—imagine me,
Gentle spectators, that I now may be[Act IV.

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

 

THE WINTER'S TALE.

In fair Bohemia ; and remember well,

I mentioned a son 0’ the king’s, which Florizel

 

F | | I now name to you, and with speed so pace

To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace

Equal with wondering ;—what of her ensues,

I list not prophecy, but let Time’s news

Be known when ’tis brought forth ;—a shepherd’s
daughter,

And what to her adheres which follows after,

Is the argument of Time. Of this allow,

If ever you have spent time worse ere now:

If never, yet that Time himself doth say,

He wishes earnestly you never may. [ Lait.

Scene IL.—Bohemia. A Room in the Palace of
POLIXENES.
Enter PoLIxENES and CAMILLO.

Pol. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more im-
portunate ; *tis a sickness denying thee anything, a
death to grant this.

Cam. It is fifteen years since I saw my country:
though I have, for the most part, been aired abroad,
I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the peni-

tent king, my master, hath sent for me; to whoseScene 1,]

 

feeling sorrows
ween to think

departure.

THE WINTER’S TALE.

    
 
  

I might be some allay, or I o’er-

s0,—which is another spur to my

Pol. As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out

the rest of thy services by leaving me now. The

need [ have of thee, thine own goodness hath made:

better not to have had thee than thus to want thee.

Thou, having made me businesses which none with-

out thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay

to execute them

thyself, or take away with thee the

very services thou hast done; which if I have not

enough considered,

 

as too much I cannot,—to be

more thankful to thee shall be my study; and my

profit therein, the heaping friendships. Of that

fatal country, Sicilia, pr’ythee speak no more,

whose very naming punishes me with the remem-

brance of that penitent, as thou call’st him, and

reconciled king,

my brother, whose loss of his most

precious queen and children are even now to be

afresh lamented.

Prince Florizel,

Say to me, when saw’st thou the

my son? Kings are no less un-

happy, their issue not being gracious, than they

are in losing them when they have approved their

virtues.

Cam. Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince.

What his happier affairs may be, are to me un-THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV,

known; but I have missingly noted he is of late
much retired from court, and is less frequent to his
princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.

Pol. I have considered so much, Camillo, and
with some care; so far, that I have eyes under my
service which look upon his removedness: from
whom I have this intelligence, that he is seldom
from the house of a most homely shepherd ; a man,
they say that from very nothing, and beyond the
imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an
unspeakable estate.

Cam. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath
a daughter of most rare note: the report of her is
extended more that can be thought to begin from
such a cottage.

Pol. That’s likewise part of my intelligence, but
I fear the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou
shalt accompany us to the place, where we will, not
appearing what we are, have some question with
the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it
not uneasy to get the cause of my son’s resort
thither. Pr’ythee, be my present partner in this
business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

Cam. I willingly obey your command.

Pol. My best Camillo !—We must disguise our-
selves. [ Zxewnt.Scene 2.] THE WINTER’S TALE.

 

Scene II.—The Same. A Road near the Shep-
herd’s Cottage.
Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.
When daffodils begin to peer,—
With, heigh / the doaxy over the dale,—
Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year ;

For the red blood reigns im the winter’s pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,—

With heigh ! the sweet birds, O, how they sing !—
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge ;

For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

The lark, that turra-lirra chants, —
With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,

While we le tumbling in the hay.

I have served Prince Florizel, and, in my time,
wore three pile; but now I am out of service:

But shall I go mourn for that, my dear ?
The pale moon shines by night ;
And when I wander here and there,

I then do most go right.A ac ERTL GT TOOT

THE WINTER’S TALE. [Act IV.

If tinkers may have leave to live,
And bear the sow-skin budget,
Then my account I well may give,

And in the stocks avouch tt.

My traffic is sheets ; when the kite builds, look to
lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus ;
who being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was
likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With
die and drab I purchased this caparison, and my
revenue is the silly cheat. Gallows and knock are
too powerful on the highway ; beating and hanging
are terrors to me: for the life to come, I sleep out
the thought of it.

 

A prize! a prize!

Enter Clown.

Clo. Let me see:—every ‘leven wether tods ;
every tod yields pound and odd shilling: fifteen
hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?

Aut. [Aside.| If the springe hold, the cock ’s mine.

Clo. I cannot do’t without counters.—Let me
see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing
feast? ‘Three pound of sugar; five pound of

what will this sister of mine do

 

currants ; rice,’
with rice? But my father hath made her mistress
of the feast, and she laysit on. She hath made me

four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers; three-Scene 2.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 91

man songmen all, and very good ones, but they are
most of them means and bases: but one Puritan
amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.
I must have saffron, to colour the warden pies;
mace; dates,—none ; that’s out of my note: ‘ nut-
megs, seven: a race or two of ginger ;’ but that I
may beg :—‘four pound of prunes, and as many of
raisins o’ the sun.’ 3

Aut. O, that ever I was born !

[Grovelling on the ground.

Clo. I’ the name of me,—

Aut. O, help me, help me! pluck but off these
rags, and then, death, death!

Clo. Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more
rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off.

Aut. O, sir, the loathsomeness of them offends
me more than the stripes I have received, which
are mighty ones, and millions.

Clo. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may
come to a great matter.

Aut. I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money
and apparel ta’en from me, and these detestable
things put upon me.

Clo. What, by a horseman, or a footman ?

Aut. A footman, sweet sir, a footman.

Clo. Indeed, he should be a footman, by theCII at RSTO!

ee

       
  
    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
 
   

92 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV

garments he hath left with thee: if this be a
horseman’s coat, it hath seen very hot service.
Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee: come, lend me
thy hand. [Helping him up.

Aut. O, good sir, tenderly, O!

Clo. Alas, poor soul !

Aut, O, good sir’; softly, good sir. . I fear, sir,
my shoulder-blade is out.

Clo. How now ? canst stand ?

Aut. Softly, dear sir [picks his pocket], good sir,
softly. You ha’ done me a charitable office.

Clo. Dost lack any money? I have a little
money for thee.

Aut. No, good, sweet sir: no, I beseech you,
sir. I have a kinsman not past three-quarters of a
mile hence, unto whom I was going: I shall there
have money, or anything I want. Offer me no
money, I pray you! that kills my heart.

Clo. What manner of fellow was he that robbed
you ?

Aut. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go
about with trol-my-dames: I knew him once a
servant of the prince. I cannot tell, good sir, for
which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly
whipped out of the court.

Clo, His vices, you would say ; there’s no virtueScene 3.] THE WINTER'S TALE 93

whipped out of the court: they cherish it, to
make it stay there; and yet it will no more but
abide.

Aut. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man
well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; then a
process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a
motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker’s
wife within a mile where my land and living lies ;
and, having flown over many knavish professions,
he settled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus.

Clo. Outuponhim! Prig, for my life ; prig: he
haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings.

Aut. Very true, sir; he, sir, he: that’s the rogue
that put me into this apparel.

Clo. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia:
if you had but looked big and spit at him, he’d
have run.

Aut. I must confess to you, sir, Iam no fighter :
I am false of heart that way, and that he knew, I
warrant him.

Clo. How do you now 1

Aut. Sweet sir, much better than I was: I can
stand, and walk. I will even take my leave of you,
and pace softly towards my kinsman’s.
Clo. Shall I bring thee on the way?
Aut. No, good-faced sir ; no, sweet sir.Id REIS

 

THE WINTERS TALE. [Act IV.

Clo. Then fare thee well. I must go buy spices
for our sheep-shearing.

Aut. Prosper you, sweet sir! [Lait Clown.] —
Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your
spice. Ill be with you at your sheep shearing too.
If I make not this cheat bring out another, and the
shearers prove sheep, let me be enrolled and my
name put in the book of virtue!

Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
And merrily hent the stile a ;
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tures in a mile-a. [ Locit.

Scene III.—The Same. A Lawn before a Shep-
herd’s Cottage.

Enter FLorizEL and PERDITA.

Flo. These your unusual weeds to each part. of
you
Do give a life; no shepherdess, but Flora
Peering in April’s front. This your sheep-shearing
Is as a meeting of the petty gods,
And you the queen on ’t.

Per. Sir, my gracious lord,Scene 3.] THE WINTER'S TALE.

 

To chide at your extremes it not becomes me:
O, pardon, that I name them.—Your high self,
The gracious mark o’ the land, you have obscured
With a swain’s wearing, and me, poor lowly maid,
Most goddess-like pranked up. But that our feasts
In every mess have folly, and the feeders

Digest it with a custom, I should blush

To see you so attiréd ; swoon, I think,

To show myself a glass.

Flo. I bless the time
When my good falcon made her flight across
Thy father’s ground.

Per. Now, Jove afford you cause!
To me the difference forges dread ; your greatness
Hath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble
To think, your father, by some accident,

Should pass this way, as you did. O, the Fates!
How would he look, to see his work, so noble,
Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how
Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts, behold
The sternness of his presence 1

Flo. Apprehend
Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,
Humbling their deities to love, have taken
The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter
Became a bull, and bellowed; the green Neptuneee

96 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV.

A ram, and bleated ; and the fire-robed god,

Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,

AsIseem now. ‘Their transformations

Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,

Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires

Run not before mine honour nor my lusts

Burn hotter than my faith.

Teer O, but, sir,

Your resolution cannot hold, when’t is

Opposed, as it must be, by the power of the king.

One of these two must be necessities,

Which then will speak,—that you must change
this purpose,

Or I my life.

Flo. Thou dearest Perdita,

With these forced thoughts, I pr’ythee, darken
not

The mirth o’ the feast: or I’ll be thine, my fair,

Or not my father’s ; for I cannot be

Mine own, nor anything to any, if

I be not thine: to this I am most constant,

Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle ;

Strangle such thoughts as these with anything

That you behold the while. Your guests are
coming :

Lift up your countenance, as it were the dayScene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE.

 

Of celebration of that nuptial which
We two have sworn shall come.

Per. O Lady Fortune,
Stand you auspicious !

Filo, Sée, your guests approach ;

Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,
And Jet ’s be red with mirth.

Enter Shepherd, with Poutxenes and Camitto,
disguised ; Clown, Morsa, Dorcas, and others.

Shep. Fie, daughter! when my old wife lived,

upon

This day she was both pantler, butler, cook ;

Both dame and servant ; welcomed all, served all ;

Would sing her song, and dance her turn; now
here,

At upper end o’ the table, now i’ the middle ;

On his shoulder, and his ; her face o’ fire

With labour, and the thing she took to quench it,

She would to each one sip. You are retired,

As if you were a feasted one, and not

The hostess of the meeting: pray you, bid

These unknown friends to us welcome ; for it is

A way to make us better friends, more known.

Come, quench your blushes, and present yourself

That which you are, mistress o’ the feast : come on,98 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV.

And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,
As your good flock shall prosper
Per. [To PouixENEs. | Sir, welcome.
It is my father’s will, I should take on me
The hostess-ship o’ the day. [Zo Camruuo.]
You ’re welcome, sir.—
Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.—Reverend
sirs,
For you there’s rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long:
Grace and remembrance be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing!
Pol. Shepherdess—
A fair one are you,—well you fit our ages
With flowers of winter.
Per. Sir, the year growing ancient,—
Not yet on summer’s death, nor on the birth
Of trembling winter,—the fairest flowers o’ the
season
Are our carnations, and streaked gillyvors,
Which some call nature’s bastards: of that kind
Our rustic garden ’s barren, and I care not
To get slips of them.
Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden,
Do you neglect them ?
Per. For I have heard it said,Scene 3.] THE WINTERS TALE. 99

There is an art which in their piedness shares
With great creating nature.

Pol. Say, there be ;
Yet nature is made better by no mean,
But nature makes that mean: so o’er that art
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentler scion to the wildest stock,
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of noble race : this is an art
Which does mend nature,—change it rather ; but
The art itself is nature.

Per. So it is.

Pol. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,
And do not call them bastards.

Per. Ill not put
The dibble in earth to set one slip of them:
No more than, were I painted, I would wish
This youth should say ‘twere well, and only

therefore

Desire to breed by me.—Here’s flowers for you ;
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram ;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun,
And with him rises weeping: these are flowers
Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given
To men of middle age. You are very welcome.THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV.

Cam. I should leave grazing, were I of your
flock,
And only live by gazing.
Per. Out, alas!
You’d be so lean, that blasts of January
Would blow you through and through.—Now, my
fair’st friend,
I would I had some flowers o’ the spring, that might
Become your time of day ; and yours, and yours,
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maidenheads growing :—O Proserpina,
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou lett’st fall
From Dis’s waggon !—daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes,
Or Cytherea’s breath ; pale primroses,
That die unmarried ere they can behold
Bright Phebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips, and
The crown-imperial ; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one. O, these I lack,
To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,
To strew him o’er and o’er.
Flo. What, like a corse ?
Per. No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on,Scene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 101

Not like a corse ; or if,—not to be buried
But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your
flowers.

Methinks, I play as I have seen them do
In Whitsun-pastorals ; sure, this robe of mine
Does change my disposition.

Filo. What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I’d have you do it ever: when you sing,
I’d have you buy and sell so; so give alms ;
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that ; move still, still so,
And own no other function : each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.

Per. O Doricles,
Your praises are too large: but that your youth,
And the true blood which peeps so fairly through it,
Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd,
With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,
You wooed me the false way.

Flo. I think, you have
As little skill to fear, as I have purpose102

 

THE WINTER’S TALE. [Act IV

To put you to’t.—But, come; our dance, I pray.
Your hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair,
That never mean to part.
Per. T ll swear for ’em.
Pol. This is the prettiest low-born lass that
ever
Ran on the green-sward: nothing she does, or
seems,
But smacks of something greater than herself,
Too noble for this place.

Cam. He tells her something,
That makes her blood look out. Good sooth, she is
The queen of curds and cream.—

Clo. Come on, strike up.

Dor. Mopsa must be your mistress: marry,

garlic,
To mend her kissing with !

Mop. Now, in good time !

Clo. Not a word, a word: we stand upon our

manners.—
Come, strike up. | Music.
[Here a dance of Shepherds and Shepherdesses.
Pol. Pray you, good shepherd, what fair swain
is this,
Which dances with your daughter ?

Shep. They call him Doricles, and boasts himselfScene 3.] THE WINTERS TALE. 103

To have a worthy feeding ; but I have it
Upon his own report, and I believe it:
He looks like sooth. He says, he loves my
daughter :
I think so too; for never gazed the moon
Upon the water, as he’ll stand, and read,
As ’t were, my daughter’s eyes ; and, to be plain,
I think, there is not half a kiss to choose
Who loves another best.
Pol. She dances featly.
Shep. So she does anything, though I report it
That should be silent. If young Doricles
Do light upon her, she shall bring him that
Which he not dreams of.

Enter a Servant.

Serv. O master! if you did but hear the pedlar
at the door, you would never dance again after a
tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move
you. He sings several tunes faster than you ll
tell money ; he utters them as he had eaten ballads,
and all men’s ears grew to his tunes.

Clo. He could never come better; he shall
come in. I love a ballad but even too well; if it
be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very

pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.CR nce

 

104 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV

Serv. He hath songs, for man or woman, of all
sizes; no milliner can so fit his customers with
gloves. He has the prettiest love-songs for maids ;
so without bawdry, which is strange; with such
delicate burdens of ‘dildos’ and ‘ fadings,’ ‘jump
her and thump her;’ and where some stretch-
mouthed rascal would, as it were, mean mischief,
and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the
maia to answer, ‘Whoop, do me no harm, good
man ;’ puts him off, slights him with ‘Whoop, do
me no harm, good man.’

Pol. This is a brave fellow.

Clo. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable
conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares?

Serv. He hath ribands of all the colours 7 the
rainbow ; points, more than all the lawyers in
Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come
to him by the gross; inkles, caddisses, cambrics,
lawns: why, he sings them over, as they were
gods or goddesses. You would think a smock
were a she-angel, he so chants to the sleeve-hand,
and the work about the square on’t.

Clo. Pr’ythee, bring him in, and let him
approach singing.

Per. Forewarn him, that he use no scurrilous

words in’s tunes. [Lait Servant.Scene 3. ]

   

THE WINTER'S TALE.

105

Clo. You have of these pedlars, that have more

in them than youd think, sister.

Per. Ay, good brother, or go about to think.

Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.
Lawn, as white as driven snow ;
Cyprus, black as eer was crow ;
Gloves, as sweet as damask roses ;
Masks for faces, and for noses ;
Bugle-bracelet, necklace-amber,
Perfume for a lady's chamber ;
Golden quoifs, and stomachers,
For my lads to give their dears ;
Pins and poking-sticks of steel ,
What maids lack, from head to heel ,;

Come, buy of me, come ,; come buy, come buy;

Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry:

Come, buy.

Clo. If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou

shouldst take no money of me; but being en-

thralled as I am, it will also be the bondage of

certain ribands and gloves.
Mop. I was promised them against the feast, but

they come not too late now.
Dor. He hath promised you more than that, or

there be liars.

Mop. He hath paid you all he promised you:106 THE WINTER'S TALE. | Act IV.

may be, he has paid you more, which will shame
you to give him again.

Clo. Is there no manners left among maids ?
will they wear their plackets where they should
bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when
you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off
these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before
all our guests? “Tis well they are whispering.
Clamour your tongues, and not a word more.

Mop. I have done. Come, you promised me a
tawdry lace, and a pair of sweet gloves.

Clo. Have I not told thee, how I was cozened
by the way, and lost all my money ?

Aut. And, indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad ;
therefore it behoves men to be wary.

Clo. Fear not thou, man, thou shalt lose
nothing here.

Aut. I hope so, sir; for I have about me many
parcels of charge.

Clo. What hast here? ballads ?

Mop. ’Pray now, buy some: I love a ballad in
print o’ life, for then we are sure they are true.

Aut. Here’s one to a very doleful tune, how a
usurer’s wife was brought to bed of twenty money-
bags at a burden; and how she longed to eat

adders’ heads, and toads carbonadoed.Scene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 107

Mop. Is it true, think you ?

Aut. Very true; and but a month old.

Dor. Bless me from marrying a usurer !

Aut. Here’s the midwife’s name to’t, one Mis-
tress Taleporter, and five or six honest wives that
were present. Why should I carry lies abroad?

Mop. ’Pray you now, buy it.

Clo. Come on, lay it by: and let’s first see more
ballads ; we ’ll buy the other things anon.

Aut. Here’s another ballad, of a fish, that ap-
peared upon the coast, on Wednesday the fourscore
of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and
sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids:
it was thought she was a woman, and was turned
into a cold fish, for she would not exchange flesh
with one that loved her. The ballad is very piti-
ful, and as true.

Dor. Is it true too, think you?

Aut. Five justices’ hands at it, and witnesses
more than my pack will hold.

Clo. Lay it by too: another.

Aut. This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty
one.

Mop. Let’s have some merry ones.

Aut. Why, this is a passing merry one, and
goes to the tune of ‘'T'wo maids wooing a man,’108 THE WINTER’S TALE. [Act IV.

There’s scarce a maid westward but she sings it ;
| + is in request, I can tell you.
FI | Mop. We can both sing it: If thou It bear a
part, thou shalt hear ; ‘tis in three parts.

Dor. We had the tune on ’t a month ago.

Aut. I can bear my part; you must know, ’tis
my occupation : have at it with you.

SONG.
Aut. Get you hence, for I must go,
Where it fits not you to know.

Dor. Whither ?

Mop. O! whither?

Dor. Whither ?

Mop. It becomes thy oath full well,

Thou to me thy secrets tell.

Dor. Me too: let me go thither.
Mop. Or thou gost to the grange, or mull.
Dor. If to either, thow dost ill.
| Aui. Neither.
Dor. What, neither ?
Aut. Neither.
Dor. Thow hast sworn my love to be.
Mop. Thow hast sworn rt more to me:

Then, whither gost? say, whither ?

Clo. We'll have this song out anon by ourselves.Scene 3,] THE WINTER’S TALE. 109

My father and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and
we ’ll not trouble them: come, bring away thy
pack after me. Wenches, I’ll buy for you both.

 

Pedlar, let’s have the first choice.—Follow me,

girls.
Aut, [Aside.] And you shall pay well for ’em.

Will you buy any tape,
Or lace for your cape,
My dainty duck, my dear-a ?
Any silk, any thread,
Any toys for your head,
Of the new’st and fin’st, fin’st wear-a?
Come to the pedlar ,;
Money's a meddler,

That doth utter all men’s ware-a.

[Zxeunt Clown, Autotycus, Dorcas, and Mopsa.

Re-enter Servant.

Serv. Master, there is three carters, three shep-
herds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that
have made themselves all men of hair: they call
themselves Saltiers ; and they have a dance, which
the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, be-
cause they are not in’t; but they themselves are
o the mind,—if it be not too rough for some110 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV.

that know little but bowling—it will please

plentifully.

Shep. Away! we 11 none on’t: here has been

too much homely foolery already.—I know, sir, we
: y y 2 ’ ’

weary you.

Pol. You weary those that refresh us. Pray,
let’s see these four threes of herdsmen.

Serv. One three of them, by their own report,
sir, hath danced before the king; and not the
worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a
half by the squire.

Shep. Leave your prating. Since these good
men are pleased, let them come in: but quickly
now.

Serv. Why, they stay at door, sir. [ actt.

Re-enter Servant, with twelve Rustics habited lika

Satyrs. They dance, and then exeunt.

Pol. O father, youll know more of that here-
after.—
[Zo Camillo.| Is it not too far gone 1—’Tis time
to part them.—
He’s simple, and tells much. How now, fair
shepherd ?

Your heart is full of something, that does takeScene 3,] THE WINTER’S TALE. lil

Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was
young,

And handed love as you do, I was wont

To load my she with knacks: I would have ran-
sacked

The pedlar’s silken treasury, and have poured it

To her acceptance ; you have let him go,

And nothing marted with him. If your lass

Interpretation should abuse, and call this

Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited

For a reply, at least if you make a care

Of happy holding her.

Flo. Old sir, I know

She prizes not such trifles as these are.

The gifts she looks from me are packed and locked

Up in my heart, which I have given already,

But not delivered.—O, hear me breathe my life

Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem,

Hath sometime loved: I take thy hand; this
hand,

As soft as dove’s down, and as white as it,

Or Ethiopian’s tooth, or the fanned snow

That’s bolted by the northern blasts twice o’er.

Pol. What follows this 1—
How prettily the young swain seems to wash

The hand, was fair before !—I have put you out,—Fl 112 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV.

But, to your protestation : let me hear
| What you profess.
Hf | | Flo. Do, and be witness to ’t.
| Pol. And this my neighbour too ?
ay Flo. And he, and more
Than he, and men; the earth, the heavens, and
ti all ;
E That, were I crowned, the most imperial monarch,
Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth
That ever made eye swerve, had force and know-
ledge

More than was ever man’s, I would not prize them,
Without her love: for her employ them all,
Commend them and condemn them to her service
if Or to their own perdition.

Pol. Fairly offered.

Cam. This shows.a sound affection.

Shep. But, my daughter,
Say you the like to him?

Ber. T cannot speak
Uy So well, nothing so well ; no, nor mean better :
By the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out
The purity of his.

Shep. Take hands ; a bargain :—
And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness
tot:Scene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE. llo

I give my daughter to him, and will make
Her portion equal his.
flo, O, that must be
I’ the virtue of your daughter: one being dead,

I shall have more than you can dream of yet ;

Enough then for your wonder. But, come on;
Contract us ’fore these witnesses.

Shep. Come, your hand ;
And, daughter, yours.

Pol. Soft, swain, a while, "beseech you.
Have you a father 4

Flo. I have; but what of him }

Pol. Knows he of this?

Flo. He neither does nor shall.

Pol. Methinks, a father

Is at the nuptial of his son a guest
That best becomes the table. Pray you, once
more, d

Is not your father grown incapable
Of reasonable affairs ? is he not stupid
With age, and altering rheums? can he speak 4
hear 4

Know man from man? dispute his own estate ?
Lies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing
But what he did being childish ?

Flo. No, good, sir:THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV.

He has his health, and ampler strength, indeed,
Than most have of his age.
Pol. By my white beard,
You offer him, if this be so, a wrong
Something unfilial, Reason, my son
Should choose hinself a wife ; but as good reason,
The father—all whose joy is nothing else
But fair posterity—should hold some counsel
In such a business.
Flo. I yield all this ;
But for some other reasons, my grave sir,
Which ’tis not fit you know, I not acquaint

My father of this business.

ol. Let him know ’t.

Flo. He shall not.

Pol. Pr’ythee, let him.

Flo. No, he must not.

Shep. Let him, my son: he shall not need to
grieve

At knowing of thy choice.

Flo. Come, come, he must not.—
Mark our contract.

Pot. Mark your divorce, young sir,

[Discovering himself.

Whom son I dare not call: thou art too base

To be acknowledged. ‘Thou a sceptre’s heir,Scene 3. ] THE WINTER’S TALE. 115

That thus affects a sheep-hook !—Thou old traitor,
I am sorry, that by hanging thee I can but
Shorten thy life one week.—And thou, fresh piece
Of excellent witchcraft, who, of force, must know
The royal fool thou cop’st with,—
Shep. O, my heart!
Pol. I'll have thy beauty scratched with briers,
and made
More homely than thy state.—For thee, fond boy,
If I may ever know thou dost but sigh
That thou no more shalt see this knack—as never
I mean thou shalt—we’ll bar thee from succession ;
Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,
Far’ than Deucalion off :—mark thou my words ;
Follow us to the court. Thou, churl, for this time,
Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee
From the dead blow of it.—And you, enchantment,
Worthy enough a herdsman ; yea, him, too, |
That makes himself, but for our honour therein,
Unworthy thee,—if ever henceforth thou
These rural latches to his entrance open,
Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,
I will devise a death as cruel for thee
As thou art tender to ’t. [ Hocit.
Per. Even here undone !

I was not much afeard; for once, or twice,ay 116 THE WINTER’S TALE. [Act IV.

I was about to speak, and tell him plainly,
The selfsame sun that shines upon his court
at Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
| Looks on alike-—[7o Fuorizex.] Wiull’t please
you, sir, be gone ?

I told you what would come of this. ’*Beseech you,
Of your own state take care: this dream of mine,
Being now awake, I’ll queen it no inch further,
But milk my ewes, and weep.

Cam. Why, how now, father?
Speak, ere thou diest.

Shep. T cannot speak, nor think,
. Nor dare to know that which I know.—{[7’o Fiort-
. ZEL.| O sir!
You have undone a man of fourscore-three,
That thought to fill his grave in quiet; yea,
To die upon the bed my father died,
To le close by his honest bones: but now
Some hangman must put on my shroud, and lay me
RE Where no priest shovels in dust.—[ Zo Prrpira.]
| O cursed wretch !
That knew’st this was the prince, and wouldst ad-

venture

To mingle faith with him.—Undone! undone!
Tf I might die within this hour, I have lived

To die when I desire. [ Lacie.Scene 3. ] THE WINTER'S TALE. 117

Flo. Why look you so upon me ?
I am but sorry, not afeared ; delayed,
But nothing altered. What I was, I am:
More straining on, for plucking back ; not following
My leash unwillingly.

Cam. Gracious my lord,

You know your father’s temper: at this time

 

He will allow no speech,—which, I do guess,
You do not purpose to him,—and as hardly
Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear:
Then, till the fury of his highness settle,
Come not before him.

Filo. I not purpose it.
I think, Camillo?

Cam. Even he, my lord.

Per. How often have I told you ’twould be thus!
How often said, my dignity would last
But till ’t were known !

Flo. It cannot fail, but by
The violation of my faith ; and then,
Let nature crush the sides o’ the earth together,
And mar the seeds within !—Lift up thy looks :—
From my succession wipe me, father: I
Am heir to my affection.

Cam. Be advised.

Flo. I am, and by my fancy: if my reasonTHE WINTERS TALE.

 

[Act IV.

 

Will thereto be obedient, I have reason ;
If not, my senses, better pleased with madness,
Do bid it welcome.
Cam. This is desperate, sir.
Flo. So call it: but it does fulfil my vow,
T needs must think it honesty. Camillo,
Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may
Be thereat gleaned, for all the sun sees, or
The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide
In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath
To this my fair beloved. Therefore, I pray you,

As you've e’er been my father’s honoured friend,

 

When he shall miss me,—as, in faith, I mean not
? ? >

 

To see him any more,—cast your good counsels
Upon his passion : let myself and fortune
Tug for the time to come. This you may know,
And so deliver :—I am put to sea
With her whom here I cannot hold on shore ;
And, most opportune to our need, I have
A vessel rides fast by, but not prepared
For this design. What course I mean to hold
Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor
Concern me the reporting.

Cam. O my lord,
T would your spirit were easier for advice,

Or stronger for your need.

°Scene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE.

 

 

Flo. Hark, Perdita.—| Takes her aside.
[Z’o Camiuxo.] I’ll hear you by-and-by.

Cam. He’s irremovable,
Resolved for flight. Now were I happy, if
His going I could frame to serve my turn,
Save him from danger, do him love and honour,
Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia,
And that unhappy king, my master, whom

I so much thirst to see.

Flo. Now, good Camillo,

IT am so fraught with-curious business, that

I leave out ceremony. [ Going.
Cam. Sir, I think,

You have heard of my poor services, 1’ the love
That I have borne your father ?

flo. Very nobly
Have you deserved : it is my father’s music,
To speak your deeds ; not little of his care,
To have them recompensed as thought on.

Cam. Well, my lord,
If you may please to think I love the king,
And thorough him, what’s nearest to him, which is
Your gracious self, embrace but my direction
If your more ponderous and settled project
May suffer alteration,—on mine honour,

Ill point you where you shall have such receiving.
|

   

120 THE WINTER’S TALE. [Act IV.

As shall become your highness ; where you may
Enjoy your mistress—from the whom, I see,
There ’s no disjunction to be made, but by,
As heavens forfend, your ruin ;—marry her ;
And with my best endeavours, in your absence,
Your discontenting father strive to qualify,
And bring him up to king.
Flo. How, Camillo,
May this, almost a miracle, be done?
That I may call thee something more than man,
And, after that, trust to thee.
Cam. Have you thought on
A place whereto you'll got
Flo. Not any yet;
But as the unthought-on accident is guilty
To what we wildly do, so we profess
Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies
Of every wind that blows.
Cam. Then list to me:
This follows :—if you will not change your purpose,
But undergo this flight, make for Sicilia,
And there present yourself and your fair princess,—
For so, [ see, she must be,—fore Leontes:
She shall be habited, as it becomes
The partner of your bed. Methinks, I see

Leontes, opening his free arms, and weepingScene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 121

His welcomes forth ; asks thee, the son, forgiveness,
As ’t were i’ the father’s person ; kisses the hands
Of your fresh princess ; 0’er and o’er divides him
"Twixt his unkindness and his kindness: the one
He chides to hell, and bids the other grow
Faster than thought or time.

Flo. Worthy Camillo,
What colour for my visitation shall I
Hold up before him ?

Cam. Sent by the king, your father,
To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,
The manner of your bearing towards him, with
What you, as from your father, shall deliver,
Things known betwixt us three, I’ll write you

down :

The which shall point you forth at every sitting
What you must say, that he shall not perceive
But that you have your father’s bosom there
And speak his very heart.

Flo. I am bound to you.
There is some sap in this.

Cam. A course more promising
Than a wild dedication of yourselves
To unpathed waters, undreamed shores, most cer-

tain

To miseries enough ; no hope to help you,122 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV.

But as you shake off one to take another ;
Nothing so certain as your anchors, who
Do their best office if they can but stay you
Where you’ll be loath to be. Besides, you know,
Prosperity ’s the very bond of love,
Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together
Affliction alters.

Per. One of these is true:
I think affliction may subdue the cheek,
But not take in the mind.

Cam. Yea, say you sof
There shall not, at your father’s house, these seven

years,

Be born another such.

Flo. My good Camillo,
She is as forward of her breeding as
She ’s 7’ the rear our birth.

Cam. I cannot say,
Pity she lacks instructions, for she seems

Mistress to most that teach.

Per. Your pardon, sir ;
For this Ill blush you thanks.
Flo. My prettiest Perdita !—

But, O, the thorns we stand upon !—Camillo,
Preserver of my father, now of me,

The medicine of our house, how shall we do?Scene 3.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 123

We are not furnished like Bohemia’s son,
Nor shall appear so in Sicilia.
Cam. My lord,

Fear none of this. I think, you know, my for-
tunes

Do all lie there : it shall be so my care

To have you royally appointed as if

The scene you play were mine. For instance, sir,

That you may know you shall not want,—one
word. [They talk aside.

Enter AUTOLYCUS.

Aut. Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and
Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman!
I have sold all my trumpery: not a counterfeit
stone, not a riband, glass, pomander, brooch, table-
book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet,
horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting: they
throng who should buy first ; as if my trinkets had
been hallowed, and brought a benediction to the
buyer: by which means I saw whose purse was
best in picture, and what I saw, to my good use I
remembered. My clown (who wants but some-
thing to be a reasonable man) grew so in love with
the wenches’ song, that he would not stir his petti-
toes, till he had both tune and words; which so124 THE WINTER’S TALE. [Act TV.

drew the rest of the herd to me, with all their
other senses stuck in ears ; you might have pinched
a placket, it was senseless ; ’t was nothing to geld
a codpiece of a purse: I would have filed keys off,
that hung in chains: no hearing, no feeling, but
my sir’s song, and admiring the nothing of it; so
that, in this time of lethargy, I picked and cut
most of their festival purses ; and had not the old
man come in with a whoobub against his daughter
and the king’s son, and scared my choughs from the
chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole
army. [CamiLLo, FLorizEL, and Perpira come
forward.
Cam. Nay, but my letters, by this means being
there

So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.

flo. And those that you’ll procure from King

Leontes—

Cam. Shall satisfy your father.

Per. Happy be you!
All that you speak shows fair.

Cam. [Seeing Autotycus.] Who have we here}
We ll make an instrument of this: omit
Nothing, may give us aid.

Aut. If they have overheard me now,—why,
hanging.Scene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 125

Cam. How now, good fellow ? why shakest thou
so t
Fear not, man ; here’s no harm intended to thee.

Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir.

Cam. Why, be so still; here’s nobody will steal
that from thee : yet, for the outside of thy poverty,
we must make an exchange; therefore, discase thee
instantly (thou must think, there’s a necessity in ’t)
and change garments with this gentleman. Though
the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold
thee, there’s some boot.

Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir.—[Aside.] I know
ye well enough.

Cam. Nay, pr’ythee, despatch: the gentleman
is half flayed already.

Aut. Are you in earnest, sir 1—[Aszde.] I smell
the trick of it.

Flo. Despatch, I pr’ythee.

Aut. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot
with conscience take it.

Cam. Unbuckle, unbuckle.—

[FrorizeL and Autotycus exchange garments.
Fortunate mistress,—let my prophecy
Come home to you !—you must retire yourself
Into some covert: take your sweet-heart’s hat,
And pluck it o’er your brows ; mufile your face ;ov

    

126 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV.

Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken
The truth of your own seeming, that you may—
For I do fear eyes over you—to shipboard

Get undescried.

 

Ler. I see the play so lies
That I must bear a part.

Cam. No remedy
Have you done there!

Flo. Should I now meet my father
He would not call me son.

Cam. Nay, you shall have no hat.—
Come, lady, come,—Farewell, my friend.

Aut. Adieu, sir.

Flo. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!
Pray you, a word. [They converse apart.

Cam. What I do next shall be to tell the king
Of this escape, and whither they are bound ;
Wherein, my hope is, I shall so prevail
Yo force him after ; in whose company
T shall review Sicilia, for whose sight
T have a woman’s longing. —

Flo. Fortune speed us !—
Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side.

Cam. The swifter speed, the better.
[Zxewnt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO.
Aut. I understand the business ; I hear it. ToTHE WINTER'S TALE.

 

Scene 3,]

have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand,
is necessary for a cut-purse ; a good nose is requi-
site also, to smell out work for the other senses,
I see, this is the time that the unjust man doth
thrive. What an exchange had this been, without
boot! what a boot is here with this exchange!
Sure, the gods do this year connive at us, and we
may do anything extempore. The prince himself
is about a piece of iniquity ; stealing away from
his father, with his clog at his heels. If I thought
it were a piece of honesty to acquaint the king
withal, I would not do’t: I hold it the more
knavery to conceal it, and therein am I constant
to my profession. Aside, aside:—here is more
matter for a hot brain. Every lane’s end, every
shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man

work,
Enter Clown and Shepherd.

Clo. See, see, what a man you are now! ‘There
is no other way, but to tell the king she’s a change-
ling, and none of your flesh and blood.

Shep. Nay, but hear me.

Clo. Nay, but hear me.

Shep. Go to, then.

Glo. She being none of your flesh and blood,
your flesh and blood has not offended the king ; and128 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV.

so your flesh and blood is not to be punished by him.
Show those things you found about her ; those
secret things, all but what she has with her. This
being done, let the law go whistle: I warrant you.

Shep. I will tell the king all, every word, yea,
and his son’s pranks too; who, I may say, is no
honest man, neither to his father, nor to me, to go
about to make me the king’s brother-in-law.

Clo. Indeed, brother-in-law was the furthest off
you could have been to him ; and then your blood
had been the dearer, by I know how much an ounce.

Aut. [Aside.| Very wisely, puppies !

Shep. Well, let us to the king; there is that in
this fardel will make him scratch his beard.

Aut. [Aside.| I know not what impediment this
complaint may be to the flight of my master.

Clo. ’Pray heartily he be at palace.

Aut. [Aside.] Though I am not naturally honest,
I am so sometimes by chance :—let me pocket up
my pedlar’s excrement. [Takes off his false beard. |
How now, rustics? Whither are you bound ?

Shep. To the palace, an it like your worship.

Aut. Your affairs there? what? with whom? the
condition of that fardel, the place of your dwelling,
your names, your ages, of what having, breeding,
and anything that is fitting to be known? discover.Scene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 129

Clo. We are but’plain fellows, sir.
Aut. A lie: you are rough and hairy. Let me
have no lying; it becomes none but tradesmen,

give us soldiers the lie ; but we pay

and they often g

them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel :
therefore, they do not give us the lie.

Clo. Your worship had like to have given us
one, if you had not taken yourself with the manner.
Shep. Are you a courtier, an ’t like you, sir?

Aut. Whether it like me, or no, I am a courtier.
Seest thou not the air of the court in these en-
foldings? hath not my gait in it the measure of
the court ? receives not thy nose court-odour from
me? reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt ?
Think’st thou, for that I insinuate, or toze from thee
thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am
courtier, cap-a-p¢; and one that will either push
on, or pluck back thy business there: whereupon
I command thee to open thy affair.

Shep. My business, sir, is to the king.

Aut. What advocate hast thou to him?

Shep. 1 know not, an’t like you.

Clo. Advocate’s the court-word for a pheasant ;
say, you have none.

Shep. None, sir: I have no pheasant, cock, nor

hen.A OEE

130 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act IV.

Aut. Vow blessed are we that are not simple
men !
Yet nature might have made me as these are,
Therefore I ’ll not disdain.

Clo. This cannot be but a great courtier.

Shep. His garments are rich, but he wears them
not handsomely.

Clo. He seems to be the more noble in being
fantastical: a great man, I ll warrant ; I know by
the picking on’s teeth.

Aut. The fardel there? what ’s i’ the fardel?
Wherefore that box?

Shep. Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel
and box which none must know but the king; and
which he shall know within this hour, if I may
come to the speech of him.

Aut. Age, thou hast lost thy labour.

Shep. Why, sir?

Aut. The king is not at the palace: he is gone
aboard a new ship to purge melancholy, and air
himself : for, if thou be’st capable of things serious,
thou must know, the king is full of grief.

Shep. So’tis said, sir; about his son, that should
have married a shepherd’s daughter.

Aut. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let
him fly : the curses he shall have, the tortures heScene 3.]

    
 

THE WINTER'S TALE. 131

shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of

monster.

Clo. Think you so, sir?

Aut. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can

make heavy, and vengeance bitter ; but those that

are germane to him, though removed fifty times,

shall all come under the hangman: which, though

it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-

whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his

daughter come

into grace! Some say, he shall be

stoned ; but that death is too soft for him, say I.

Draw our throne into a sheepcote! all deaths are

too few, the sharpest too easy.

Clo. Has the old man e’er a son, sir, do you hear
? > J

an ’t like you, sir?

Aut. He has a son, who shall be flayed alive;

then ’nointed over with honey, set on the head of

a wasp’s nest ; then stand, till he be three-quarters

and a dram dead ; then recovered again with aqua-

vite, or some other hot infusion ; then, raw as he

is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims,

shall he be set against a brick wall, the sun looking

with a southward eye upon him, where he is to be-

hold him with

flies blown to death. But what

talk we of these traitory rascals, whose miseries are

to be smiled at, their offences being so capital? Tell132 THE WINTERS TALE. [Act IV.

me—for you seem to be honest plain men—what
you have to the king? being something gently con-
sidered, I Il bring you where he is aboard, tender
your persons to his presence, whisper him in your
behalfs; and, if it be in man, besides the king, to
effect your suits, here is man shall do it.

Clo. He seems to be of great authority: close
with him, give him gold; and though authority be
a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with
gold. Show the inside of your purse to the outside
of his hand, and no more ado. Remember; stoned,
and flayed alive!

Shep. An’t please you, sir, to undertake the
business for us, here is that gold I have: I’ll make
it as much more, and leave this young man in
pawn, till I bring it you.

Aut. After I have done what I promised 1

Shep. Ay, sir.

Aut. Well, give me the moiety.—Are you a
party in this business ?

Clo. In some sort, sir? but though my case be a
pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.

Aut. O! that’s the case of the shepherd’s son.
Hang him, he’ll be made an example.

Clo. Comfort, good comfort! We must to the

king, and show our strange sights: he must know,Scene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 133

’*t is none of your daughter, nor my sister; we ar
gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old
man does when the business is performed ; and
remain, as he says, your pawn till it be brought
you.

Aut. I will trust you. Walk before toward the
sea-side ; go on the right hand; I will but look
upon the hedge, and follow you.

Clo. We are blessed in this man, as I may say ;
even blessed.

Shep. Let ’s before, as he bids us. He was pro-
vided to do us good.

[ Laeunt Shepherd and Clown.

Aut. If I had a mind to be honest, I see,
Fortune would not suffer me: she drops booties in
my mouth. I am courted now with a double
occasion—gold, and a means to do the prince my
master good? which, who knows how that may
turn back to my advancement? I will bring these
two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he
think it fit to shore them again, and that the com-
plaint they have to the king concerns him nothing,
let him call me rogue for being so far officious ; for
I am proof against that title, and what shame else
belongs to ’t. To him will I present them; there

may be matter in it. [ Lait.THE WINTER'S

ACT ¥.

Scene ].—Sicilia. A Room in the Palace of
I | LEONTES.

Enter LeontEs, CLEOMENES, Dion, PAULINA,

and others.

Cleo. Sir, you have done enough, and have
performed
A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make,
Which you have not redeemed ; indeed, paid down
More penitence than done trespass. At the last,
| Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil ;
With them, forgive yourself.
Leon. 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,
That heirless it hath made my kingdom, and
Destroyed the sweet’st companion that e’er man
Bred his hopes out of.
Paul. True, too true, my lord;
| If one by one you wedded all the world,
Or from the all that are took something good,Scene 1.] THE WINTERS TALE. 135

To make a perfect woman, she you killed
Would be unparalleled.
Leon. I think so. Killed!
She I killed ! I did so; but thou strik’st- me
Sorely, to say I did ; it is as bitter
Upon thy tongue, as in my thought. Now, good
now,
Say so but seldom.
Cleo. Not at all, good lady :
You might have spoken a thousand things that
would
Have done the time more benefit, and graced
Your kindness better.
Paul. You are one of those
Would have him wed again.
Dion. If you would not so,
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
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?THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act V.

Paul. There is none worthy,
Respecting her that’s gone. Besides, the gods
Will have fulfilled their secret purposes ;
For has not the divine Apollo said,
Ts ’t not the tenor of his oracle,
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,
Did perish with the infant. ’T is your counsel
My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
Oppose against their wills.—[7o Lronrss.] Care

not for issue ;

The crown will find an heir; great Alexander
Left his to the worthiest, so his sticcessor
Was like to be the best.

Leon. Good Paulina,—
Who hast the memory of Hermione,
I know, in honour,—O, that ever I
Had squared me to thy counsel !—then, even now,
I might have looked upon my queen’s full eyes,
Have taken treasure from her lips,—

Paul. And left them
More rich for what they yielded.

Leon. Thou speak’st truth.Scene L.| THE WINTER'S TALE. 137

No more such wives: therefore, no wife : one worse,
And better used, would make her sainted spirit
Again possess her corse, and on this stage—
Where we offend her now—appear, soul-vexed,
And begin ‘ Why to me—?’

Paul. Had she such power,
She had just cause.

Leon. She had ; and would incense me
To murder her I married.

Paul. I should so:
Were I the ghost that walked, I’d bid you mark
Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in ’t
You chose her; then I’d shriek, that even your

ears

Should rift to hear me, and the words that followed
Should be ‘Remember mine.’

Leon. Stars, stars,
And all eyes else dead coals,—Fear thou no wife:
I ll have no wife, Paulina.

Paul. Will you swear
Never to marry, but by my free leave?

Leon. Never, Paulina: so be blessed my spirit !

Paul. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his

oath.

Cleo. You tempt him overmuch.
Paul. Unless another138 THE WINTER’S TALE. [Act V.

As like Hermoine as is her picture,
A ffront his eye.
Cleo. Good madam,—
Paul. I have done.
Yet, if my lord will marry,—if you will, sir,
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, walked your first queen’s ghost, it should take
Joy
To see her in your arins. :
Leon. My true Paulina,
We shall not marry, till thou bidd’st us.
Paul. That
Shall be when your first queen’s again in breath :
Never till then.

Enter a Gentleman.

Gent. 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.

Leon. What with him? he comes not
Like to his father’s greatness ; his approach,
So out of circumstance and sudden, tells usScene L.] THE WINTER'S TALE.

’T is not a visitation framed, but forced
By need and accident. What train ?

Gent. But few,
And those but mean.

Leon. His princess, say you, with him!

Gent. Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, J

think,
That e’er the sun shone bright on.

Paul. O Hermione!
As every present time doth boast itself
Above a better, gone, so must thy grace
Give way to what’s seen now. Sir, you yourself
Have said and writ so, but your writing now
Is colder than that theme,—‘ She had not been,
Nor was not to be equalled ;’—thus your verse
Flowed with her beauty once: ’t is shrewdly

ebbed,
To say you have seen a better.

Gent. Pardon, madam:
The one I have almost forgot,—your pardon ;—
The other, when she has obtained 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
Of whom she but bid follow.
Paul. How! not women?ti 140 THE WINTER’S TALE. [Act V.

Gent. Women will love her, that she is a
woman
More worth than any man; men, that she is
The rarest of all women.

Leon. Go, Cleomenes ;
Yourself, assisted with your honoured friends,
Bring them to our embracement. — Still "t is

strange,
[Zxeunt CLEOMENES, Lords and Gentleman.
He thus should steal upon us.

Paul. Had our prince—
Jewel of children—seen this hour, he had paired
Well with this lord: there was not full a month
Between their births.

Leon. Pr’ythee, no more: cease: thou know’st,
He dies to me again, when talked of: sure,

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, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and
others.

Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince ;
For she did print your royal father off,
Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,

Your father’s image is so hit in you,Scene 1.] THE WINTER'S TALE.

His very air, that I should call you brother,
As I did him ; and speak of something, wildly
By us performed before. Most dearly welcome!
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,
Amity too, of your brave father ; whom,
Though bearing misery, I desire my life
Once more to look on him.
Flo. By his command
Have I here touched Sicilia ; and from him
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 wished ability, he had himself
The land and waters ’twixt your throne and his
Measured to look upon you, whom he loves—
He bade me say so—more than all the sceptres
And those that bear them living.
Leon. O my brother,
Good gentleman, the wrongs I have done thee
stir
Afresh within me; and these thy officesNy

 

142 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act V

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—
At least ungentle—of the dreadful Neptune,
To greet a man not worth her pains, much less
The adventure of her person?
Flo. Good my lord,
She came from Libya.
Leon. Where the warlike Smalus,
That noble, honoured lord, is feared and loved 3
Flo. Most royal sir, from thence; from him,
whose daughter
His tears proclaimed his, parting with her, thence,
A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have crossed,
To execute the charge my father gave me,

For visiting your highness. My best train

I have from your Sicilian shores dismissed,
Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
Not only my success in Libya, sir,
But my arrival, and my wife’s, in safety
Here, where we are.

Leon. The blesséd gods
Purge all infection from our air, whilst you
Do climate here! You have a holy father,

A graceful gentleman, against whose person,Scene 1.] THE WINTER S TALE. 143

So sacred as it is, I have done sin ;

For which the heavens, taking angry note,

Have left me issueless ; and your fatler’s blessed,
As he from heaven merits it, with you,

Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,
Might I a son and daughter now have looked on,

Such goodly things as you!

Enter a Lord.

Lord. Most noble sir,
That which I shall report will bear no credit,
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
A shepherd’s daughter.
Leon. Vhere’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
Whiles he was hastening—in the chase, it seems,
Of this fair couple—meets he on the way
The father of this seeming lady, and144:

   

THE WINTERS TALE, [Act V.

| Her brother, having both their country quitted
a With this young prince.
|i Flo. Camillo has betrayed 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.
Leon. 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 :
Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them
With divers deaths in death.
! Per. O my poor father !—
The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have

Our contract celebrated.

‘ cel

Leon. You are married ?

flo. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be;

cy

The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first :

The odds for high and low’s alike.

Leon. My lord,
Is this the daughter of a king ?
Flo. She is,

When once she is my wife.Scene 1. | THE WINTER'S TALE. 145

Leon. That once, I see, by your good father’s
speed,
Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,
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.
Flo. Dear, look up
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,
Step forth mine advocate: at your request,
My father will grant precious things as trifles.
Leon. Would he do so, I’d beg your precious
mistress,
Which he counts but a trifle.
Paul. Sir, my lege,
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.
Leon. I thought of her,
Even in these looks I made.—[ Zo Frorizeu.] But

your petitioncy)

146 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act V.

Is yet unanswered. 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,

And mark what way I make: come, good my
r
L

lord. Exeunt.

ScenE II.—The Same. Before the Palace

Enter Autotycus and a Gentleman.

Aut. ’Beseech you, sir, were you present at this

relation ?

oF

1 Gent. I was by at the opening of the fardel,
heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he
found it: whereupon, after a little amazedness, we
were all commanded out of the chamber ; only
this, methought I heard the shepherd say he found
the child.

Aut. I woulc

.
1

sn RE 3 Let : .
most gladly know the issue of it,

1 Gent. 1 make a broken delivery of the busi-
ness ; but the changes I perceived in the king and

Camillo, were very notes of admiration:

; Sob a ation: they
J 7] : eo a an . e F 17
seemed almost, with Staring on one another, to

tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in

their dumbness, language in their very gesture ;Scene 2.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 14?

tkey looked, as they had heard of a world ran-
somed, or one destroyed. A notable passion of
wonder appeared in them ; but the wisest beholder,
that knew no more but seeing, could not say, if
the importance were joy or sorrow, but in the

extremity of the one it must needs be.

~y

Enter another Gentleman.

Here comes a gentleman, that, haply, knows

more. The news, Rogero ?

2 Gent. Nothing but bonfires. The oracle is
fulfilled; the king’s daughter is found: such a
deal of wonder is broken out within this hour,
that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it.
Here comes the Lady Paulina’s steward: he can

deliver you more.

Enter a third Genileman.

How goes it now, sir? this news, which is called
true, is so like an old tale, that the verity of it is
in strong suspicion. Has the king found his heir }

3 Gent. Most true, ifever truth were pregnant
by circumstance: that which you hear you'll
swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs.
The mantle of Queen Hermione ;—her jewel about
the neck of it;—the letters of Antigonus found148 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act V.

with it, which they knew to be his character ;—
the majesty of the creature, in resemblance of the
mother ;—the affection of nobleness, which nature
shows above her breeding, and many other evid-
ences, proclaim her with all certainty to be the
king’s daughter. Did you see the meeting of the
two kings ?

2 Gent. No.

3 Gent. Then you have lost a sight which was
to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might you
have beheld one joy crown another; so, and in
such a manner, that it seemed, sorrow wept to
take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears,
There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands,
with countenance of such distraction, that they
were to be known by garment, not by favour.
Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for
joy of his found daughter, as if that joy were now
become a loss, cries, ‘‘O thy mother, thy mother !”
then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces
his son-in-law ; then again worries he his daughter
with clipping her ; now he thanks the old shepherd,
which stands by like a weather-bitten conduit of
many kings’ reigns. I never heard of such another
encounter, which lames report to follow it, and

undoes description to do it.Scene 2.] THE WINTER’S TALE.

2 Gent. What, pray you, became of Antigonus,
that carried hence the child 2

3 Gent. Like an old tale still, which will have
matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep, and not
an ear open. He was torn to pieces with a bear:
this avouches the shepherd’s son, who has not only
his innocence, which seems much, to justify him,
but a handkerchief, and rings of his, that Paulina
knows.

I Gent. What became of his bark, and his
followers ?

3 Gent. Wracked, the same instant of their
master’s death, and in the view of the shepherd :
so that all the instruments, which aided to expose
the child, were even then lost, when it was found.
But, O, the noble combat, that ’twixt joy and
sorrow was fought in Paulina! She had one eye
declined for the loss of her husband, another
elevated that the oracle was fulfilled: she lifted
the princess from the earth, and so locks her in
embracing, as if she would pin her to her heart,
that she might no more be in danger of losing.

1 Gent. The dignity of this act was worth the
audience of kings and princes, for by such was it
acted.

3 Gent.. One of the prettiest touches of all, andee

150 THE WINTERS TALE. [Act V

 

that which angled for mine eyes—caught the
water, though not the fish—was, when at the
relation of the queen’s death, with the manner how
she came to’t, bravely confessed and lamented by
the king, how attentiveness wounded his daughter ;
till, from one sign of dolour to another, she did,
with an alas! I would fain say, bleed tears, for, I

am sure 10 was MOSst

?

my heart wept blood. W
marble there, changed colour; some swooned, all
sorrowed : if all the world could have seen it, the
woe had been universal.

1 Gent. Are they returned to the court?

3 Gent. No; the princess hearing of her mother’s

statue, which is in the keeping of Paulina
3 tL oO 3

 

a
piece many years in doing, and now newly per-
formed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano ;
who, had he himself eternity, and could put breath

into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom,

fnead

ier ape: he so near to Her

so perfectly he is I
mione hath done Hermione, that, they say, one
would speak to her, and stand in hope of answer :

o

thither, with all greediness of affection, are they
gone ; and there they intend to sup.

2 Gent. I thought she had some great matter
there in hand, for she hath privately, twice or

thrice a day, ever since the death of Hermione,Scene 2.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 151

visited that removed house. Shall we thither,
and with our company piece the rejoicing ?

1 Gent. Who would be thence that has the
benefit of access? every wink of an eye, some new
grace will be born: our absence makes us unthrifty
to our knowledge. Let's along.

[ Hxeunt Gentlemen.

Aut. Now, had I not the dash of my former life
in me, would preferment drop on my head. I
brought the old man and his son aboard the
prince ; told him [I heard them talk of a fardel,
and I know not what; but he at that time, over-
fond of the shepherd’s daughter—so he then took
her to be—began to be much sea-sick, and himself
little better, extremity of weather continuing, this
mystery remained undiscovered. But ’tis all one
to me; for had I been the finder-out of this secret,
it would not have relished among my other dis-
credits.—Here come those I have done good to
against my will, and already appearing in the
blossoms of their fortune.

Enter Shepherd and Clown.

Shep. Come, boy : I am past more children ; but
thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born.
Clo. You are well met, sir. You denied to152 THE WINTERS TALE. [Act V.

fight with me this other day, because I was no
gentleman born: see you these clothes? say, you
see them not, and think me still no gentleman
born: you were best say, these robes are not
gentlemen born. Give me the lie, do, and try
whether I am not now a gentleman born.

Aut. I know, you are now, sir, a gentleman
born.

Clo. Ay, and have been so any time these four
hours.

Shep. And so have I, boy.

Clo. So you have ;—but I was a gentleman
born before my father, for the king’s son took me
by the hand, and called me, brother; and then
the two kings called my father, brother; and then
the prince my brother, and the princess, my sister,
called my father, father; and so we wept: and
there was the first gentleman-like tears that ever
we shed.

Shep. We may live, son, to shed many more.

Clo. Ay, or else ’t were hard luck, being in so
preposterous estate as we are.

Aut. I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me
all the faults I have committed to your worship,
and to give me your good report to the prince my

master,Scene 2.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 153

She». ’Pr’ythee, son, do; for we inust be gentle,
now we are gentlemen.

Clo. Thou wilt amend thy life ?

Aut. Ay, an it like your good worship.

Clo. Give me thy hand: I will swear to the
prince, thou art as honest a true fellow as any is
in Bohemia.

Shep. You may say it, but not swear it.

Clo. Not swear it, now [ama gentleman? Let
boors and franklins say it, I'll swear it.

Shep. How if it be false, son 1

Clo. If it be ne’er so false, a true gentleman

and [ll

swear to the prince, thou art a tall fellow of thy

 

may swear it in the behalf of his friend :

hands, and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I
know, thou art no tall fellow of thy hands, and
that thou wilt be drunk: but I’ll swear it, and J
would thou wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands.

Aut. I will prove so, sir, to my power.

Clo. Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow: if I
do not wonder how thou darest venture to be
drunk, not being a tall fellow, trust me not.—
Hark ! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are
going to see the queen’s picture. Come, follow us:
well be thy good masters. [ Lxeunt.THE WINTER'S TALE.

| ScenE III.—The Same. A Chapel in Pavnina’s
i} House.
Enter LEontES, PoLixenes, Fuorizet, Prrpira,
CAMILLO, Pautina, Lords, and Attendants.

Leon. O grave and good Paulina, the great
tH comfort
That I have had of thee!
Paul. What, sovereign sir,
I did not well, I meant well. All my services
You have paid home; but that you have vouchsafed
With your crowned brother, and these your con-
tracted
Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,
It is a surplus of your grace which never
. My life may last to answer.
i Leon. O Paulina!
We honour you with trouble. But we came
x To see the statue of our queen : your gallery
Have we passed through, not without much content
In many singularities, but we saw not
That which my daughter came to look upon,
The statue of her mother.
Paul. As she lived peerless,
So her dead likeness, I do well believe,Scene 8.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 155

Excels whatever yet you looked upon,

Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it

Lonely, apart. But here it is: prepare

To see the life as lively mocked as ever

Still sleep mocked death : behold; and say, ’t is well.
[PauLInA undraws a curtain, and discovers

HERMIONE as @ statue.

I like your silence: it the more shows off

Your wonder; but yet speak :—first you, my liege.

Comes it not something near ?

Leon. Her natural posture !—
Chide me, dear stone, that I may say, indeed,
Thou art Hermione ;, or, rather, thou art she
In thy not chiding, for she was as tender
As infancy and grace,—But yet, Paulina,
Hermione was not so much wrinkled ; nothing
So agéd, as this seems.

Pol. O, not by much.

Paul. So much the more our carver’s excellence ;
Which lets go by some sixteen years, and makes

her
As she lived now.

Leon. As now she might have done,
So much to my good comfort, as it is
Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,

Even with such life of majesty—warm life,cy

156 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act V.

As now it coldly stands—when first I wooed her.
T am ashamed : does not the stone rebuke me,
For being more stone than it ?—O royal piece !
There’s magic in thy majesty, which has
My evils conjured to remembrance, and
From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,
Standing like stone with thee.

Per. And give me leave,
And do not say ’tis superstition, that
I kneel, and then implore her blessing.—Lady,
Dear queen, that ended when I but began,
Give me that hand of yours to kiss.

Paul. ° O, patience !
The statue is but newly fixed, the colour’s
Not dry.

Cam. My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,
Which sixteen winters cannot blow away,
So many summers dry: scarce any joy
Did ever so long live ; no sorrow,
But killed itself much sooner.

Pol. Dear my brother,
Let him that was the cause of this have power
To take off so much grief from you as he
Will piece up in himself.

Paul. Indeed, my lord,
If I had thought, the sight of my poor imageTHE WINTER’S TALE.

 

Scene 3.]

 

Would thus have wrought you—for the stone is
mine—
I’d not have showed it.
Leon. Do not draw the curtain.
Paul. No longer shall you gaze on’t, lest your
fancy
May think anon it moves.
Leon. Let be, let be!
Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already—
What was he that did make it ?—See, my lord,
Would you not deem it breathed, and that those
veins
Did verily bear blood ?
Pol. Masterly done:
The very life seems warm upon her lip.
Leon. The fixture of her eye has motion in’t,
As we are mocked with art.
Paul. Ill draw the curtain.
My lord ’s almost so far transported, that
He’ll think anon it lives.
Leon. O sweet Paulina!
Make me to think so twenty years together ;
No settled senses of the world can match
The pleasure of that madness. Let ’t alone.
Paul. I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirred

you: butcy)

    

158 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act V.

I could afflict you further.

Leon. Do, Paulina ;
For this affliction has a taste as sweet
As any cordial comfort.—Still, methinks,
There is an air comes from her: what fine chisel
Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,
For I will kiss her.

Paul. Good my lord, forbear,
The ruddiness upon her lip is wet:
You ’ll mar it, if you kiss it ; stain your own
With oaly painting. Shall I draw the curtain?

Leon. No, not these twenty years,

Per. So long could I
Stand by, a looker-on,
Paul. Either forbear,

Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you
For more amazement. If you can behold it,
TI ’ll make the statue move indeed, descend
And take you by the hand ; but then you’ll think—
Which I protest against—I am assisted
By wicked powers.
Leon. What you can make her do,
I am content to look on: what to speak,
I am content to hear ; for ’tis as easy

To make her speak, as move.

Paul, It is required,Scene 3.] THE WINTER’S TALE. 159

You do awake your faith. Then, all stand still ;
Or those that think it is unlawful business
I am about, let them depart.

Leon. Proceed :
No foot shall stir
Paul. Music, awake her, strike !—[ Musie.

"T is time ; descend ; be stone no more: approach ;
Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come ;
T’ll fill your grave up: stir; nay, come away ;
Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him
Dear life redeems you.—You perceive, she stirs,
[HERMIONE descends from the pedestal,

Start not: her actions shall be holy, as
You hear my spell is lawful: do not shun her
Until you see her die again, for then
You kill her double. Nay, present your hand :
When she was young you wooed her ; now, in age,
Is she become the suitor.

Leon. [Embracing her.| O, she’s warm |!
If this be magic, let it be an art
Lawful as eating.

Pol. She embraces him.

Cam. She hangs about his neck.
If she pertain to life, let her speak too.

Pol. Ay; and make’t manifest where she has
lived,160 THE WINTER'S TALE. [Act V.

Or how stolen from the dead.

Paul. That she is living,
Were it but told you, should be hooted at
Like an old tale; but it appears she lives,
Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.—
Please you to interpose, fair madam: kneel,
And pray your mother’s blessing.—Turn, good lady;
Our Perdita is found.

[Perpita kneels to HERMIONE.

Her. You gods, look down,
And from your sacred vials pour your graces
Upon my daughter’s head !—Tell me, mine own,
Where hast thou been preserved? where lived,

how found

Thy father’s court? for thou shalt hear, that J,
Knowing by Paulina that the oracle
Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserved
Myself to see the issue.

Paul. There ’s time enough for that,
Lest they desire, upon this push, to trouble
Your joys with like relation.—Go together,
You precious winners all: your exultation
Partake to every one. I, an old turtle,
Will wing me to some withered bough, and there
My mate, that’s never to be found again,

Lament till I am lost.Scene 3.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 16]

Leon. O, peace, Paulina!
Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,
As I by thine a wife: this is a match,

And made between’s by vows. Thou hast found
mine ;

But how, is to be questioned : for I saw her,

As I thought, dead, and have in vain said many

A prayer upon her grave: I'll not seek far—

For him, I partly know his mind—to find thee

An honourable husband.—Come, Camillo,

And take her by .the hand: whose worth and
honesty

Is richly noted, and here justified

By us, a pair of kings.—Let’s from this place.—

What!— Look upon my brother:—both your
pardons,

That e’er I put between your holy looks

My ill suspicion.—This’ your son-in-law,

And son unto the king, whom heavens directing

Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,

Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely

Each one demand, and answer to his part

Performed in this wide gap of time, since first

We were dissevered : hastily lead away.

[ Hxewnt.PANDOSTO ;
OR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME.

By RoBERT GREENE.

 

AmonG all the passions wherewith human minds are perplexed,
there is none that so galleth with restless despite, as the in-
fectious sore of jealousy ; for all other griefs are either to be
appeased with sensible persuasions, to be cured with whole-
some counsel, to be relieved in want, or by tract of time to be
worn out, jealousy only excepted, which is so sauced with sus-
picious doubts and pinching mistrust, that whoso seeks by
friendly counsel to rase out this hellish passion, is forthwith
suspected that he giveth this advice to cover his own guiltiness.
Yea, whoso is pained with this restless torment doubteth all,
distrusteth himself, is always frozen with fear, and fired with
suspicion, having that wherein consisteth all his joy to be the
breeder of his misery. Yea, it is such a heavy enemy to that
holy estate of matrimony, sowing between the married couples
such deadly seeds of secret hatred, as love being once rased
out by spiteful distrust, there oft ensueth bloody revenge, as
this ensuing history manifestly proveth: wherein Pandosto,
furiously incensed by causeless jealousy, procured the death
of his most loving and loyal wife, and his own endless sorrow
and misery.

In the country of Bohemia there reigned a king called
Pandosto, whose fortunate success in wars against his foes,
and bountiful courtesy towards his friends in peace, made
him to be greatly feared and loved of all men. This Pandosto
had to wife a lady called Bellaria, by birth royal, learned by
education, fair by nature, by virtues famous, so that it was
hard to judge whether her beauty, fortune, or virtue, won the
greatest commendations. These two, linked together in per-
fect love, led their lives with such fortunate content, that
their subjects greatly rejoiced to see their quiet disposition.
They had not been married long, but Fortune, willing to in-
crease their happiness, lent them a son, so adorned with the
gifts of nature, as the perfection of the child greatly augmented
the love of the parents, and the joys of their commons ; in 80164 PANDOSTO;

much that the Bohemians, to show their inward joys by out-
ward actions, made bonfires and triumphs thoughout all the
kingdom, appointing jousts and tourneys for the honour of
their young prince; whither resorted not only his nobles, but
also divers kings and princes which were his neighbours,
willing to show their friendship they ought to Pandosto, and
to win fame and glory by their prowess and valour. Pandosto,
whose mind was Fanatb with princely liberality, entertained
the kings, princes, and noblemen with such submiss courtesy
and magnifical bounty, that they all saw how willing he was
to gratify their good wills, making a feast for subjects, which
continued by the space of twenty days; all which time the
jousts and tourneys were kept to the great content both of the
lords and ladies there present. This soiemn triumph being
once ended, the assembly, taking their leave of Pandosto and
Bellaria : the young son (who was called Garinter) was nursed
up in the house to the great joy and content of the parents.

Fortune, envious of such happy success, willing to show
some sign of her inconstancy, turned her wheel, and darkened
their bright sun of prosperity with the misty clouds of mis-
hap and misery. For it so happened that Egistus, King of
Sicilia, who in his youth had been brought up with Pandosto,
desirous to show that neither tract of time nor distance of
place could diminish their former friendship, provided a navy
of ships, and sailed into Bohemia, to visit his old friend and
companion, who, hearing of his arrival, went himself in per-
son, and his wife Bellaria, accompanied with a great train of
lords and ladies, to meet Egistus; and espying him, alighted
from his horse, embraced a very lovingly, protesting that
nothing in the world could have hi: :ppened more acceptable to
him than his coming, wishing his wife to welcome his old
friend and acquaintance ; who (to show how she liked him
whom her husband loved) entertained him with such familiar
courtesy, as Egistus perceived himself to be very well welcome.
After they had thus saluted and ea eeen each other they
mounted again on horseback and rode towards the city, de-
vising and recounting how, being children, they had nat
their youth in friendly pastimes ; where, by the means of +
citizens, Egistus was received with triumphs and Shee in
such sort, that he marvelled how on so small a warning they
could make such preparations.

Passing the streets thus with such rare sights, they rode on
to the palace, where Pandosto entertained Egistus and his
Sicilians with such banqueting and sumptuous cheer, so
royally, as they all had cause to commend his princely
liberality ; yea, the very basest slave that was known to comeOR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 165

from Sicilia was used with such courtesy, that Egistus might
easily perceive how both he and his were honoured for his
friend’s sake. lBellaria, who in her time was the flower of
courtesy, willing to show how unfeignedly she loved her hus-
band by his friend’s entertainment, used him likewise so
familiarly that her countenance betrayed how her mind was
affected towards him: oftentimes coming herself into his bed-
chamber, to see that nothing should be amiss to mislike him.
Tis honest familiarity increased daily more and more betwixt
them ; for Bellaria, noting in Egistus a princely and bountiful
mind, adorned with sundry and excellent qualities, and
Egistus, finding in her a virtuous and courteous disposition,
there grew such a secret uniting of their affections, that the
one could not well be without the company of the other; in
so much that when Pandosto was busied with such urgent
affairs, that he could not be present with his friend Egistus,
Bellaria would walk with him into the garden, where they
two in private and pleasant devices would pass away the time
to both their contents. This custom still continuing betwixt
them, a certain melancholy passion entering the mind of
Pandosto drove him into sundry and doubtful thoughts.
First he called to mind the beauty of his wife Bellaria, the
comeliness and bravery of his friend Egistus, thinking that
love was above all laws and therefore to be stayed with no
law; that it was hard to put fire and flax together without
burning: that their open pleasures might breed his secret dis-
pleasures. He considered with himself that Egistus was a
man, and must needs love; that his wife was a woman, and
therefore subject unto love, and that where fancy forced,
friendship was of no force.

These and such like doubtful thoughts a long time smother-
ing in his stomach, began at last to kindle in his mind a secret
mistrust which, increased by suspicion, grew at last to be a
flaming jealousy that so tormented him as he could take no
rest. He then began to measure all their actions, and to mis-
construe of their too private familiarity, judging that it was
not for honest affection, but for disordinate fancy, so that he
began to watch them more narrowly to see if he could get any
true or certain proof to confirm his doubtful suspicion. While
thus he noted their sooks and gestures, and suspected their
thoughts and meanings, they two seely souls who doubted ,
nothing of this his treacherous intent, frequented daily each
other’s company, which drove him into such a frantic passion,
that he began to bear a secret hate to Egistus, and a lowering
countenance to Bellaria, who, marvelling at such unaccus-
tomed frowns, began to cast beyond the moon, and to enter166 PANDOSTO ;

into a thousand sundry thoughts, which way she should offend
her husband : but finding in herself a clear conscience, ceased
to muse, na such time as she might find fit opportunity to
demand the cause of his oe In the meantime Pandosto’'s
mind was so far charged with ea sy, that he did no longer
doubt, but was assured (as Hed thought) that his 5 fri end EKgistus
had entered a wrong point in his tables, and so had played
him false play ; whereupon desirous to revenge so great an
injury, he thought best to dissemble the grudge with a fair
and friendly countenance : and so under the sh 1ape of ; friend,
to show him the trick of a foe. Devising with himself a long
time how he might best put away Egistus without suspicion of
treacherous murder, he concluded at last to poison him; which
opinion, pleasing his humour, he became resolute in his deter
mination, and the better to bring the matter to pass he called
unto him his cupbearer, with whom in secret he brake the
matter: promising to him for the performance thereof to give
him a thousand crowns of yearly revenues. His cupbearer,
either being of a good conscience, or willing for fashion sake
to deny such a bloody request, began with great reasons to
persuade Pandosto from his determinate mischief ; showing
him what an offence murder was to the gods, how such un-
natural actions did more displease the heavens than men, and
that causeless cruelty did seldom or never escape without re-
venge. He laid before his face that Egistus was his friend, a
king, and<one that was come into his kingdom to confirm a
league of perpetual amity betwixt them; that he had, and did
show him a most frien: lly countenance ; how Egistus was not
only honoured of his own people by obedience, but also loved
of the Bohemians for his courtesy. And that if he now should,
without any jist or manifest cause, poison him, it would not
only be a great dishonour to his majesty, and a means to sow
perpetual enmity between the Sicilians and the Bohemians,
but also his own subjects would repine of such treacherous
cruelty. These and such like persuasions of Franion (for so
was his cupbearer called) could no whit prevail to dissuade
him from his devilish enterprise : but remaining resolute in
his determination, his fury so fired with rage, as it could not
be appeased with reason, he began with bitter taunts to take
up his man, and to lay before him two baits—preferment and
death: saying that if he would poison Egistus he would
advance him to high dignities; if he refused to do it of an
obstinate mind, no kortaes should be too great to requite his
disobedience. Franion, seeing that to persuade Pandosto any
more was but to strive ag: inst the stream, consented, as soon
as an opportunity would give him leave, to despatch Egistus:OR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 167

wherewith Pandosto remained somewhat satisfied, hoping now
he should be fully revenged of such mistrusted injuries, in-
tending also, as soon as Egistus was dead, to give his wife a
sop of the same sauce, and so be rid of those which were the
cause of his restless sorrow. While thus he lived in this hope,
Franion being secret in his chamber, began to meditate with
himself in these terms.

[These terms omitted. ]

Franion having muttered out these or such like words,
seeing either he must die with a clear mind, or live with a
spotted conscience, he was so cumbered with divers cogitations
that he could take no rest: until at last he determined to
break the matter to Egistus ; but fearing that the king should
either suspect or hear of such matters, he concealed the device
till opportunity would permit him to reveal it. Lingering
thus in doubtful fear, inan evening he went to Kgistus’
lodging, and desirous to break with him of certain affairs that
touched the king, after all were commanded out of the
chamber, Franion made manifest the whole conspiracy which
Pandosto had devised against him, desiring Egistus not to
account him a traitor for betraying his master’s counsel, but
to think that he did it for conscience : hoping that although
his master inflamed with rage, or incensed by some sinister
reports, or slanderous speeches, had imagined such causeless
mischief, yet when time should pacify his anger, and try
those talebearers but flattering parasites, then he would count
him as a faithful servant that with such care had kept his
master’s credit. Egistus had not fully heard Franion tell
forth his tale, but a quaking fear possessed all his limbs,
thinking that there was some treason wrought, and that
Franion did but shadow his craft with these false colours:
wherefore he began to wax in choler, and said that he doubted
not Pandosto, since he was his friend, and there had never as
yet been any breach of amity; he had not sought to invade
his lands, to conspire with his enemies, to dissuade his sub-
jects from their allegiance; but in word and thought he rested
his at all times: he knew not therefore any cause that should
move Pandosto to seek his death, but suspected it to be a com-
pact knavery of the Bohemians to bring the king and him te
odds.

Franion staying him the midst of his talk, told him that to
dally with princes was with the swans to sing against their
death, and that if the Bohemians had intended any such mis-
chief it might have been better brought to pass than by
revealing the conspiracy; therefore his majesty did ill to
misconstrue of his good meaning, since his intent was to168 PANDOSTO;

hinder treason, not to become a traitor; and to confirm his
promises, if it pleased his majesty to fly into Sicilia for the
safeguard of his life, he would go with him, and if then he
found not such a practice to be pretended, let his imagined
treachery be repaid with most monstrous torments. LKgistus,
hearing the solemn protestation of Franion, began to consider,
that in love and kingdoms neither faith nor law is to be re-
spected; doubting that Pandosto thought by his death to
destroy his men, and with speedy war to invade Sicilia.
These and such doubts thoroughly weighed, he gave great
thanks to Franion, promising if he might with life return to
Syracusa, that he would create him a duke in Sicilia: craving
his counsel how he might escape out of the country. Franion,
who having some small skill in navigation, was well acquainted
with the ports and havens, and knew every danger in the sea,
joining in counsel with the master of Egistus’ navy, rigged all
their ships, and setting them afloat, let them lie at anchor,
to be in the more readiness, when time and wind should serve.

Fortune, although blind, yet by chance favouring this just
cause, sent them within six days a good gale of wind; which
Franion seeing fit for their purpose, to put Pandosto out of sus-
picion, the night before they should sail, he went to him and
promised that the next day he would put the device in prac-
tice, for he had got such a forcible poison, as the very smell
thereof would procure sudden death. Pandosto was joyful to
hear this good news, and thought every hour a day till he
might be glutted with bloody revenge ; but his suit had but ill
success. For Egistus fearing that delay might breed danger,
and willing that the grass should not be cut from under his
feet, taking bag and baggage, by the help of Franion, conveyed
himself and his men out of a postern gate of the city so secretly
and speedily, that without any suspicion they got to the sea
shore ; where, with many a bitter curse taking their leave of
Bohemia, they went aboard. Weighing their anchors and
hoisting sail, they passed as fast as wind and sea would permit
towards Sicilia: Egistus being a joyful man that he had safely
passed such treacherous perils. But as they were quietly float-
ing on the sea, so Pandosto and his citizens were in an uproar 3;
for seeing that the Sicilians without taking their leave were
fled away by night, the Bohemians feared some ‘treason, and
the king thought that without question his sus>icion was true,
‘seeing the cupbearer had betrayed the sum ox his secret pre-
tence. Whereupon he began to imagine that Franion and his
wife Bellaria had conspired with Egistus, and that the fervent
affection she bare him was the only means of his secret de-
parture; in so much that, incensed with rage, he commandedOR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 169

that his wife should be carried straight to prison, until they
heard further of his pleasure. The guard, unwilling to lay
their hands on such a virtuous princess, and yet fearing the
king's fury, went very sorrowful to fulfil their charge : coming
to the queen’s lodging, they found her playing with her young
son Garinter: unto whom with tears doing the message,
Bellaria astonished at such a hard censure, and finding her
clear conscience a sure advocate to plead in her cause, went to
the prison most willingly: where with sighs and tears she
passed away the time till she might come to her trial.

But Pandosto, whose reason was suppressed with rage, and
whose unbridled folly was incensed with fury, seeing Franion
had betrayed his secrets, and that Egistus might well be railed
on, but not revenged, determined to wreak all his wrath on

oor Bellaria. He therefore caused a general proclamation to
e made through all his realm, that the queen and Egistus
had, by the help of Franion, not only committed most in-
cestuous adultery, but also had conspired the king's death ;
whereupon the traitor Franion was fled away with Egistus,
and Bellaria was most justly imprisoned. This proclamation
being once blazed through the country, although the virtuous
disposition of the queen did half discredit the contents, yet
the sudden and speedy passage of Egistus, and the secret
departure of Franion, induced them, the circumstances
thoroughly considered, to think that both the proclamation
was true and the king greatly injured: yet they pitied her
case, as sorrowful that so good a lady should be crossed with
such adverse fortune. But the king, whose restless rage
would remit no pity, thought that although he might sufficiently
requite his wife’s falsehood with the bitter plague of pinching
penury, yet his mind should never be glutted with revenge
till he might have fit time and opportunity to repay the
treachery of Kgistus with a total injury. But a curst cow
hath oftentimes short horns, and a willing mind but a weak
arm. For Pandosto, although he felt that revenge was a spur
to war, and that envy always proffereth steel, yet he saw
that Egistus was not only of great puissance and prowess to
withstand him, but had also many kings of his alliance to aid
him, if need should serve: for he married the Emperor’s
daughter of Russia. These and the like considerations some-
thing daunted Pandosto his courage, so that he was content
rather to put up a manifest injury with peace than hunt after
revenge, dishonour, and loss; determining since Egistus had
escaped scot-free, that Bellaria should pay for all at an un-
reasonable price.
Remaining thus resolute in his determination, Bellaria170

PANDOSTO;

continuing still in prison and hearing the contents of the pro-
clamation, knowing that her mind was never touched with such
affection, nor that Egistus had ever offered her such discourtesy,
would gladly have come to her answer, that both she might
have known her just accusers and cleared herself of that guilt-
less crime.

But Pandosto was so inflamed with rage and infected with
jealousy as he would not vouchsafe to hear her, nor admit
any just excuse ; so that she was fain to make a virtue of her
need and with patience to bear those heavy injuries. As thus
she lay crossed with calamities, a great cause to increase her
grief, she found herself quick with child : which as soon as she
felt stir in her body, she burst forth into bitter tears, exclaiming
against Fortune in these terms.

[These terms omitted. |

And with that, such gasping sighs so stopping her breath
that she could not utter more words, but wringing her hands
and gushing forth streams of tears, she passed away the time
with bitter complaints. The jailor pitying those her heavy
passions, thinking that if the king knew she were with child,
he would somewhat appease his fury and release her from
prison, went in all haste, and certified Pandosto what the
effect of Bellaria’s complaint was ; who no sooner heard the
jailor say she was with child, but as one possessed with a
frenzy, he rose up in a rage, swearing that she and the bas-
tard brat she waS withal should die, if the gods themselves
said no: thinking that surely by computation of time that
Egistus and not he was father to the child. This suspicious
thought galled afresh this half-healed sore, insomuch as he
could take no rest until he might mitigate his choler with a
just revenge, which happened presently after. For Bellaria
was brought to bed of a fair and beautiful daughter : which no
sooner Pandosto heard, but he determined that both Bellaria
and the young infant should be burnt with fire. His nobles,
hearing of the king’s cruel sentence, sdught by persuasions to
divert him from his bloody determination : laying before his
face the innocency of the child, and virtuous disposition of his
wife, how she had continually loved and honoured him so
tenderly, that without due proof he could not, nor ought not
to appeach her of that crime. Andif she had faulted, yet it
were more honourable to pardon with mercy than to punish
with extremity ; and more kingly to be commended of pity
than accused of rigour: and as for the child, if he should
punish it for the mother’s offence, it were to strive against
nature and justice; and that unnatural actions do more offend
the gods than men: how causeless cruelty nor innocent bloodOR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIMER. 17

never scapes without revenge. These and such like reasons
could not appease his rage, but he rested resolute in this, that
he would not ‘suffer that such an infamous brat should call him
father. Yet at last, seeing his noblemen were importunate
upon him, he was content to spare the child’s life, and yet put
it to a worse death. For he found out this device, that seeing
(as he thought) it came by Fortune, so he would commit it to
the charge of Fortune, and therefore caused a little cock-boat
to be provide -d, wherein he meant to put the babe, and then
sent it to the mercies of the seas and the destinies. From this
his peers in no wise could persuade | 1im, but that he sent pre-
sently two of his guard to fetch the c hild: who being come to
the prison, and with w eeping tears recounting their master’s
message, Bellaria no peau beard the rigorous resolution of her
merciless husband, but she fell down in a swoon, so that all
thought she had been dead: yet at last being come to herself,
she cried and screeched out in this wise.

{Her lament is omitted. ]

Such, and so great was her grief, that her vital spirits being
suppressed with sorrow, she ‘fell again down into a trance,
having her senses so sotted with care, that after she was re-
vived yet she lost her memory, and lay for a great time with-
out moving, as one in a trance. The guard left her in this
perplexity, and carried the child to the king, who, quite devoid
of pity, commanded that without delay it should be put in the
boat, having neither sail nor rudder to guide it, and so to be
carried into the midst of the sea, and there left to the wind
and wave as the destinies please to ape The very ship-
men, seeing the sweet countenance of the young babe, began
to accuse the king of rigour, and to pity the child’s hard for-
tune : but fear constrained them to that which their nature
did abhor;.so that they placed it in one of the ends of the
boat, and with a few green boughs made a homely cabin to
shroud it as they could from wind and weather. Having thus
trimmed the boat they tied it to a ship, and so haled it into
the main sea, and then cut in sunder the cord, which they had
no sooner foe but there arose a mighty tempest, which tossed
the little boat so vehemently in the waves. that the shipmen
thought it could not long continue without sinking, yea the
the storm grew so great, that with much labour and peril they
got to the shore.

But leaving the child to her fortunes, again to Pandosto,
who not yet glutted with sufficient revenge, devised which way
he should best increase his wife’s calamity. But first as-
sembling his nobles and counsellors, he called her for the
more reproach into open court, where it was objected against172 PANDOSTO;

her that she had committed adultery with Egistus, and con-
spired with Franion to poe Pandosto her husband, but theit
pretence being partly spied, she cor inselled them to fly away
by night for their better safety. Bellaria, who, standing like
a prisoner at the bar, feeling in herself a clear conscience to
withstand her false accusers, seeing that no less than death
could pacify | no husband’s wr ‘ath, waxed bold, and desired that
she might have law and justice, for mercy she neither craved
nor hoped for; and that those per, wee wretches which had
falsely accused her to the king might be brot ght before her
face to give in evidence. But Pandost to, whose rage and
jealousy was such no reason nor equity ald appease, told
her, that for her accusers they were of such Sat as their
words were sufficient witness, and that the sudden and secret
flight of -Egistus and Franion confirmed that which they had
confessed; and as for her, it was her part to deny such a
monstrous eau and to be impudent in forswe aring the fact,
since she had passed all shame in committing the ault: but
her stale countenance should stand for no coin, for as the bas-
tard which she bare was served, so she should aah some cruel
death be requited. Bellaria, no whit dismayed with this rough
reply, told her husband Pandesto, that he spoke upon choler,
and not conscience: for her virtuous life had been os such
as no spot of suspicion could ever stain. And if she had borne
a friendly countenance to Egistus, it was in respect he was his
friend, and not for any lusting affection: therefore if she were
condemned without any further proof, it was rigour, and not
law.

The noblemen which sat in judgment said that Bellaria
spake reason, and entreated the king that the accusers might
be openly examined, and sworn, and if then the evidence were
such as the jury might find her guilty (fcr seeing she was a
princess she ought to be tried by her peers), then let her have
such punishment as the extremity of the law will assign to
such malefactors. The king piesa made answer, that in
this case he might and would ee with the law, and that
the jury being once panel aa. fis should take his word for
sufficient evidence, otherwise he would make the proudest of
them repent it. The noblemen seeing the king in choler were
all whist, but Beliaria, whose life then hung in the balance,
fearing more perpetual infamy than momentary death, told
the king, if his fury might stand for a law that it were vain to
have the jury yield their verdict; and therefore she fell down
upon her knees, and desired the king that for the love he bare
to his young son Garinter, whom she brought into the world,
that he would grant her a request, which was this, that it

1é
1
IOR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 173

would please his majesty to send six of his noblemen whom he

best trusted to the Isle of Delphos, there to inquire of the

Oracle of Apollo, whether she had committed adultery with

Egistus, or conspired to poison with Franion ; and if the god

Apollo, who by his divine essence knew all se rets, gave

answer that she was guilty, she were content to suffer any

torment, were it never so terrible. The request was so
reasonable, that Pandosto could not for shame deny it, unless
he would be caunted of all his subjects more wilful than wise,
he therefore agreed, that with as much speed as might be
there should be certain ambassadors dispatched to the isle of

Delphos ; and in the mean season he commanded that his wife

should be kept in close prison.

Bellaria having obtained this grant was now more careful
for her little babe that fioated on the seas than sorrowful for
her own mishap. For of that she doubted : of herself she was
assured, knowing if Apollo should give oracle according to the
thoughts of the heart, yet the sentence should go on her side,
such was the clearness of her mind in thiscase. But Pandosto
(whose susyicious head still remained in one song) chose out six
of his nobility, whom he knew were scarce indifferent men in
the queen’s behalf, and providing all things fit for their
journey, sent them to Delphos. They willing to fulfil the
king’s command, and desirous to see the situation and custom
of the island, despatched their affairs with as much speed as
might be, and embarked themselves to this voyage, which (the
wind and weather serving fit for their purpose) was soon
ended. For within three weeks they arrived at Delphos,
where they were no sooner set on land, but with great devotion
they went to the Temple of Apollo, and there offering sacrifice
to the god, and gifts to the priest, as the custom was, they
humbly craved an answer of theirdemand. They had not long
kneeled at the altar, but Apollo with a loud voice said:
‘* Bohemians, what you find behind the altar take and depart.”
They forthwith obeying the oracle, found a scroll of parchment
wherein was written these words in letters of gold :

THE ORACLE.

Suspicion is no proof ; Jealousy is an unequal judge ; Bellaria
is chaste; Lgistus blameless; Franion a true -sulyect ;
Pandosto treacherous ; His babe an innocent, and the king
shall live without an heir if that which is lost be not found.

As soon as they had taken out this scroll the priest of the
god commanded them that they should not presume to read it
before they came in the presence of Pandosto, unless they
would incur the displeasure of Apollo. The Bohemian lords174 PANDOSTO;

carefully obeying his command, taking their leave of the priest,
with great reverence departed out of the temple, and went to
their ships, and as soon as wind would permit them, sailed
towards Bohemia, whither in short time they safely arrived,
and with great triumph issuing out of their ships went to the
kine’s palace, whom they fovnd in his chamber accompanied
with other noblemen. Pandosto no sooner saw them, but with
a merry countenance he welecmed them home, asking what
news. They told his majesty that they had received an
answer of the god written in a scroll, but with this charge,
that they should not read the contents before they came in the
presence of the king, and with that they delivered him the
parchment ; but his noblemen entreated him that since therein
was contained either the safety of his wife’s life and honesty,
or her death and perpetual infamy, that he would have his
nobles and commons assembled in the judgment-hall, where
the queen, brought in as a prisoner, should hear the contents ;
if she were found guilty by the oracle of the god, then all
should have cause to think his rigour proceeded of due desert ;
if her grace were found faultless, then she should be cleared
before all, since she had been accused openly. This pleased
the king so, that he appointed the day, and assembled all his
Lords and Commons, and caused the queen to be brought in
before the judgment seat, commanding that the indictment
should be read, wherein she was accused of adultery with
Egistus, and of conspiracy with Franion ; Bellaria hearing the
contents, was no whit astonished, but made this cheerful
answer,

[Cheerful answer omitted. |

3ellaria had no sooner said, but the king commanded that
one of his dukes should read the contents of the scroll; which
after the commons had heard, they gave a great shout, re-
joicing and clapping their hands that the queen was clear of
that false accusation: But the king, whose conscience was a
witness against him of his witless fury, and false suspected
jealousy, was so ashamed of his rash folly, that he en¢reated
tis nobles to persuade Bellaria to forgive and forget these
injuries : promising not only to show himself a loyal and
loving husband, but also to reconcile himself to Egistus and
Franion ; revealing then before them all the cause of their
secret flight, and how treacherously he thought to have
practised his death, if the good mind of his cupbearer had not
prevented his purpose. As thus he was relating the whole
matter, there was word brought him that his young son
Garinter was suddenly dead, which news so soon as Bellaria
heard, surcharged before with extreme joy, and now suppressedOR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 175

with heavy sorrow, her vital spirits were so stopped, that she
fell down presently dead, and could never be revived. This
sudden sight so appalled the king’s senses, that he sank from
his seat in a swoon, so as he was fain to be carried by his nobles
to his palage, where he lay by the space of three days without
speech : his commons were as men in despair, so diversely dis-
tressed ; there was nothing but mourning and lamentation to
be heard throughout all Bohemia; their young prince dead,
their virtuous queen bereaved of her life, and their king and
sovereign in great hazard : this tragical discourse of Fortune so
daunted them, as they went like shadows, not men ; yet some-
what to comfort their heavy hearts, they heard that Pandosto
was come to himself, and had recovered his speech, who as iff
a fury brayed out these bitter speeches.

[These bitter speeches omitted. ]

And with that he reached at a rapier, to have murdered him-
self, but his peers being present, stayed him from such a bloody
act; persuading him to think that the commonwealth con-
sisted on his safety, and that those sheep could not but perish
that wanted a shepherd ; wishing that if he would not live for
himself, yet he should have care of his subjects, and to put
such fancies out of his mind, since in sores past help, salves do
not heal, but hurt ; and in things past cure, care is a corrosive.
With these and such like persuasions the king was overcome,
and began somewhat to quiet his mind ; so that as soon as he
could go abroad, he caused his wife to be embalmed, and
wrapped in lead with her young son Garinter ; erecting a rich
and famous sepulchre, wherein he entombed them both, making
such solemn obsequies at her funeral as all Bohemia might
perceive he did greatly repent him of his forepassed folly :
causing this epitaph to be engraven on her tomb in letters of
gold :

THE EPITAPH.
Here lies entombed Bellaria fair,
Falsely accused to be unchaste :
Cleared by Apollo's sacred doom,
Yet slain by jealousy at last.
Whate er thou be that passeth by,
Curse him that caused this Queen to die.

This epitaph being engraven, Pandosto would once a day
repair to the tomb, and there with watery plaints bewail his
misfortune ; coveting no other companion but sorrow, nor no
other harmony but repentance. But leaving him to his
dolorous passions, at last let us come to show the tragical dis
course of the young infant.PANDOSTO;

Who being tossed with wind and wave, floated two whole
days without succour, ready at every puff to be drowned in the
sea, till at last the tempest ceased, and .the little boat was
driven with the tide into the coast of Sicilia, where, sticking
upon the sands, it rested. Fortune, minding to be wanton,
willing to show that as she hath wrinkles on her brows, so she
hath dimples in her cheeks ; thought after so many sour looks,
to lend a feigned smile, and after a puffing storm, to bring a
pretty calm; she began thus to dally. It fortuned a poor
mercenary shepherd, that dwelled in Sicilia, who got his living
by other men’s flocks, missed one of his sheep, and thinking it
had strayed into the covert, that was hard by, sought very
diligently to find that which he could not see, fearing either
that the wolves or eagles had undone him, for he was so poor,
as a sheep was half his substance, wandered down towards the
sea cliffs, to see if perchance the sheep was browsing on the
sea ivy, whereon they greatly do feed, but not Gnding her
there, as he was ready to return to his flock, he heard a child
ery ; but knowing that there was no house near, he thought he
had mistaken the sound, and that it was the bleating of his
sheep. Wherefore looking more narrowly, as he cast his eye
to the sea, he spied a little boat, from whence as he attentively
listened, he might hear the cry to come. Standing a good
while in amazement, at last he went to the shore, and wading
to the boat, as he looked in, he saw the little babe lying all
alone, ready to die for hunger and cold, wrapped in a mantle of
scarlet, richly embroidered with gold, and having a chain about
the neck. .

The shepherd, who before had never seen so fair a habe nor
so rich jewels, thought assuredly, that it was some little god,
and began with great devotion to knock on his breast. The
babe, who writhed with the head to seek for the pap, began
again to cry afresh, whereby the poor man knew that it was a
child, which by some sinister means was driven thither by dis-
tress of weather; marvelling how such a seely infant, which,
by the mantle and the chain, could not be but born of noble
parentage, should be so hardly crossed with deadly mishap.
The poor shepherd, perplexed thus with divers thoughts, took
pity of the child, and determined with himself to carry it to
the king, that there it might be brought up according to the
worthiness of birth: for his ability could not afford to foster
it, though his good mind was willing to further it. Taking
therefore the child in his arms, as he folded the mantle to-
gether, the better to defend it from cold, there fell down at
his foot a very fair and rich purse, wherein he found a great
sum of gold: which sight so revived the shepherd's spirits, asOR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. EUG

he was greatly ravished with joy, and daunted with fear; joy-
ful to see such a sum in his power, and fearful, if it should be
known, that it might breed his further danger. Necessity
wished him at the least to retain the gold, though he would
not keep the child : the simplicity of his conscience scared him
from such deceitful bribery. Thus was the poor man per-
plexed with a doubtful dilemma, until at last the covetousness
of the coin overcame him: for what will not the greedy desire
of gold cause a man to do? So that he was resolved in him-
self to foster the child, and with the sum to relieve his want.
Resting thus resolute in this point, he left seeking of his sheep,
and, as covertly and secretly as he could, went by a by-way
to his house, lest any of his neighbours should perceive his
carriage. As soon as he was got home, entering in at the door,
the child began to cry, which his wife hearing, and seeing her
husband with a young babe in his arms, began to be somewhat
jealous . .*'. . . but at last, when he showed her the
purse full of gold, she began to simper something sweetly, and
taking her husband about the neck kissed him after her homely
fashion: saying that she hoped God had seen their want, and
now meant to relieve their poverty, and, seeing they could
get no children, had sent them this little babe to be their heir.
“‘Take heed in any case,” quoth the shepherd, ‘‘that you be
secret, and blab it not out when you meet with your gossips;
for if you do, we are like not only to lose the gold and jewels,
but our other goods and lives.” ‘‘Tush,” quoth his wife,
‘*profit is a good hatch before the door: fear not, I have
other things to talk of than of this: but, I pray you, let us lay
up the money surely, and the jewels, least by any mishap it be
spied.”

After that they had set all things in order, the shepherd
went to his sheep with a merry note, and the good wife learned
to sing lullaby at home with her young babe, wrapping it ina
homely blanket instead of a rich mantle; nourishing it so
cleanly and carefully as it began to be a jolly girl, insomuch
that they began both of them to be very fond of it, seeing as it
waxed in age, so it increased in beauty. The shepherd, every
night at his coming home, would sing and dance it on his knee,
and prattle, that in a short time it began to speak, and call
him dad, and her mam. At last when it grew to ripe years,
that it was about seven years old, the shepherd left keeping of
other men’s sheep, and with the money he found in the purse
he bought him the lease of a pretty farm, and got a small flock
of sheep, which, when Fawnia (for so they named the child)
came to the age of ten years, he set her to keep; and she with
such diligence performed her charge as the sheep prospered17

 

8 PANDOSTO

marvellously under her hand. Fawnia thought Porrus had
been her father, and Mopsa her mother (for so was the shep-
herd and his wife called), honoured and obeyed them with
such reverence that all the neighbours praised the dutiful
obedience of the child. Porrus grew ina short time to be a man
of some wealth and credit, for fortune so favoured him in
having no charge but Fawnia that he began to purchase land,
intending after his death to give it to his daughter ; so that
divers rich farmers’ sons came as wooers to his house: for
Fawnia was something cleanly attired, being of such singular
beauty and excellent wit that whosoever saw her would have
thought she had been some heave nly nymph, and not a mortal
creature : insomuch that when she came to the age of sixteen
years, she so increased with exquisite perfection both of body
and mind, as her natural disposition did betray that she was
born of some high parentage. ‘But the people, thinking she was
daughter to the shepherd Porrus, rested only amazed at her
beauty and wit; yea, she won such favour and commendations

in every man’s eye, as hi * beauty was not only praised in the
country, but also Sole of in ae court : yet such was her
submissive modesty that, al hough her praise daily increased,

her mind was no whit puffed up Ea pride, but humbled her-
self as became a country maid and the ds Ere of a ae shep-
herd. Every day she went forth with her sheep to the field,
keeping them with suc A care and a gence, as all men eihourkt
she was very painful ; defending her face from the heat of the
sun with no other veil but with a mantend made of boughs and
flowers, which attire became her so gallantly, as she seemed
to be the goddess Flora herself for beauty.

Fortune, who all this while had alone d a friendly fac
began 'now to turn her back, and to show a lowering cones
nance, intending as she had given Fawnia a slender check, so
she would give ler a harder m: ute : * to bring which to pass, she
laid her train on this wise. Eg gistus had “but one only son,
called Dorastus, about the age of twenty years: a prince so
decked and adorned with the gifts of nature, so fraught
with beauty and virtuous qualities, as not only his father joy ved
to have so rood ason, and all his commons re joiced that God
had lent them such a noble pun ce to succeed in the kingdom.
Egistus, placing all his joy in the pe erfecti ion of his son, seeing
that he was now marriageable, sent ambassadors to the King
of Denmark to entreat a marr, Wwe between him and his
daughter, who, willingly e ey enting, made answer that the
next spring, if it please zistus with his son to come inte

 
 

* Check . . « ‘mate, terms from chess-playing.OR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 179

Denmark, he doubted not but they should agree upon reason-
able conditions. LEgistus, resting satisfied with this friendly
answer, thought convenient in the meantime to break with his
son: finding therefore on a day fit opportunity, he spake to him
in fatherly terms.

[Fatherly terms omitted. |

Dorastus, who from his infancy delighted rather to die with
Mars in the field than to dally with Venus in the chamber,
fearing to displease his father, and yet not willing to be wed,
made him this reverent answer.

[Reverent answer omitted. |

Egistus, hearing his son to fly so far from the mark, began
to be somewhat choleric, and therefore made him this hasty
answer.

[Hasty answer ends with—] ‘‘I mean, Dorastus, Euphrania,
daughter and heir to the King of Denmark.”

Egistus pausing here awhile, looking when his son should
make him answer, and seeing that he stood still as one ina
trance, he shook him up thus sharply.

[Sharp shaking omitted. ]

It happened not long after this that there was a meeting of
all the farmers’ daughters in Sicilia, whither Fawnia was also
bidden as the mistress of the feast, who, having attired herself
in her best garments, went among the rest of her companions
to the merry meeting: there spending the day in such homely
pastimes as shepherds used. As the evening grew on and
their sports ceased, each taking their leave at other, Fawnia,
desiring one of her companions to bear her company, went
home by the flock, to see if they were well folded; and as they
returned, it fortuned that Dorastus (who all that day had
been hawking, and killed store of game) encountered by the
way these two maids, and casting his eye suddenly on Fawnia,
he was half afraid, fearing that, with Actzon, he had seen
Diana ; for he thought such exquisite perfection could not be
found in any mortal creature. As thus he stood in a maze,
one of his pages told him that the maid with the garland on
her head was Fawnia, the fair shepherd whose beauty was so
much talked of in the court. Dorastus, desirous to see if
nature had adorned her mind with any inward qualities, as she
had decked her body with outward shape, began to question
with her whose daughter she was, of what age, and how she
had been trained up; who answered him with such modest
reverence and sharpness of -wit that Dorastus thought her out-
ward beauty was but a counterfeit to darken her inward quali-
ties, wondering how so courtly behaviour could be found in
so simple a cottage, and cursing fortune, that had shadowed wit180 PANDOSTO;

and beauty with such hard fortune. As thus he held hera
long while with chat, beauty, seeing him at discovert, thought
not to lose the advantage, but struck him so deeply with an
envenomed shaft as he wholly lost his liberty and became a
slave to love, which before contemned love, glad now to gaze
on a poor shepherd, who before refused the offer of a rich
princess ; for the perfection of Fawnia had so fired his fancy,
as he felt his mind greatly changed, and his affections altered :
cursing love, that had wrought such a change; and blaming the
baseness of his mind, that{would make such a choice. But
thinking these were but passionate tones that might be thrust
out at pleasure, to avoid the syren that enchanted him he put
spurs to his horse, and bade this fair shepherd farewell.

Fawnia, who all this while had marked the princely gesture
of Dorastus, seeing his face so well featured and each limb so
perfectly framed, began greatly to praise his perfection, com-
mending him so long, till she found herself faulty, and perceived
if she waded but a little further she might slip over her shoes.
She therefore, seeking to quench that fire which never was put
out, went home, and, feigning herself not well at ease, got her
to bed, where, casting a thousand thoughts in her head, she
could take no rest: for if she waked, she began to call to mind
his beauty ; and thinking to beguile such thoughts with sleep,
she then dreamed of his perfection: pestered thus with these
unacquainted passions, she passed the night as she could in
short slumbers.

Dorastus, who all this while rode with a flea in his ear,
could not by any means forget the sweet favour of Fawnia, but
rested so bewitched with her wit and beauty, as he could take
no rest. He felt fancy to give the assault, and his wounded
mind ready to yield as vanquished : yet he began with divers
considerations to suppress this frantic affection, calling to
mind that Fawnia was a shepherd, one not worthy to be
looked at of a prince, much less to be loved of such a poten-
tate ; thinking what a discredit it were to himself, and what a
grief it would be to his father ; blaming fortune and accusing
his own folly, that should be so fond as but once to cast a

t
glance at such a country slut. As thus he was raging against
himself, love, fearing if she dallied long to lose her champion,
stepped more nigh, and gave him such a fresh wound as it
pierced him at the heart, that he was fain to yield, maugre his
face,* and to forsake the company and get him to his chamber:
where, being solemnly set, he burst into these passionate terms.

* Maugre his face, though his face was set against it, Old French
**maugré ;” Latin, ‘‘ male gratum.”OR, THE TRIUMPH OF ‘TIME. 181

[Passionate terms omitted, except their conclusion.] ‘‘]
will yet praise Fawnia; honour, yea, and love Fawnia, and at
this day follow content, not counsel. Do, Dorastus; thou
canst but repent!” And with that his page came into the
chamber, whereupon he ceased from his complaints, hoping
that time would wear out that which fortune had wrought.

As thus he was pained, so poor Fawnia was diversely per-
plexed ; for the next morning, getting up very early, she went
to her sheep, thinking with hard labours to pass away her
new-conceived amours, beginning very busily to drive them to
the field, and then to shift the folds. At last, wearied with
toil, she sat her down, where, poor soul, she was more tried
with fond affections : for love began to assault her, insomuch
that, as she sat upon the side of a hill, she began to accuse her
own folly in these terms:

| These terms omitted. ]

Fawnia, somewhat appeasing her griefs with these pithy
persuasions, began after her wonted manner to walk about
her sheep, and to keep them from straying into the corn,
suppressing her affection with the due consideration of her
base estate, and with the impossibilities of her love, thinking
it were frenzy, not fancy, to covet that which the very destinies
did deny her to obtain.

But Dorastus was more impatient in his passions ; for love
so fiercely assailed him that neither company nor music could
mitigate his martyrdom, but did rather far the more increase
his malady : shame would not let him crave counsel in this
case, nor fear of his father’s displeasure reveal it to any secret
friend ; but he was fain to make a secretary of himself, and to
participate his thoughts with his own troubled mind. Linger-
ing thus awhile in doubtful suspense, at last stealing secretly
from the court without either men or page, he went to see if
he could espy Fawnia walking abroad in the field; but as one
having a great deal more skill to retrieve the partridge with
his spaniels than to hunt after such a strange prey, he sought,
but was little the better: which cross luck drove him into a
great choler, that he began to accuse love and fortune. But
as he was ready to retire, he saw Fawnia sitting all alone
under the side of a hill, making a garland of such homely
flowers as the fields did afford. This sight so revived his
spirits that he drew nigh, with more judgment to take a view
of her singular’ perfection, which he found to be such as in
that country attire she stained all the courtly dames of Sicilia.
While thus he stood gazing with piercing looks on her sur-
passing beauty, Fawnia cast her eyes aside and spied Doras-
tus, which sudden sight made the poor girl to blush, and te182 PANDOSTO;

dye her crystal cheeks with a vermilion red, which gave her
such a grace, as she seemed far more beautiful. And with
that she rose up, saluting the prince with such modest curt-
seys, as he wondered how a country maid could afford such
courtly behaviour. Dorastus, repaying her curtsey with a
smiling countenance, began to parley with her in this manner.

‘ee 1e parley is omitted ; also Fawnia’s debate with herself
when left alone, except the conclusion.] ‘‘Sit down, then, in
sorrow ; cease to love, and content thyself that Dorastus will
vouchsafe to flatter Fawnia, though not to fancy Fawnia.

leigh ho! Ah, fool, it were seemlier for thee to whistle as a
shepherd than to sigh as a lover.” And with that she ceased
from these perplexed passions, folding her sheep, and hieing
home to her poor cottage.

But such was the incessant sorrow of Dorastus to think on
the wit and beauty of Fawnia, and to see how fond he was
being a prince, and how froward she was being a beggar, that
he began to lose his wonted appetite, to look pale and wan;
instead of mirth, to feed on melancholy ; for courtly dances,
to use cold dumps, insomuch that not only his own men, but
his father and all the court, began to marvel at his sudden
change, thinking that some ling ering sickness had brought him
into this state: wherefore he caused physicians to come ; but
Dorastus neither would let them minister, nor so much ag
suffer them to see his urine, but remained still so oppressed
with these passions, as he feared in himself a farther inconve-
nience. His honour wished him to cease from such folly, but
love forced him to follow fancy: yea, and in despite of
honour, love won the conquest, so that his hot desires caused
him to find new devices, for he presently made himself a shep-
herd’s coat that he might go unknown, and with the less
suspicion, to prattle with Fawnia, and conveyed it secretly into
a thick grove hard joining to the palace, whither, finding fit
time and epportunity, he went all alone, and, putting off his
princely aq aed art on those shepherd’s robes, and taking a
great EOE in his hand (which he had also gotten), he went
very anciently to find out the mistress of his affection. But
as he went by the way, seeing -himself clad in such unseemly
rags, he began to smile at his own folly, and to reprove-his
fondness in these terms,

[These terms omitted. |

Devising thus with himself, he drew nigh to the place where
Fawnia was keeping her sheep, who c: sting her eye aside, and
seeing such a mannerly shepherd, perfectly limned, and coming
with so good a pace, she began half to forget Dorastus, and to
favour this pretty shepherd, whom she thought she might bothOR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 183

love and obtain; but as she was in these thoughts, she per-
ceived then that it was the young prince Dorastus, wherefore
she rose up and reverently saluted him. Dorastus, taking her
by the hand, repaid her curtsey with a sweet kiss, and, praying
her to sit down by him, he began thus to lay the battery.

[Its last shot is his offer of marriage. ]

Fawnia, hearing this solemn protestation of Dorastus, could
no longer withstand the assault, but yielded up the fort in
these friendly terms.

[These friendly terms omitted. ]

Dorastus, hearing this friendly conclusion of Fawnia, em-
braced her in his arms, swearing that neither distance, time,
nor adverse fortune should diminish his affection, but that, in
despite of the destinies, he would remain loyal unto death.
Having thus plight their troth to each other, seeing they could
not have the full fruition of their love in Sicilia, for that
Egistus’ consent would never be granted to so mean a match,
Dorastus determined, as soon as time and opportunity would
give them leave, to provide a great mass of money and many
rich and costly jewels, for the easier carriage, and then to
transport themselves and their treasure into Italy, where they
should lead a contented life, until such time as either he could
be reconciled to his father, or else by succession come to the
kingdom. This device was greatly praised of Fawnia, for she
feared if the king his father should but hear of the contract,
that his fury would be such as no less than death would stand
for payment; she therefore told him that delay bred danger,
that many mishaps did fall out between the cup and the lip,
and that, to avoid danger, it were best with as much speed as
might be to pass out of Sicilia, lest fortune might prevent
their pretence with some new despite. Dorastus, whom love
pricked forward with desire, promised to despatch his affairs
with as great haste as either time or opportunity would give
bim leave; and so, resting upon this point, after many em-
bracings and sweet kisses, they departed.

Dorastus, having taken his leave of his best beloved Fawnia,
went to the grove where he had his rich apparel, and there
uncasing himself as secretly as might be, hiding up his shep-
herd’s attire till occasion should serve again to use it, he
went to the palace, showing by his merry countenance that
either the state of his body was amended or the case of his
mind greatly redressed. Fawnia, poor soul, was no less joyful ;
that, being a shepherd, fortune had favoured her so as to
reward her with the love of a prince, hoping in time to be ad-
vanced from the daughter of a poor farmer to be the wife of a

rich king, so that she thought every hour a year, till by their184 PANDOS!O ;

departure they might prevent danger, not ceasing still to go
every day to her sheep, not so much for the care of her flock
as for the desire she had to see her love and lord, Dorastus,
who oftentimes, when opportunity would serve, repaired
thither to feed his fancy with the sweet content of Fawnia’s
presence. And although he never went to visit her but in his
shepherd’s rags, yet his oft repair made him not only sus-
pected, but known to divers of their neighbours, who, for the
goodwill they bare to old Porrus, told him secretly of the
matter, wishing him to keep his daughter at home, lest she
went so oft to the field that she brought him home a young
son ; for they feared that Fawnia being so beautiful, the
young prince would allure her to folly. Porrus was stricken
into a dump at these news, so that, thanking his neighbours
for their goodwill, he hied him home to his wife, and calling
her aside, wringing his hands and shedding forth tears, he
broke the matter to her in these terms.

[Terms omitted, except their conclusion.] ‘‘I mean to take
the chain and the jewels that I found with Fawnia, and carry
them to the king, letting him then to understand how she is
none of my daughter, but that I found her beaten up with the
water alone in a little boat, wrapped in a rich mantle, wherein
was inclosed this treasure. By this means I hope the king
will take Fawnia into his service, and we, whatsoever chanceth,
shall be blameless.” This device pleased the good wife very
well ; so that they determined, as soon as they might know the
king at leisure, to make him privy to this case.

In the meantime Dorastus was not slack in his affairs, but
applied his matters with such diligence that he provided all
things fit for their journey. Treasure and jewels he had
gotten great store, thinking there was no better friend than
money in a strange country ; rich attire he had provided for
Fawnia, and, because he could not bring the matter to pass
without the help and advice of some one, he made an old
servant of his, called Capnio, who had served him from his
childhood, privy to his affairs, who, seeing no persuasions
could prevail to divert him from his settled determination,
gave his consent, and dealt so secretly in the cause that
within short space he had gotten a ship ready for their
passage. The mariners, seeing a fit gale of wind for their
purpose, wished Capnio to make no delays, lest if they preter-
mitted this good weather they might stay long ere they had
such a fair wind. Capnio, fearing that his negligence should
hinder the journey, in the night-time conveyed the trunks
full of treasure into the ship, and by secret means let Fawnia
understand that the next morning they meant to depart.OR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 185

She, upon this news, slept very little that night, but got up
very early, and went to her sheep, looking every minute when
she should see Dorastus, who tarried not long, for fear delay
might breed danger, but came as fast as he could gallop, and,
without any great circumstance, took Fawnia up behind him
and rode to the haven where the ship lay, which was not
three-quarters of a mile distant from that place. He no
sooner came there but the mariners were ready with their
cock-boat to set them aboard, where, being couched together
in a cabin, they passed away the time in recounting their old
loves, till their man Capnio should come. Porrus, who had
heard that this morning the king would go abroad to take the
air, called in haste to his wife to bring him his holiday hose
and his best jacket, that he might go like an honest substantial
man to tell his tale. His wife, a good cleanly wench, brought
him all things fit, and spunged him up very handsomely,
giving him the chains and jewels in a little box, which Porrus,
for the more safety, put in his bosom. MHaving thus all his
trinkets in readiness, taking his staff in his hand, he bade his
wife kiss him for good luck, and so he went towards the
palace. But as he was going, fortune (who meant to show
him a little false play) prevented his purpose in this wise.

He met by chance in his way Capnio, who, trudging as fast
ashe could, with a little coffer under his arm, to the ship, and
spying Porrus, whom he knew to be Fawnia’s father, going
towards the palace, being a wily fellow, began to doubt the
worst, and therefore crossed him the way, and asked him
whither he was going so early this morning. Porrus, who
knew by his face that he was one of the court, meaning
simply, told him that the king’s son Dorastus dealt hardly
with him; for he had but one daughter, who was a little
beautiful, and that his neighbours told him the young prince
had allured her to folly : he went, therefore, now to complain
to the king how greatly he was abused.

Capnio, who straightway smelt the whole matter, began to
soothe him in his talk, and said that Dorastus dealt not like
a prince to spoil any poor man’s daughter in that sort; he,
therefore, would do the best for him he could, because he
knew he wag an honest man. “But,” quoth Capnio, “you
lose your labour in going to the palace, for the king means
this day to take the air of the sea, and to go aboard of aship
that lies in the haven. Iam going before, yon see, to provide
ali things in readiness, and, if you will follow my counsel,
turn back with me to the haven, where I will set you in such
a fit place as you may speak to the king at your pleasure.”
Porrus, giving credit to Capnio’s smooth tale, gave him a186 PANDOSTO

thousand thanks for his friendly advice, and went with him
to the haven, making allthe way his complaints of Dorastus, yet
concealing secretly the chain and the jewels. As soon as they
were come to the sea-side, the mariners, seeing aS came

1-land with their cock-boat, who, still d lisse smbling the matter,
deraidel of Porrus if he would go and see the ali: who, un-
willing and fearing the worst, because he was not well
acquainted with Capnio, made his excuse that he could not
brook the sea he refore would not trouble him.

Capnio, seeing that by fair means he could not get him
aboard, prodded the mariners that by violence they should
carry him into the ship, who, like sturdy knaves, hoisted the
poor shepherd on their backs, and, bearing him to the boat,
launched from the land.

Porrus, seeing himself so cunningly betrayed, durst not cry
out, for he saw it would not prevail, but began to entreat Capnio
and the mariners to be good to 3 im, and to pity his estate:
he was but a poor man that lived by his labour. They, laugh-
ing to see the shepherd so afraid, I nade as much haste as they
couli 1 and set him aboard. was no sooner in the ship,
but he saw Dorastus walking Fawnia ; yet he scarce knew
her, for she had attired herself in rich apparel, which so
increased her beauty that she resembled rather an angel than
a mortal creature.

Dorastus and Fawnia were half astonished to see the old
shepherd, marvelling greatly t wind had brought him
thither, till Capnio told them whole discourse—how
Porrus was going to make his complaint to the nue: if by
policy he had not prevented him ; and therefore now that he
was aboard, for the avoiding of further danger, it were best to
carry him into Italy.

Dorastus pee greatly his man’s device, and aes of
his counsel ; but Fawnia, who es feared Porrus as her father,
began to blush for shame, that by her means he should either
incur d: ee or displeasure.

The old shepherd Hea aring this hard sentence, that he should
on such a sudd len be faced from his wife, his country, and
kinsfolk, into a foreign land amongst strangers, began with
bitter tears to make his conn int, and on his knees to entreat
Dorastus that, pardoning his unadvised folly, he would give
him leave to go home, swearit 1g that he would keep all things
as secret as they could wish. But these protestations could
not prevail, although Fawnia entreated Dorastus very ear-
nestly; but the mariners, hoisting their mainsails, weighed
anchors, and sailed into the deep, where we leave them to the
favour of the wind and seas, and return to Egistus,

 

 

€

 

fend

)Ok, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 187

Who, having appointed this day to huntin one of his forests,
called for his son Dorastus to go sport himself, because he saw
that of late he began to lour; but his men made answer that
he was gone abroad, none knew whither, except he were gone
to the grove to walk all alone, as his custom was to do every day.

The king, willing o waken him out of his dumps, sent one
of his men to go seek him, but in vain, for at last he returned,
but find him he could not, so that the king went himself to go
see the sport; where passing away the day, returning at night
from hunting, he asked for his son, but he could not be heard
of ; which drove the king into a great choler, whereupon most
of his noblemen and other courtiers posted abroad to seek ae
but they could not hear of him through all Sicilia, only they
missed Capnio his man, which again made the king suspect
that he was not gone far.

Two or ee days being passed, and no news heard of
Dorastus, Egistus began to fear that he was devoured with
some wild Geaets and upon that made out a great troop of
men to go seek him ; who coasted through all the country, and
searched in every dangerous and secret place, until at last they
met with a fisherman that was aeee in a little covert hard
by the sea-side, mending his nets, when Dorastus and Fawnia
took shipping ; who, being exami vod if he either knew or heard
where the king’s son was, without any secrecy at all revealed
the whole matter—how he was sailed two days past, and had
in his company his man Capnio, Porrus, and his fair daughter
Fawnia. This heavy news was presently carried to the king,
who, half dead for sorrow, commanded Porrus’ wife to be sent
for. She being come to the palace, ae due examination
confessed that her neighbours h ad oft told her that the king’s
son was too familiar with Fawnia, her at wughter ; whereupon
her husband, fearing the worst, about two days pas st, hearing
the king should go a-hunting, rose early in the piOnes and
went to make his cor aplaint, but since she neither heard of
him nor saw him. Egistus, perceiving the woman’s unfeigned
simplicity, let her depart without incurring further displeasure,
conceiving such secret grief for his son’s reckless folly, that he
had so forgotten his honour and parentage by so base a choice to
dishonour his father and discredit himself, that with very care
and thought he fell into a quartan fever, which was so unfit
for his aged years and complexion, that he became so weak, as
the physicians would grant him no life.

But his son Dorastus little ‘regarded either father, country,
or kingdom in respect of his lady E ‘awnia ; for fortune, smiling
on this young novice, lent him so lucky a gale of wind for the
space of a day and a night that ihe: mariners lay and slept188 PANDOSTO;

upon the hatches. But on the next morning, about the break
of the day, the air began to be overcast, the ‘winds to rise, the

seas to swell—yea, presently there arose such a fearful
tempest, as the ship was in danger to be swallowed up watt
every sea. The mainmast with the violence of the wind was
thrown overboard, the sails were torn, the tacklings went in

sunder, the storm ragi i p
was almost dead for fear, but a ne was er atly comforted
with the presence of Dorastus. The tempest peueeoel three
days, at which time the mariners every ue looked for
death; and the air was so darkened A clouds that the
master could not tell by r his compass in what coast they were.
But upon the fourth day, about ten of the cloe aS the wind began
to cease, the sea to wax calm, and the sky to be clear, and
the mariners descried the coast of Bohemia, shooting off their
ordnance for joy that they had escaped such a fearful tempest
Bomsiae: hearing that they were arrived at some harbour,
sweetly kissed Fawnia, and bade her be of good cheer. When
they told him that the port belonged unto the chief city of
Bohemia, where Pandosto kept his court, Dorastus began to
be sad, knowing that his father hated no man so much as
Pandosto, and that the king himself had sought secretly to

 

oor Fawnia

 

 

g
betray Egistus. ‘This considered, he was half al to go on
land, but that C apni o counselled him to change his name and
his country, until such time as they could get some other bark
to transport them into Italy. Dorastus, liking this device,
made his case privy to the ae rewarding them bounti-
fully for their pains, and charging them to say th: ut he was a
gentleman of Tra] alonia, called Meleagrus. The shipmen,
willing to show what friendship they could to Dorastus,
promised to be as secret as they could, or he might wish;
and upon this they landed in a little village, a mile dis-
tant from the city, where, after they had rested a day, thinking
to make provision for their marriage, the fame of Fawnia’s
beauty was spread throughout all the city, so that it came
to the ears of Pandosto ; who, then be ing about theage of fifty,

 

7
W

had, notwithstanding, young and fresh affections, so that he
desired greatly to see Fawnia; and a bring this matter the

better to pass, hearing they had but one man, and how they
rested at a very homely house, he caused them to be appre
hended as spies, and sent a dozen of his guard to take them,
who, being come to their lodging, told them the king’s mes-
sage. Dorastus, no whit dismayed, accompanied with Fawnia
and Capnio, went to the court (for they left Porrus to keep
the stuff), who being admitted to the king’s presence, Dorastus
and Fawnia with humble obedience saluted his majesty.OR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 189

Pandosto, amazed at the singular perfection of Fawnia,
stood half astonished, viewing her beauty, so that he had
almost forgot himself what he had to do. “At last, with stern
countenance, he de manded their names, and of what country
they were, and what caused them to land in SOE ‘[ Si,”
quoth Dorastus, “know that my name is Mele: grus, a knight,
born and brought up in Trapalonia, and this gentlewoman,
whom I mean to take to my wife, is an Italian, born in P adua,
from whence I have now brought her. The cause I have so
small a train w ith me is for that her friends, unwilling to
consent, I intended secretly to convey her into Trapalonia
whither as I was sailing, by distress of weather I was driven
into these coasts. Thus have you heard my name, my country,
and the cause of my voyage.” Pan dosto, starting from his
seat as one in choler, made this rough reply.

[Rough reply omitted. ]

Dora stus, in whom rested nothing but kingly valour, was
not able to suffer the reproaches of Pandosto, but that he
made him this answer: [Which is omitted. ]

Pandosto, hearing Dorastus utter these words, commanded
that he és ould eran be committed to prison, until such
time as they he ard fur eee of his pleasure ; but as for I Fawnia,
he charged that she should be entertained in the court, with
such courtesy as belonged to a stranger and her calling. The
rest of the shipmen he put into the dungeon.

Having thus hardly handled the supposed Trapalonians,
Pandosto, contrary to his aged years, began to be somewhat
tickled with the be: vty of Fawnia, insomuch that he could
take no rest, but cast in his old head a thousand new
devices. At last he fell into these thoughts.

{These soe are omitted. |

Here Pandosto ceased from his talk, but not from his love;
although he sought by reason and wisdom to suppress this
frantic affection, yet he could take no rest, the beauty of
Fawnia had made such a deep in aie ‘sion in his heart. But
on a day, walking abroad into a par! « which was hard adjoining
to his house, he sent by one of his servants for Fawnia, unto
whom he uttered these words ;

[These words are omitted. Fawnia will not quit Meleagrus
for Pandosto. | Ei wnia, being alone by herself, began to
enter into these solitary mediti .tions.

[These also are omitted.] With that, fetching a deep sigh
a ceased from her complaints, and went again to the palace,
enjoying a liberty without content, and proffered pleasure
with small joy. But poor Dorastus lay all this while in close
prison, being pinched with a hard restraint, and pained with190 PANDOSTO ;

the burden of cold and heavy irons,
his fond affection had procured him
disobedience of hi: I S d
Another while cw

 

sorrow ing sometimes that
this mishap ; that by the
14d wrought his own despite.
and fortune, that they should

  

 

   
 

cross him with 1 chance, uttering at last his
passions in these words.

[Which are omitte d.] Dorastus, peed with these heavy
passions, sorrowed and ened: in vain, for which he aden
the more patience. But again to Paniloste, who, broiling at
the heat of unlawful lust, could take no rest, but still felt his
mind disquieted with his new love, so that his nobles and

 

subjects marvelled greatly at this sudden alteration, not
being able to conjecture the cause of this his continued care.
Pandosto, thinking every hour a year tiil he had talked once
spelt with Fawnia, sent a eo secretly into his chamber,
whither, though Fawnia unwillingly coming, Pandosto enter-
tained her very courteously, us sing these familar speeches,
which Fawnia answered as shortly in this wise.
[These speeches are omit ted. |

Pandosto, seeing that there was in Fawnia a determinate
courage to love Meleagrus, anda or without fear to hate
him, flung away from her ina rage, swearing if in short time she
would not be won with reason, he would forget all courtesy, and
compel her to grant by rigour but these threatening ‘words
no whit dismayed Fawnia, but that she still both despited and
despised Pandosto.

While thus these two lovers strove, the one to wn love, the
other to live in hate, Egistus heard certain news by the mer-
chants of Bohemia, that son Dorastus was imprisoned by
Pandosto, which made him fear greatly 1 iis son should be
but hardly entreated; yet consider Bellaria and he
were cleared by the oracle ot Apollo fi that crime where-
with Pandosto had unjus charged him, he thought best to
send with all speed to P: ando he should set free his
son Dorastus, and put to death

 

 

 

 

 

]

and her father Porrus.

 

Finding this, by the advice of counc il, the speediest remedy to

rel ease his son, he caused presently two of his ships to be

rigged and thoroughly furnished with provision of men and
victuals, and sent divers of his men and nobles ambassadors
into Bohemia, who, willing to obey their king and relieve
their young prince, made no delays for fear of danger, b

L J Ss | 3 J s u
with as much speed as might be, sailed tow rards Bohemia.
The wind and seas favoured then 1ich made them
hope of some good hap, for within flivec a ys they were
landed ; which Pandosto no sooner heard of their arrival but

J

be in person went to meet them, entreating them with suchOR, THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 191

sumptuous and familiar courtesy, that they might well

perceive how sorry he was for the former pas he had

offered to their king, and how willing, if it might be, to make
amends,
4 Pp

As | andosto re how Meleagrus, a
Knight of Trapalonia, was ely arr rdy called
Fawnia in his land, coming very suspiciously, accompanied
only with one servant and an old shepherd, the ambassadors
perceived by the half what the whole tale meant, and began
to conjecture that it was Dorastus, who, for fear to be known,
had changed his name. But dissembling the matter, they
shortly arrived at the Court, where, after they had been very
solemnly and sumptuously feasted, the noblemen of Sicilia
being g: ather red together, they made report of their embassage,
where the y certified Pandosto that Meleagrus was the son and
heir to the King Hgistus, and that his name was Dorastus ;
how contrary to the king’s mind he had privily conveyed away
that Fawnia, intending to marry her, ba ‘ing but daughter to
that poor shepherd Porrus ; whereupon the king’s request was
that Capnio, F awnia, and Porrus might be murdered and put
to death, and that his son Dorastus might be sent home in
safety. Pandosto having attentively and with great marvel
heard their embassage, willing to reconcile himself to Egistus,
and to show him how greatly he esteemed his favour, although
love and fancy forbade him to hurt Fawnia, yet in despite ‘of
love he determined to execute Egistus’ will without mercy ; z
and therefore he presently sent for Dorastus out of prison,

who, marvelling at this unlooked-for cone found at his
coming to the king’s presence, that which he least doubted of,
his fatl er’s ambassadors, who no sooner aw Bie but with great
reverence they honoured him, and Pandosto em abrepine Doras
set him by him very lovingly in a chair of sta Dorastus,
ashamed that his folly was betrayed, sat a long es as one in &
muse, till Pandosto told him the sum of his father ’s embassage,
which he no sooner heard but he was touched at the q uick for
the cruel sentence that was pronounced against Fawnia. But
neither could his sorrow nor persuasions prevail, for Pandosto
commanded that Fawnia, Porrus, and Capnio, should be

brought to his presence; who were no sooner come, but
Pandosto, having his former love turned to a disdainful hate,
began to rage against Fawnia in these té mus :

[These terms omitted.] The fear of death brought a sorrow-
ful silence upon Fawnia and Capnio, bak ePatn. seeing no
hope of life, burst forth into these speeches.

(He tells how he found Fawnia,] ‘* Here is the chain and
the jewels, and this Fawnia is the child whom I found in the

     

rived wit

 

 

    

  

5
IPANDOSTO; OR THE TRIUMPH OF TIME.

 

boat ; what she is, or of what parentage, I }

Tam assured that she is none of mine.”
Pandosto would scarce suffer him to tell out his tale, but
that he enquired the time of the year, the manner of the boat,
and other circumstances, which when he found agreeing to
his count, he suddenly leaped from his seat, and kissed
Fawnia, wetting her tender cheeks with his tears, and crying,
““My daughter Fawnia, ah, sweet Fawnia, I am thy father,
Fawnia!” This sudden passion of the king drove them all
Dorastus. But when the

into a maze, especially Fawnia and
ile in this new Joy, he rehearsed

king had breathed himself awl
10le matter, how he had treated

know not, but this

Tt

before the ambassadors the wl
his wife Bellaria for jealousy, and that this was the child
whom he sent to float in the seas,

Fawnia was not more joyful that
father, than Dorastus was glad he
The ambassadors rejoiced that their young prince had made
such a choice, that those kingdoms, which, through enmity
had long time been dissevered, should now through perpetual
amity be united and reconciled. The citizens and subjects of
Bohemia, hearing that the king had found again his daughter,
which was Supposed dead, joyful that there was an heir
apparent to his kingdom, made bonfires and shows throughout
the city. The courtiers and knights appointed jousts and tour-
neys to signify their willing minds in gratifying the king’s hap.

Kighteen days being passed in these princely sports, Pan-
dosto, willing to re -ompense old Porrus, of a shepherd made
him a knight: which done, providing a sufficient havy to
receive him and his retinue, accompanied with Dorastus,
Fawnia, and the Sicilian ambassadors, he sailed towards
Sicily, where he was most princely entertained by Kgistus,
who, hearing this comical] event, rejoiced greatly at his son’s
good hap, and without delay (to the perpetual joy of the two
young lovers) celebrated the marriage. Which was no sooner
ended, but Pandosto, calling to mind how first he betrayed
his friend Egistus, how his jealousy was the cause of Bellaria’s
death, that he contrary to the law of nature had lusted after
his own daughter, moved with these desperate thoughts, he
fell into a melancholy fit, and to close up the comedy with a
tragical stratagem, he slew himself. Whose death being many
days bewailed of Fawnia, Dorastus, and his dear f stus,
Dorastus taking his leave of his fat fe and
the dead corpse into Bo} they were sumptu-
ously entombed, Dorasti contented quiet,

she had found such a
should get such a wife.

Tiend Kei
her went with his wil
1emia, where after
is ended his days inPLEASE RETURN TO
ALDERMAN LIBRARY

 

DUE DUEDA GEL Ted Gaa