EMILIA, a lady attending on Hermione
A JAILER
A MARINER
Other Lords and Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers, and Servants at Leontes’s court
POLIXENES, King of Bohemia
FLORIZEL, his son, in love with Perdita; known as Doricles
ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian lord
AUTOLYCUS, a rogue, once in the service of Florizel
OLD SHEPHERD
CLOWN, his son
![William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition _139.jpg](https://litlife.club/books/248589/read/images/_139.jpg)
SERVANT of the Old Shepherd
Other Shepherds and Shepherdesses
Twelve countrymen disguised as satyrs
TIME, as chorus
The Winter’s Tale
1.1 Enter Camillo and Archidamus
ARCHIDAMUS If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.
CAMILLO I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.
ARCHIDAMUS Wherein our entertainment shall shame us, we will be justified in our loves; for indeed—
CAMILLO Beseech you—
ARCHIDAMUS Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge. 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.
CAMILLO You pay a great deal too dear for what’s given freely.
ARCHIDAMUS Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.
CAMILLO Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods, and 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—hath been royally 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.
ARCHIDAMUS I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young prince, Mamillius. It is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.
CAMILLO I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a gallant child; one that, indeed, physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh. They that went on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man.
ARCHIDAMUS Would they else be content to die?
CAMILLO Yes—if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.
ARCHIDAMUS If the King had no son they would desire to live on crutches till he had one. Exeunt
1.2 Enter Leontes, Hermione, Mamillius, Polixenes, and ⌈Camillo⌉
POLIXENES
Nine changes of the wat‘ry star hath 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 perpetuity
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.
LEONTES
Stay your thanks a while,
And pay them when you part.
POLIXENES
Sir, that’s tomorrow. 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.
LEONTES
We are tougher, brother,
Than you can put us to’t.
POLIXENES
No longer stay.
LEONTES
One sennight longer.
POLIXENES
Very sooth, tomorrow.
LEONTES
We’ll part the time between’s, then; and in that
I’ll no gainsaying.
POLIXENES
Press me not, beseech you, so.
There is no tongue that moves, none, none i‘th’ world
So soon as yours, could win me. So it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
’Twere 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.
LEONTES
Tongue-tied, our queen? Speak you.
HERMIONE
I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until
You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,
Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure
All in Bohemia’s well. This satisfaction
The bygone day proclaimed. Say this to him,
He’s beat from his best ward.
LEONTES
Well said, Hermione!
HERMIONE
To tell he longs to see his son were strong.
But let him say so then, and let him go.
But let him swear so and he shall not stay,
We’ll thwack him hence with distaffs.
(To Polixenes) Yet of your royal presence I’ll adventure
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’th’ clock behind
What lady she her lord.—You’ll stay?
POLIXENES
No, madam.
HERMIONE Nay, but you will?
POLIXENES I may not, verily.
HERMIONE Verily?
You put me off with limber vows. But I,
Though you would seek t‘unsphere the stars with
oaths,
Should yet say ‘Sir, no going.’ Verily
You shall not go. A lady’s ‘verily’ ’s
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?
My prisoner? or my guest? By your dread ‘verily’,
One of them you shall be.
POLIXENES
Your guest then, madam.
To be your prisoner should import offending,