From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,
She’s an adultress.
HERMIONE
Should a villain say so,
The most replenished villain in the world,
He were as much more villain. You, my lord,
Do but mistake.
LEONTES
You have mistook, my lady—
Polixenes for Leontes. O, thou thing,
Which I’ll not call a creature of thy place
Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
Should a like language use to all degrees,
And mannerly distinguishment leave out
Betwixt the prince and beggar. I have said
She’s an adultress, I have said with whom.
More, she’s a traitor, and Camillo is
A federary with her, and one that knows
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.
HERMIONE
No, by my life,
Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you
When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
You thus have published me? Gentle my lord,
You scarce can right me throughly then to say
You did mistake.
LEONTES
No. If I mistake
In those foundations which I build upon,
The centre is not big enough to bear
A schoolboy’s top.—Away with her to prison!
He who shall speak for her is afar-off guilty,
But that he speaks.
HERMIONE
There’s some ill planet reigns.
I must be patient till the heavens look
With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex no
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,
With thoughts so qualified as your charities
Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so
The King’s will be performed.
LEONTES
Shall I be heard?
HERMIONE
Who is’t that goes with me? Beseech your highness
My women may be with me, for you see
My plight requires it.—Do not weep, good fools,
There is no cause. When you shall know your
mistress
Has deserved prison, then abound in tears
As I come out. This action I now go on
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.
LEONTES Go, do our bidding. Hence!
Exit Hermione, guarded, with Ladies
A LORD
Beseech your highness, call the Queen again.
ANTIGONUS (to Leontes)
Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice
Prove violence, in the which three great ones suffer—
Yourself, your queen, your son.
A LORD (to Leontes)
For her, my lord,
I dare my life lay down, and will do‘t, sir,
Please you t’accept it, that the Queen is spotless
I’th’ eyes of heaven and to you—I mean
In this which you accuse her.
ANTIGONUS (to Leontes)
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 farther trust her.
For every inch of woman in the world,
Ay, every dram of woman’s flesh is false
If she be.
LEONTES
Hold your peaces.
A LORD
Good my lord—
ANTIGONUS (to Leontes)
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,
I’ll geld ’em 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.
LEONTES
Cease, no more!
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.
ANTIGONUS
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.
LEONTES
What? Lack I credit?
A 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.
LEONTES Why, what need we
Commune with you of this, but rather follow
Our forceful 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 ord‘ring on’t, is all
Properly ours.
ANTIGONUS
And I wish, my liege,
You had only in your silent judgement tried it
Without more overture.