The lands 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.

LEONTES

O, my brother!

Good gentleman, the wrongs I have done thee stir

Afresh within me, and these thy offices,

So rarely kind, are as interpreters

Of my behindhand slackness. Welcome hither,

As is the spring to th‘earth! And hath he too

Exposed this paragon to th’ fearful usage—

At least ungentle—of the dreadful Neptune

To greet a man not worth her pains, much less

Th’adventure of her person?

FLORIZEL

Good my lord,

She came from Libya.

LEONTES

Where the warlike Smalus,

That noble honoured lord, is feared and loved?

FLORIZEL

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.

LEONTES

The blessed gods

Purge all infection from our air whilst you

Do climate here! You have a holy father,

A graceful gentleman, against whose person,

So sacred as it is, I have done sin,

For which the heavens, taking angry note,

Have left me issueless; and your father’s 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.

LEONTES

Where’s Bohemia? Speak.

LORD

Here in your city. I now came from him.

I speak amazedly, and it becomes

My marvel and my message. To your court

Whiles he was hast’ning—in the chase, it seems,

Of this fair couple—meets he on the way

The father of this seeming lady and

Her brother, having both their country quitted

With this young prince.

FLORIZEL

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.

LEONTES

Who, Camillo?

LORD

Camillo, sir. I spake with him, who now

Has these poor men in question. Never saw I

Wretches so quake. They kneel, they kiss the earth,

Forswear themselves as often as they speak.

Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them

With divers deaths in death.

PERDITA

O, my poor father!

The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have

Our contract celebrated.

LEONTES

You are married?

FLORIZEL

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

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

The odds for high and low’s alike.

LEONTES

My lord,

Is this the daughter of a king?

FLORIZEL

She is,

When once she is my wife.

LEONTES

That ‘once’, I see, by your good father’s speed

Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,

Most sorry, you have broken from his liking

Where you were tied in duty; and as sorry

Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,

That you might well enjoy her.

FLORIZEL (to Perdita)

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.

LEONTES

Would he do so, I’d beg your precious mistress,

Which he counts but a trifle.

PAULINA

Sir, my liege,

Your eye hath too much youth in’t. Not a month

Fore your queen died she was more worth such gazes

Than what you look on now.

LEONTES

I thought of her

Even in these looks I made.

(To Florizel) But your petition

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 lord.

Exeunt

5.2 Enter Autolycus and a Gentleman

AUTOLYCUS Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?

FIRST GENTLEMAN 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.

AUTOLYCUS I would most gladly know the issue of it.

FIRST GENTLEMAN I make a broken delivery of the business, but the changes I perceived in the King and Camillo were very notes of admiration. They 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. They looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, 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 th’importance were joy or sorrow. But in the extremity of the one, it must needs be.