LEONTES

O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort

That I have had of thee!

PAULINA

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 young

contracted

Heirs of your kingdoms my poor house to visit,

It is a surplus of your grace which never

My life may last to answer.

LEONTES

O Paulina,

We honour you with trouble. But we came

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.

PAULINA

As she lived peerless,

So her dead likeness I do well believe

Excels what ever 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 ’tis well.

She draws a curtain and reveals the figure of Hermione, standing like a statue

I like your silence; it the more shows off

Your wonder. But yet speak; first you, my liege.

Comes it not something near?

LEONTES 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 aged as this seems.

POLIXENES

O, not by much.

PAULINA

So much the more our carver’s excellence,

Which lets go by some sixteen years, and makes her

As she lived now.

LEONTES

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,

As now it coldly stands—when first I wooed her.

I 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.

PERDITA

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.

PAULINA

O, patience!

The statue is but newly fixed; the colour’s

Not dry.

CAMILLO (to Leontes)

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.

POLIXENES (to Leontes)

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.

PAULINA (to Leontes)

Indeed, my lord,

If I had thought the sight of my poor image

Would thus have wrought you—for the stone is mine—

I’d not have showed it.

She makes to draw the curtain

LEONTES

Do not draw the curtain.

PAULINA

No longer shall you gaze on’t, lest your fancy

May think anon it moves.

LEONTES

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?

POLIXENES

Masterly done.

The very life seems warm upon her lip.

LEONTES

The fixture of her eye has motion in’t,

As we are mocked with art.

PAULINA

I’ll draw the curtain.

My lord’s almost so far transported that

He’ll think anon it lives.

LEONTES

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.

PAULINA

I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirred you; but

I could afflict you farther.

LEONTES

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.

PAULINA

Good my lord, forbear.

The ruddiness upon her lip is wet.

You’ll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own

With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?

LEONTES

No, not these twenty years.

PERDITA

So long could I

Stand by, a looker-on.

PAULINA

Either forbear,

Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you

For more amazement. If you can behold it,

I’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.

LEONTES

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.

PAULINA

It is required

You do awake your faith. Then, all stand still.

Or those that think it is unlawful business

I am about, let them depart.

LEONTES

Proceed.

No foot shall stir.

PAULINA

Music; awake her; strike!

Music