SCENE I. A room in LEONTES' palace. Winter's Tale  Shakespeare homepage  |  Winter's Tale  | Act 5, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE I. A room in LEONTES' palace. 

 Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and Servants  CLEOMENES  Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd 

 A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make, 

 Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down 

 More penitence than done trespass: at the last, 

 Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil; 

 With them forgive yourself. 

 LEONTES  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 

 Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man 

 Bred his hopes out of. 

 PAULINA  True, too true, my lord: 

 If, one by one, you wedded all the world, 

 Or from the all that are took something good, 

 To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd 

 Would be unparallel'd. 

 LEONTES  I think so. Kill'd! 

 She I kill'd! I did so: but thou strikest me 

 Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter 

 Upon thy tongue as in my thought: now, good now, 

 Say so but seldom. 

 CLEOMENES  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. 

 PAULINA  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? 

 PAULINA  There is none worthy, 

 Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods 

 Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes; 

 For has not the divine Apollo said, 

 Is'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. 'Tis your counsel 

 My lord should to the heavens be contrary, 

 Oppose against their wills. 



 To LEONTES  Care not for issue; 

 The crown will find an heir: great Alexander 

 Left his to the worthiest; so his successor 

 Was like to be the best. 

 LEONTES  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 look'd upon my queen's full eyes, 

 Have taken treasure from her lips-- 

 PAULINA  And left them 

 More rich for what they yielded. 

 LEONTES  Thou speak'st truth. 

 No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse, 

 And better used, would make her sainted spirit 

 Again possess her corpse, and on this stage, 

 Where we're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd, 

 And begin, 'Why to me?' 

 PAULINA  Had she such power, 

 She had just cause. 

 LEONTES  She had; and would incense me 

 To murder her I married. 

 PAULINA  I should so. 

 Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark 

 Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't 

 You chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your ears 

 Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd 

 Should be 'Remember mine.' 

 LEONTES  Stars, stars, 

 And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife; 

 I'll have no wife, Paulina. 

 PAULINA  Will you swear 

 Never to marry but by my free leave? 

 LEONTES  Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit! 

 PAULINA  Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath. 

 CLEOMENES  You tempt him over-much. 

 PAULINA  Unless another, 

 As like Hermione as is her picture, 

 Affront his eye. 

 CLEOMENES  Good madam,-- 

 PAULINA  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, walk'd your first queen's ghost, 

 it should take joy 

 To see her in your arms. 

 LEONTES  My true Paulina, 

 We shall not marry till thou bid'st us. 

 PAULINA  That 

 Shall be when your first queen's again in breath; 

 Never till then. 



 Enter a Gentleman  Gentleman  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. 

 LEONTES  What with him? he comes not 

 Like to his father's greatness: his approach, 

 So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us 

 'Tis not a visitation framed, but forced 

 By need and accident. What train? 

 Gentleman  But few, 

 And those but mean. 

 LEONTES  His princess, say you, with him? 

 Gentleman  Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think, 

 That e'er the sun shone bright on. 

 PAULINA  O Hermione, 

 As every present time doth boast itself 

 Above a better gone, so must thy grave 

 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 equall'd;'--thus your verse 

 Flow'd with her beauty once: 'tis shrewdly ebb'd, 

 To say you have seen a better. 

 Gentleman  Pardon, madam: 

 The one I have almost forgot,--your pardon,-- 

 The other, when she has obtain'd 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 who she but bid follow. 

 PAULINA  How! not women? 

 Gentleman  Women will love her, that she is a woman 

 More worth than any man; men, that she is 

 The rarest of all women. 

 LEONTES  Go, Cleomenes; 

 Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends, 

 Bring them to our embracement. Still, 'tis strange 



 Exeunt CLEOMENES and others  He thus should steal upon us. 

 PAULINA  Had our prince, 

 Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd 

 Well with this lord: there was not full a month 

 Between their births. 

 LEONTES  Prithee, no more; cease; thou know'st 

 He dies to me again when talk'd 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 and others, with FLORIZEL and PERDITA  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, 

 His very air, that I should call you brother, 

 As I did him, and speak of something wildly 

 By us perform'd 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. 

 FLORIZEL  By his command 

 Have I here touch'd 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 wish'd ability, he had himself 

 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 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? 

 FLORIZEL  Good my lord, 

 She came from Libya. 

 LEONTES  Where the warlike Smalus, 

 That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and loved? 

 FLORIZEL  Most royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter 

 His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence, 

 A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd, 

 To execute the charge my father gave me 

 For visiting your highness: my best train 

 I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd; 

 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 blest, 

 As he from heaven merits it, with you 

 Worthy his goodness. What might I have been, 

 Might I a son and daughter now have look'd 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 hastening, 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 betray'd 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  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'ld 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 unanswer'd. 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  Shakespeare homepage  |  Winter's Tale  | Act 5, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene 