SCENE II. A room of state in the same. Winter's Tale  Shakespeare homepage  |  Winter's Tale  | Act 1, Scene 2 

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 Enter LEONTES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, POLIXENES, CAMILLO, and Attendants  POLIXENES  Nine changes of the watery star hath been 

 The shepherd's note since we have left our throne 

 Without a burthen: time as long again 

 Would be find 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 moe 

 That go before it. 

 LEONTES  Stay your thanks a while; 

 And pay them when you part. 

 POLIXENES  Sir, that's to-morrow. 

 I am question'd 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 stay'd 

 To tire your royalty. 

 LEONTES  We are tougher, brother, 

 Than you can put us to't. 

 POLIXENES  No longer stay. 

 LEONTES  One seven-night longer. 

 POLIXENES  Very sooth, to-morrow. 

 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' the 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 have 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 by-gone day proclaim'd: 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. 

 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 

 Prefix'd for's parting: yet, good deed, Leontes, 

 I love thee not a jar o' the 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 to 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; 

 Which is for me less easy to commit 

 Than you to punish. 

 HERMIONE  Not your gaoler, then, 

 But your kind hostess. Come, I'll question you 

 Of my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys: 

 You were pretty lordings then? 

 POLIXENES  We were, fair queen, 

 Two lads that thought there was no more behind 

 But such a day to-morrow as to-day, 

 And to be boy eternal. 

 HERMIONE  Was not my lord 

 The verier wag o' the two? 

 POLIXENES  We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun, 

 And bleat the one at the other: what we changed 

 Was innocence for innocence; we knew not 

 The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd 

 That any did. Had we pursued that life, 

 And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd 

 With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven 

 Boldly 'not guilty;' the imposition clear'd 

 Hereditary ours. 

 HERMIONE  By this we gather 

 You have tripp'd since. 

 POLIXENES  O my most sacred lady! 

 Temptations have since then been born to's; for 

 In those unfledged days was my wife a girl; 

 Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes 

 Of my young play-fellow. 

 HERMIONE  Grace to boot! 

 Of this make no conclusion, lest you say 

 Your queen and I are devils: yet go on; 

 The offences we have made you do we'll answer, 

 If you first sinn'd with us and that with us 

 You did continue fault and that you slipp'd not 

 With any but with us. 

 LEONTES  Is he won yet? 

 HERMIONE  He'll stay my lord. 

 LEONTES  At my request he would not. 

 Hermione, my dearest, thou never spokest 

 To better purpose. 

 HERMIONE  Never? 

 LEONTES  Never, but once. 

 HERMIONE  What! have I twice said well? when was't before? 

 I prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's 

 As fat as tame things: one good deed dying tongueless 

 Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that. 

 Our praises are our wages: you may ride's 

 With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere 

 With spur we beat an acre. But to the goal: 

 My last good deed was to entreat his stay: 

 What was my first? it has an elder sister, 

 Or I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace! 

 But once before I spoke to the purpose: when? 

 Nay, let me have't; I long. 

 LEONTES  Why, that was when 

 Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death, 

 Ere I could make thee open thy white hand 

 And clap thyself my love: then didst thou utter 

 'I am yours for ever.' 

 HERMIONE  'Tis grace indeed. 

 Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice: 

 The one for ever earn'd a royal husband; 

 The other for some while a friend. 

 LEONTES  [Aside]	Too hot, too hot! 

 To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods. 

 I have tremor cordis on me: my heart dances; 

 But not for joy; not joy. This entertainment 

 May a free face put on, derive a liberty 

 From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom, 

 And well become the agent; 't may, I grant; 

 But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers, 

 As now they are, and making practised smiles, 

 As in a looking-glass, and then to sigh, as 'twere 

 The mort o' the deer; O, that is entertainment 

 My bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius, 

 Art thou my boy? 

 MAMILLIUS  Ay, my good lord. 

 LEONTES  I' fecks! 

 Why, that's my bawcock. What, hast 

 smutch'd thy nose? 

 They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain, 

 We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain: 

 And yet the steer, the heifer and the calf 

 Are all call'd neat.--Still virginalling 

 Upon his palm!--How now, you wanton calf! 

 Art thou my calf? 

 MAMILLIUS  Yes, if you will, my lord. 

 LEONTES  Thou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have, 

 To be full like me: yet they say we are 

 Almost as like as eggs; women say so, 

 That will say anything but were they false 

 As o'er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false 

 As dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes 

 No bourn 'twixt his and mine, yet were it true 

 To say this boy were like me. Come, sir page, 

 Look on me with your welkin eye: sweet villain! 

 Most dear'st! my collop! Can thy dam?--may't be?-- 

 Affection! thy intention stabs the centre: 

 Thou dost make possible things not so held, 

 Communicatest with dreams;--how can this be?-- 

 With what's unreal thou coactive art, 

 And fellow'st nothing: then 'tis very credent 

 Thou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost, 

 And that beyond commission, and I find it, 

 And that to the infection of my brains 

 And hardening of my brows. 

 POLIXENES  What means Sicilia? 

 HERMIONE  He something seems unsettled. 

 POLIXENES  How, my lord! 

 What cheer? how is't with you, best brother? 

 HERMIONE  You look as if you held a brow of much distraction 

 Are you moved, my lord? 

 LEONTES  No, in good earnest. 

 How sometimes nature will betray its folly, 

 Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime 

 To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines 

 Of my boy's face, methoughts I did recoil 

 Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreech'd, 

 In my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled, 

 Lest it should bite its master, and so prove, 

 As ornaments oft do, too dangerous: 

 How like, methought, I then was to this kernel, 

 This squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend, 

 Will you take eggs for money? 

 MAMILLIUS  No, my lord, I'll fight. 

 LEONTES  You will! why, happy man be's dole! My brother, 

 Are you so fond of your young prince as we 

 Do seem to be of ours? 

 POLIXENES  If at home, sir, 

 He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter, 

 Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy, 

 My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all: 

 He makes a July's day short as December, 

 And with his varying childness cures in me 

 Thoughts that would thick my blood. 

 LEONTES  So stands this squire 

 Officed with me: we two will walk, my lord, 

 And leave you to your graver steps. Hermione, 

 How thou lovest us, show in our brother's welcome; 

 Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap: 

 Next to thyself and my young rover, he's 

 Apparent to my heart. 

 HERMIONE  If you would seek us, 

 We are yours i' the garden: shall's attend you there? 

 LEONTES  To your own bents dispose you: you'll be found, 

 Be you beneath the sky. 



 Aside  I am angling now, 

 Though you perceive me not how I give line. 

 Go to, go to! 

 How she holds up the neb, the bill to him! 

 And arms her with the boldness of a wife 

 To her allowing husband! 



 Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and Attendants  Gone already! 

 Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and 

 ears a fork'd one! 

 Go, play, boy, play: thy mother plays, and I 

 Play too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue 

 Will hiss me to my grave: contempt and clamour 

 Will be my knell. Go, play, boy, play. 

 There have been, 

 Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now; 

 And many a man there is, even at this present, 

 Now while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm, 

 That little thinks she has been sluiced in's absence 

 And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by 

 Sir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in't 

 Whiles other men have gates and those gates open'd, 

 As mine, against their will. Should all despair 

 That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind 

 Would hang themselves. Physic for't there is none; 

 It is a bawdy planet, that will strike 

 Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful, think it, 

 From east, west, north and south: be it concluded, 

 No barricado for a belly; know't; 

 It will let in and out the enemy 

 With bag and baggage: many thousand on's 

 Have the disease, and feel't not. How now, boy! 

 MAMILLIUS  I am like you, they say. 

 LEONTES  Why that's some comfort. What, Camillo there? 

 CAMILLO  Ay, my good lord. 

 LEONTES  Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man. 



 Exit MAMILLIUS  Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer. 

 CAMILLO  You had much ado to make his anchor hold: 

 When you cast out, it still came home. 

 LEONTES  Didst note it? 

 CAMILLO  He would not stay at your petitions: made 

 His business more material. 

 LEONTES  Didst perceive it? 



 Aside  They're here with me already, whispering, rounding 

 'Sicilia is a so-forth:' 'tis far gone, 

 When I shall gust it last. How came't, Camillo, 

 That he did stay? 

 CAMILLO  At the good queen's entreaty. 

 LEONTES  At the queen's be't: 'good' should be pertinent 

 But, so it is, it is not. Was this taken 

 By any understanding pate but thine? 

 For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in 

 More than the common blocks: not noted, is't, 

 But of the finer natures? by some severals 

 Of head-piece extraordinary? lower messes 

 Perchance are to this business purblind? say. 

 CAMILLO  Business, my lord! I think most understand 

 Bohemia stays here longer. 

 LEONTES  Ha! 

 CAMILLO  Stays here longer. 

 LEONTES  Ay, but why? 

 CAMILLO  To satisfy your highness and the entreaties 

 Of our most gracious mistress. 

 LEONTES  Satisfy! 

 The entreaties of your mistress! satisfy! 

 Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo, 

 With all the nearest things to my heart, as well 

 My chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou 

 Hast cleansed my bosom, I from thee departed 

 Thy penitent reform'd: but we have been 

 Deceived in thy integrity, deceived 

 In that which seems so. 

 CAMILLO  Be it forbid, my lord! 

 LEONTES  To bide upon't, thou art not honest, or, 

 If thou inclinest that way, thou art a coward, 

 Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining 

 From course required; or else thou must be counted 

 A servant grafted in my serious trust 

 And therein negligent; or else a fool 

 That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn, 

 And takest it all for jest. 

 CAMILLO  My gracious lord, 

 I may be negligent, foolish and fearful; 

 In every one of these no man is free, 

 But that his negligence, his folly, fear, 

 Among the infinite doings of the world, 

 Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord, 

 If ever I were wilful-negligent, 

 It was my folly; if industriously 

 I play'd the fool, it was my negligence, 

 Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful 

 To do a thing, where I the issue doubted, 

 Where of the execution did cry out 

 Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear 

 Which oft infects the wisest: these, my lord, 

 Are such allow'd infirmities that honesty 

 Is never free of. But, beseech your grace, 

 Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass 

 By its own visage: if I then deny it, 

 'Tis none of mine. 

 LEONTES  Ha' not you seen, Camillo,-- 

 But that's past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass 

 Is thicker than a cuckold's horn,--or heard,-- 

 For to a vision so apparent rumour 

 Cannot be mute,--or thought,--for cogitation 

 Resides not in that man that does not think,-- 

 My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess, 

 Or else be impudently negative, 

 To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say 

 My wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name 

 As rank as any flax-wench that puts to 

 Before her troth-plight: say't and justify't. 

 CAMILLO  I would not be a stander-by to hear 

 My sovereign mistress clouded so, without 

 My present vengeance taken: 'shrew my heart, 

 You never spoke what did become you less 

 Than this; which to reiterate were sin 

 As deep as that, though true. 

 LEONTES  Is whispering nothing? 

 Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses? 

 Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career 

 Of laughing with a sigh?--a note infallible 

 Of breaking honesty--horsing foot on foot? 

 Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift? 

 Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes 

 Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only, 

 That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing? 

 Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing; 

 The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing; 

 My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings, 

 If this be nothing. 

 CAMILLO  Good my lord, be cured 

 Of this diseased opinion, and betimes; 

 For 'tis most dangerous. 

 LEONTES  Say it be, 'tis true. 

 CAMILLO  No, no, my lord. 

 LEONTES  It is; you lie, you lie: 

 I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee, 

 Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave, 

 Or else a hovering temporizer, that 

 Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil, 

 Inclining to them both: were my wife's liver 

 Infected as her life, she would not live 

 The running of one glass. 

 CAMILLO  Who does infect her? 

 LEONTES  Why, he that wears her like a medal, hanging 

 About his neck, Bohemia: who, if I 

 Had servants true about me, that bare eyes 

 To see alike mine honour as their profits, 

 Their own particular thrifts, they would do that 

 Which should undo more doing: ay, and thou, 

 His cupbearer,--whom I from meaner form 

 Have benched and reared to worship, who mayst see 

 Plainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven, 

 How I am galled,--mightst bespice a cup, 

 To give mine enemy a lasting wink; 

 Which draught to me were cordial. 

 CAMILLO  Sir, my lord, 

 I could do this, and that with no rash potion, 

 But with a lingering dram that should not work 

 Maliciously like poison: but I cannot 

 Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress, 

 So sovereignly being honourable. 

 I have loved thee,-- 

 LEONTES  Make that thy question, and go rot! 

 Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled, 

 To appoint myself in this vexation, sully 

 The purity and whiteness of my sheets, 

 Which to preserve is sleep, which being spotted 

 Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps, 

 Give scandal to the blood o' the prince my son, 

 Who I do think is mine and love as mine, 

 Without ripe moving to't? Would I do this? 

 Could man so blench? 

 CAMILLO  I must believe you, sir: 

 I do; and will fetch off Bohemia for't; 

 Provided that, when he's removed, your highness 

 Will take again your queen as yours at first, 

 Even for your son's sake; and thereby for sealing 

 The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms 

 Known and allied to yours. 

 LEONTES  Thou dost advise me 

 Even so as I mine own course have set down: 

 I'll give no blemish to her honour, none. 

 CAMILLO  My lord, 

 Go then; and with a countenance as clear 

 As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia 

 And with your queen. I am his cupbearer: 

 If from me he have wholesome beverage, 

 Account me not your servant. 

 LEONTES  This is all: 

 Do't and thou hast the one half of my heart; 

 Do't not, thou split'st thine own. 

 CAMILLO  I'll do't, my lord. 

 LEONTES  I will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me. 



 Exit  CAMILLO  O miserable lady! But, for me, 

 What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner 

 Of good Polixenes; and my ground to do't 

 Is the obedience to a master, one 

 Who in rebellion with himself will have 

 All that are his so too. To do this deed, 

 Promotion follows. If I could find example 

 Of thousands that had struck anointed kings 

 And flourish'd after, I'ld not do't; but since 

 Nor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not one, 

 Let villany itself forswear't. I must 

 Forsake the court: to do't, or no, is certain 

 To me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now! 

 Here comes Bohemia. 



 Re-enter POLIXENES  POLIXENES  This is strange: methinks 

 My favour here begins to warp. Not speak? 

 Good day, Camillo. 

 CAMILLO  Hail, most royal sir! 

 POLIXENES  What is the news i' the court? 

 CAMILLO  None rare, my lord. 

 POLIXENES  The king hath on him such a countenance 

 As he had lost some province and a region 

 Loved as he loves himself: even now I met him 

 With customary compliment; when he, 

 Wafting his eyes to the contrary and falling 

 A lip of much contempt, speeds from me and 

 So leaves me to consider what is breeding 

 That changeth thus his manners. 

 CAMILLO  I dare not know, my lord. 

 POLIXENES  How! dare not! do not. Do you know, and dare not? 

 Be intelligent to me: 'tis thereabouts; 

 For, to yourself, what you do know, you must. 

 And cannot say, you dare not. Good Camillo, 

 Your changed complexions are to me a mirror 

 Which shows me mine changed too; for I must be 

 A party in this alteration, finding 

 Myself thus alter'd with 't. 

 CAMILLO  There is a sickness 

 Which puts some of us in distemper, but 

 I cannot name the disease; and it is caught 

 Of you that yet are well. 

 POLIXENES  How! caught of me! 

 Make me not sighted like the basilisk: 

 I have look'd on thousands, who have sped the better 

 By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo,-- 

 As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto 

 Clerk-like experienced, which no less adorns 

 Our gentry than our parents' noble names, 

 In whose success we are gentle,--I beseech you, 

 If you know aught which does behove my knowledge 

 Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not 

 In ignorant concealment. 

 CAMILLO  I may not answer. 

 POLIXENES  A sickness caught of me, and yet I well! 

 I must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo, 

 I conjure thee, by all the parts of man 

 Which honour does acknowledge, whereof the least 

 Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare 

 What incidency thou dost guess of harm 

 Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near; 

 Which way to be prevented, if to be; 

 If not, how best to bear it. 

 CAMILLO  Sir, I will tell you; 

 Since I am charged in honour and by him 

 That I think honourable: therefore mark my counsel, 

 Which must be even as swiftly follow'd as 

 I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me 

 Cry lost, and so good night! 

 POLIXENES  On, good Camillo. 

 CAMILLO  I am appointed him to murder you. 

 POLIXENES  By whom, Camillo? 

 CAMILLO  By the king. 

 POLIXENES  For what? 

 CAMILLO  He thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears, 

 As he had seen't or been an instrument 

 To vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen 

 Forbiddenly. 

 POLIXENES  O, then my best blood turn 

 To an infected jelly and my name 

 Be yoked with his that did betray the Best! 

 Turn then my freshest reputation to 

 A savour that may strike the dullest nostril 

 Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd, 

 Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection 

 That e'er was heard or read! 

 CAMILLO  Swear his thought over 

 By each particular star in heaven and 

 By all their influences, you may as well 

 Forbid the sea for to obey the moon 

 As or by oath remove or counsel shake 

 The fabric of his folly, whose foundation 

 Is piled upon his faith and will continue 

 The standing of his body. 

 POLIXENES  How should this grow? 

 CAMILLO  I know not: but I am sure 'tis safer to 

 Avoid what's grown than question how 'tis born. 

 If therefore you dare trust my honesty, 

 That lies enclosed in this trunk which you 

 Shall bear along impawn'd, away to-night! 

 Your followers I will whisper to the business, 

 And will by twos and threes at several posterns 

 Clear them o' the city. For myself, I'll put 

 My fortunes to your service, which are here 

 By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain; 

 For, by the honour of my parents, I 

 Have utter'd truth: which if you seek to prove, 

 I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer 

 Than one condemn'd by the king's own mouth, thereon 

 His execution sworn. 

 POLIXENES  I do believe thee: 

 I saw his heart in 's face. Give me thy hand: 

 Be pilot to me and thy places shall 

 Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready and 

 My people did expect my hence departure 

 Two days ago. This jealousy 

 Is for a precious creature: as she's rare, 

 Must it be great, and as his person's mighty, 

 Must it be violent, and as he does conceive 

 He is dishonour'd by a man which ever 

 Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must 

 In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me: 

 Good expedition be my friend, and comfort 

 The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing 

 Of his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo; 

 I will respect thee as a father if 

 Thou bear'st my life off hence: let us avoid. 

 CAMILLO  It is in mine authority to command 

 The keys of all the posterns: please your highness 

 To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away. 



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