SCENE I. A room in LEONTES' palace. Winter's Tale  Shakespeare homepage  |  Winter's Tale  | Act 2, Scene 1 

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

 Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and Ladies  HERMIONE  Take the boy to you: he so troubles me, 

 'Tis past enduring. 

 First Lady  Come, my gracious lord, 

 Shall I be your playfellow? 

 MAMILLIUS  No, I'll none of you. 

 First Lady  Why, my sweet lord? 

 MAMILLIUS  You'll kiss me hard and speak to me as if 

 I were a baby still. I love you better. 

 Second Lady  And why so, my lord? 

 MAMILLIUS  Not for because 

 Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say, 

 Become some women best, so that there be not 

 Too much hair there, but in a semicircle 

 Or a half-moon made with a pen. 

 Second Lady  Who taught you this? 

 MAMILLIUS  I learnt it out of women's faces. Pray now 

 What colour are your eyebrows? 

 First Lady  Blue, my lord. 

 MAMILLIUS  Nay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's nose 

 That has been blue, but not her eyebrows. 

 First Lady  Hark ye; 

 The queen your mother rounds apace: we shall 

 Present our services to a fine new prince 

 One of these days; and then you'ld wanton with us, 

 If we would have you. 

 Second Lady  She is spread of late 

 Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her! 

 HERMIONE  What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now 

 I am for you again: pray you, sit by us, 

 And tell 's a tale. 

 MAMILLIUS  Merry or sad shall't be? 

 HERMIONE  As merry as you will. 

 MAMILLIUS  A sad tale's best for winter: I have one 

 Of sprites and goblins. 

 HERMIONE  Let's have that, good sir. 

 Come on, sit down: come on, and do your best 

 To fright me with your sprites; you're powerful at it. 

 MAMILLIUS  There was a man-- 

 HERMIONE  Nay, come, sit down; then on. 

 MAMILLIUS  Dwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly; 

 Yond crickets shall not hear it. 

 HERMIONE  Come on, then, 

 And give't me in mine ear. 



 Enter LEONTES, with ANTIGONUS, Lords and others  LEONTES  Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him? 

 First Lord  Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never 

 Saw I men scour so on their way: I eyed them 

 Even to their ships. 

 LEONTES  How blest am I 

 In my just censure, in my true opinion! 

 Alack, for lesser knowledge! how accursed 

 In being so blest! There may be in the cup 

 A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart, 

 And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge 

 Is not infected: but if one present 

 The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known 

 How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides, 

 With violent hefts. I have drunk, 

 and seen the spider. 

 Camillo was his help in this, his pander: 

 There is a plot against my life, my crown; 

 All's true that is mistrusted: that false villain 

 Whom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him: 

 He has discover'd my design, and I 

 Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick 

 For them to play at will. How came the posterns 

 So easily open? 

 First Lord  By his great authority; 

 Which often hath no less prevail'd than so 

 On your command. 

 LEONTES  I know't too well. 

 Give me the boy: I am glad you did not nurse him: 

 Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you 

 Have too much blood in him. 

 HERMIONE  What is this? sport? 

 LEONTES  Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her; 

 Away with him! and let her sport herself 

 With that she's big with; for 'tis Polixenes 

 Has made thee swell thus. 

 HERMIONE  But I'ld say he had not, 

 And I'll be sworn you would believe my saying, 

 Howe'er you lean to the nayward. 

 LEONTES  You, my lords, 

 Look on her, mark her well; be but about 

 To say 'she is a goodly lady,' and 

 The justice of your bearts will thereto add 

 'Tis pity she's not honest, honourable:' 

 Praise her but for this her without-door form, 

 Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight 

 The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands 

 That calumny doth use--O, I am out-- 

 That mercy does, for calumny will sear 

 Virtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha's, 

 When you have said 'she's goodly,' come between 

 Ere you can say 'she's honest:' but be 't known, 

 From him that has most cause to grieve it should be, 

 She's an adulteress. 

 HERMIONE  Should a villain say so, 

 The most replenish'd 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 adulteress; 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 publish'd 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 school-boy'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 

 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 perform'd! 

 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 wish'd 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  First Lord  Beseech your highness, call the queen again. 

 ANTIGONUS  Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice 

 Prove violence; in the which three great ones suffer, 

 Yourself, your queen, your son. 

 First Lord  For her, my lord, 

 I dare my life lay down and will do't, sir, 

 Please you to accept it, that the queen is spotless 

 I' the eyes of heaven and to you; I mean, 

 In this which you accuse her. 

 ANTIGONUS  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. 

 First Lord  Good my lord,-- 

 ANTIGONUS  It is for you we speak, not for ourselves: 

 You are abused and by some putter-on 

 That will be damn'd for't; would I knew the villain, 

 I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd, 

 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? 

 First 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 ordering on't, is all 

 Properly ours. 

 ANTIGONUS  And I wish, my liege, 

 You had only in your silent judgment tried it, 

 Without more overture. 

 LEONTES  How could that be? 

 Either thou art most ignorant by age, 

 Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight, 

 Added to their familiarity, 

 Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture, 

 That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation 

 But only seeing, all other circumstances 

 Made up to the deed, doth push on this proceeding: 

 Yet, for a greater confirmation, 

 For in an act of this importance 'twere 

 Most piteous to be wild, I have dispatch'd in post 

 To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple, 

 Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know 

 Of stuff'd sufficiency: now from the oracle 

 They will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had, 

 Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well? 

 First Lord  Well done, my lord. 

 LEONTES  Though I am satisfied and need no more 

 Than what I know, yet shall the oracle 

 Give rest to the minds of others, such as he 

 Whose ignorant credulity will not 

 Come up to the truth. So have we thought it good 

 From our free person she should be confined, 

 Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence 

 Be left her to perform. Come, follow us; 

 We are to speak in public; for this business 

 Will raise us all. 

 ANTIGONUS  [Aside] 

 To laughter, as I take it, 

 If the good truth were known. 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  Winter's Tale  | Act 2, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene 