The Winter’s Tale

epub:type="z3998:persona">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.

Scene II

Before Leontes’ palace.

	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 the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be.
	Enter another Gentleman.
	Here comes a gentleman that haply knows more. The news, Rogero?
Second Gentleman	Nothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled; the king’s daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is broken out within this hour that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it.
	Enter a Third Gentleman.
	Here comes the Lady Paulina’s steward: he can deliver you more. How goes it now, sir? this news which is called true is so like an old tale, that the verity of it is in strong suspicion: has the king found his heir?
Third Gentleman	Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance: that which you hear you’ll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione’s, her jewel about the neck of it, the letters of Antigonus found with it which they know to be his character, the majesty of the creature in resemblance of the mother, the affection of nobleness which nature shows above her breeding, and many other evidences proclaim her with all certainty to be the king’s daughter. Did you see the meeting of the two kings?
Second Gentleman	No.
Third Gentleman	Then have you lost a sight, which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenances of such distraction that they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries “O, thy mother, thy mother!” then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his daughter with clipping her; now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings’ reigns. I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it and undoes description to do it.
Second Gentleman	What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child?
Third Gentleman	Like an old tale still, which will have matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear open. He was torn to pieces with a bear: this avouches the shepherd’s son; who has not only his innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.
First Gentleman	What became of his bark and his followers?
Third Gentleman	Wrecked the same instant of their master’s death and in the view of the shepherd: so that all the instruments which aided to expose the child were even then lost when it was found. But O, the noble combat that ’twixt joy and sorrow was fought in Paulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled: she lifted the princess from the earth, and so locks her in embracing, as if she would pin her to her heart that she might no more be in danger of losing.
First