The Winters Tale

A notable passion of wonder appear’d in them; but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not say if th’ importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be.

A shepherd’s daughter, And what to her adheres, which follows after, Is th’ argument of Time. Of this allow, If ever you have spent time worse ere now; If never, yet that Time himself doth say, He wishes earnestly you never may.

AUT. A lie; you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying. It becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie, but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel, therefore they do not give us the lie. CLO. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the manner.

Affrighted much, I did in time collect myself and thought This was so, and no slumber. Dreams are toys, Yet for this once, yea, superstitiously, I will be squar’d by this.

Alas, I have show’d too much The rashness of a woman; he is touch’d To th’ noble heart. What’s gone and what’s past help Should be past grief.

And hath he too Expos’d this paragon to th’ fearful usage (At least ungentle) of the dreadful Neptune, To greet a man not worth her pains, much less Th’ adventure of her person?

And therefore, like a cipher (Yet standing in rich place), I multiply With one “We thank you” many thousands more That go before it.

And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it So like to him that got it, if thou hast The ordering of the mind too, ’mongst all colors No yellow in’t, lest she suspect, as he does, Her children not her husband’s!

As she liv’d peerless, So her dead likeness, I do well believe, Excels what ever yet you look’d upon, Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it Lonely, apart.

As well as one so great and so forlorn May hold together. On her frights and griefs (Which never tender lady hath borne greater) She is, something before her time, deliver’d.

Ay, my lord, and fear We have landed in ill time: the skies look grimly, And threaten present blusters. In my conscience, The heavens with that we have in hand are angry, And frown upon ’s.

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.

Behold, my lords, Although the print be little, the whole matter And copy of the father—eye, nose, lip, The trick of ’s frown, his forehead, nay, the valley, The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek, his smiles, The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger.

but I have That honorable grief lodg’d 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;

But as th’ unthought-on accident is guilty To what we wildly do, so we profess Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies Of every wind that blows.

but since Nor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not one, Let villainy itself forswear’t. I must Forsake the court.

But thus, if pow’rs divine Behold our human actions (as they do), I doubt not then but innocence shall make False accusation blush, and tyranny Tremble at patience.

But your petition Is yet unanswer’d. I will to your father. Your honor 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.

But ’tis all one to me; for had I been the finder-out of this secret, it would not have relish’d among my other discredits.

But, O thou tyrant! Do not repent these things, for they are heavier Than all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee To nothing but despair.

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;

CAM. You had much ado to make his anchor hold, When you cast out, it still came home. LEON. Didst note it? CAM. He would not stay at your petitions, made His business more material.

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

Close with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold. Show the inside of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado.

course more promising Than a wild dedication of yourselves To unpath’d waters, undream’d shores, most certain To miseries enough;

Do not receive affliction At my petition; I beseech you, rather Let me be punish’d, that have minded you Of what you should forget.

Do not shun her Until you see her die again, for then You kill her double. Nay, present your hand. When she was young, you woo’d her; now, in age, Is she become the suitor?

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’ th’ 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?

embrace but my direction, If your more ponderous and settled project May suffer alteration. On mine honor, I’ll point you where you shall have such receiving As shall become your Highness, where you may Enjoy your mistress

Fear none of this. I think you know my fortunes Do all lie there. It shall be so my care To have you royally appointed, as if The scene you play were mine.

Fie, daughter, when my old wife liv’d, upon This day she was both pantler, butler, cook, Both dame and servant; welcom’d all, serv’d all; Would sing her song, and dance her turn; now here, At upper end o’ th’ table, now i’ th’ middle; On his shoulder, and his;

For I have heard it said, There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating Nature.

For you there’s rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming and savor all the winter long. Grace and remembrance be to you both, And welcome to our shearing!

Get you hence, for I must go Where it fits not you to know.

Go together, You precious winners all; your exultation Partake to every one. I, an old turtle, Will wing me to some wither’d bough, and there My mate (that’s never to be found again) Lament till I am lost.

Good Paulina, Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely Each one demand, and answer to his part Perform’d in this wide gap of time, since first We were dissever’d. Hastily lead away.

HER. If you would seek us, We are yours i’ th’ garden. Shall ’s attend you there? LEON. To your own bents dispose you; you’ll be found, Be you beneath the sky.

Hang all the husbands That cannot do that feat, you’ll leave yourself Hardly one subject.

He could never come better; he shall come in. I love a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.

He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter. I think so too; for never gaz’d the moon Upon the water as he’ll stand and read As ’twere my daughter’s eyes; and to be plain, I think there is not half a kiss to choose Who loves another best.

He makes a July’s day short as December, And with his varying childness cures in me Thoughts that would thick my blood.

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.

I am a feather for each wind that blows. Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel And call me father? Better burn it now Than curse it then. But be it; let it live. It shall not neither.

I am asham’d; 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 conjur’d to remembrance, and From thy admiring daughter took the spirits, Standing like stone with thee.

I am but sorry, not afeard; delay’d, But nothing alt’red. What I was, I am: More straining on for plucking back, not following My leash unwillingly.

I bless the time When my good falcon made her flight across Thy father’s ground.

I cannot speak So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better. By th’ pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out The purity of his.

I come to bring him sleep. ’Tis such as you, That creep like shadows by him, and do sigh At each his needless heavings, such as you Nourish the cause of his awaking.

I had rather you did lack than I, my lord, Upon this ground; and more it would content me To have her honor true than your suspicion, Be blam’d for’t how you might.

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 tonight!

I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it, and undoes description to do it.

I ne’er heard yet That any of these bolder vices wanted Less impudence to gainsay what they did Than to perform it first.

I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing.

I very well agree with you in the hopes of him; it is a gallant child; one that, indeed, physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh. They that went on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man.

I witness to The times that brought them in; so shall I do To th’ freshest things now reigning, and make stale The glistering of this present, as my tale Now seems to it.

if one jot beyond The bound of honor, or in act or will That way inclining, hard’ned be the hearts Of all that hear me, and my near’st of kin Cry fie upon my grave!

If th’ event o’ th’ journey Prove as successful to the Queen (O be’t so!) As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy, The time is worth the use on’t.

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.

Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, And merrily hent the stile-a; A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a.

LEON. His princess, say you, with him? 1. SERV. Ay; the most peerless piece of earth, I think, That e’er the sun shone bright on.

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 cleans’d my bosom: I from thee departed Thy penitent reform’d.

ll presently Acquaint the Queen of your most noble offer, Who but today hammered of this design, But durst not tempt a minister of honor, Lest she should be denied.

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.

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 kill’d itself much sooner.

Nine changes of the wat’ry star hath been The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne Without a burden.

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.

no hope to help you, But as you shake off one, to take another; Nothing so certain as your anchors, who Do their best office, if they can but stay you Where you’ll be loath to be.

No noise, my lord, but needful conference About some gossips for your Highness.

No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on; Not like a corse; or if—not to be buried, But quick and in mine arms.

Now, my liege, Tell me what blessings I have here alive, That I should fear to die? Therefore proceed. But yet hear this—mistake me not;

O Hermione, As every present time doth boast itself Above a better gone, so must thy grave Give way to what’s seen now!

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;

O my most sacred lady, Temptations have since then been born to ’s: for In those unfledg’d days was my wife a girl; Your precious self had then not cross’d the eyes Of my young playfellow.

O sir, the loathsomeness of them offend me more than the stripes I have receiv’d, which are mighty ones and millions.

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.

O! Alas, I lost a couple, that ’twixt heaven and earth Might thus have stood, begetting wonder, as You, gracious couple, do;

Once a day I’ll visit The chapel where they lie, and tears shed there Shall be my recreation. So long as nature Will bear up with this exercise, so long I daily vow to use it.

Pray you bid These unknown friends to ’s welcome, for it is A way to make us better friends, more known.

Reason my son Should choose himself a wife, but as good reason The father (all whose joy is nothing else But fair posterity) should hold some counsel In such a business.

Say there be; Yet Nature is made better by no mean But Nature makes that mean; so over that art Which you say adds to Nature, is an art That Nature makes.

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.

Sir, the year growing ancient, Not yet on summer’s death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest flow’rs o’ th’ season Are our carnations and streak’d gillyvors (Which some call Nature’s bastards).

So have we thought it good From our free person she should be confin’d, Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence Be left her to perform.

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.

Sure When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches Will bring me to consider that which may Unfurnish me of reason.

Tell her, Emilia, I’ll use that tongue I have. If wit flow from’t As boldness from my bosom, let’t not be doubted I shall do good.

Tell me (for you seem to be honest plain men) what you have to the King. Being something gently consider’d, I’ll bring you where he is aboard, tender your persons to his presence, whisper him in your behalfs; and if it be in man besides the King to effect your suits, here is man shall do it.

that they have seem’d to be together, though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embrac’d as it were from the ends of oppos’d winds. The heavens continue their loves!

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.

That were I crown’d the most imperial monarch, Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge More than was ever man’s, I would not prize them Without her love;

The climate’s delicate, the air most sweet, Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing The common praise it bears.

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.

The storm begins. Poor wretch, That for thy mother’s fault art thus expos’d To loss, and what may follow! Weep I cannot, But my heart bleeds; and most accurs’d am I To be by oath enjoin’d to this.

The very thought of my revenges that way Recoil upon me: in himself too mighty, And in his parties, his alliance. Let him be, Until a time may serve. For present vengeance, Take it on her.

Their transformations Were never for a piece of beauty rarer, Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires Run not before mine honor, nor my lusts Burn hotter than my faith.

then, raw as he is (and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims), shall he be set against a brick-wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he is to behold him with flies blown to death.

There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenance of such distraction that they were to be known by garment, not by favor.

There’s some ill planet reigns; I must be patient, till the heavens look With an aspect more favorable.

This is an art Which does mend Nature—change it rather; but The art itself is Nature.

This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever Ran on the green-sord. Nothing she does, or seems, But smacks of something greater than herself, Too noble for this place.

Thou dear’st Perdita, With these forc’d thoughts I prithee darken not The mirth o’ th’ feast. Or I’ll be thine, my fair, Or not my father’s; for I cannot be Mine own, nor any thing to any, if I be not thine.

Though I am satisfied, and need no more Than what I know, yet shall the oracle Give rest to th’ minds of others—such as he, Points at Antigonus. Whose ignorant credulity will not Come up to th’ truth.

Time as long again Would be fill’d up, my brother, with our thanks, And yet we should, for perpetuity, Go hence in debt.

Very nobly Have you deserv’d. It is my father’s music To speak your deeds; not little of his care To have them recompens’d as thought on.

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.

We do not know How he may soften at the sight o’ th’ child: The silence often of pure innocence Persuades when speaking fails.

We were as twinn’d lambs that did frisk i’ th’ sun, And bleat the one at th’ other. What we chang’d Was innocence for innocence; we knew not The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream’d That any did.

We were, fair queen, Two lads that thought there was no more behind But such a day tomorrow as today, And to be boy eternal.

Were my wive’s liver Infected as her life, she would not live The running of one glass.

What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown; but I have (missingly) noted, he is of late much retir’d from court, and is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appear’d.

Wherein our entertainment shall shame us: we will be justified in our loves; for indeed—

Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings? Hath not my gait in it the measure of the court? Receives not thy nose court-odor from me? Reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt?

which if I have not enough consider’d (as too much I cannot), to be more thankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit therein the heaping friendships.

Whilest 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.

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;

Will’t please you, sir, be gone? I told you what would come of this. Beseech you Of your own state take care. This dream of mine Being now awake, I’ll queen it no inch farther, But milk my ewes, and weep.

Wolves and bears, they say, Casting their savageness aside, have done Like offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous In more than this deed does require! And blessing Against this cruelty fight on thy side, Poor thing, condemn’d to loss!

Women will love her, that she is a woman More worth than any man; men, that she is The rarest of all women.

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;

You might have spoken a thousand things that would Have done the time more benefit, and grac’d Your kindness better.

Your guest then, madam. To be your prisoner should import offending, Which is for me less easy to commit Than you to punish.

Your patience this allowing, I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing As you had slept between.

Your praises are too large. But that your youth, And the true blood which peeps fairly through’t, Do plainly give you out an unstain’d shepherd, With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, You woo’d me the false way.