The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare (book club suggestions txt) 📖

Dramatis Personae

LEONTES, King of Sicilia
MAMILLIUS, his son
CAMILLO, Sicilian Lord
ANTIGONUS, Sicilian Lord
CLEOMENES, Sicilian Lord
DION, Sicilian Lord
POLIXENES, King of Bohemia
FLORIZEL, his son
ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian Lord
An Old Shepherd, reputed father of Perdita
CLOWN, his son
AUTOLYCUS, a rogue
A Mariner
Gaoler
Servant to the Old Shepherd
Other Sicilian Lords
Sicilian Gentlemen
Officers of a Court of Judicature

HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes
PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Hermione
PAULINA, wife to Antigonus
EMILIA, a lady attending on the Queen
MOPSA, shepherdess
DORCAS, shepherdess
Other Ladies, attending on the Queen

Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Satyrs for a Dance; Shepherds,
Shepherdesses, Guards, &c.

TIME, as Chorus


SCENE: Sometimes in Sicilia; sometimes in Bohemia.


ACT I.

SCENE I. Sicilia. An Antechamber in LEONTES' Palace.

[Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS]

ARCHIDAMUS. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.

CAMILLO. I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.

ARCHIDAMUS. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be justified in our loves; for indeed, -

CAMILLO. Beseech you, -

ARCHIDAMUS. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we cannot with such magnificence - in so rare - I know not what to say. - We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us.

CAMILLO. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.

ARCHIDAMUS. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.

CAMILLO. Sicilia cannot show himself overkind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have seemed to be together, though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embraced as it were from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves!

ARCHIDAMUS. I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young Prince Mamillius: it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.

CAMILLO. 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.

ARCHIDAMUS. Would they else be content to die?

CAMILLO. Yes, if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.

ARCHIDAMUS. If the king had no son, they would desire to live on crutches till he had one.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE II. The same. A Room of State in the Palace.

[Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and Attendants.]

POLIXENES. Nine changes of the watery star hath been The shepherd's note since we have left our throne Without a burden: time as long again Would be fill'd 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 more 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 had 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 proclaimed: 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. - [To POLIXENES] 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 of 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 is As potent as a lord's. Will 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 th' other. What we chang'd Was innocence for innocence; we knew not The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd That any did. Had we pursu'd 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 unfledg'd 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 spok'st To better purpose.

HERMIONE.
Never?

LEONTES.
Never but once.

HERMIONE. What! have I twice said well? when was't before? I pr'ythee 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 heat 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 crabbèd months had sour'd themselves to death, Ere I could make thee open thy white