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

to use it. - Come, and lead me To these sorrows.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE III. Bohemia. A desert Country near the Sea.

[Enter ANTIGONUS with the Child, and a Mariner.]

ANTIGONUS. Thou art perfect, then, our ship hath touch'd upon The deserts of Bohemia?

MARINER.
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.

ANTIGONUS. Their sacred wills be done! - Go, get aboard; Look to thy bark: I'll not be long before I call upon thee.

MARINER. Make your best haste; and go not Too far i' the land: 'tis like to be loud weather; Besides, this place is famous for the creatures Of prey that keep upon't.

ANTIGONUS.
Go thou away: I'll follow instantly.

MARINER.
I am glad at heart To be so rid o' th' business.

[Exit.]

ANTIGONUS.
Come, poor babe: - I have heard (but not believ'd) the spirits of the dead May walk again: if such thing be, thy mother Appear'd to me last night; for ne'er was dream So like a waking. To me comes a creature, Sometimes her head on one side, some another: I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, So fill'd and so becoming: in pure white robes, Like very sanctity, she did approach My cabin where I lay: thrice bow'd before me; And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes Became two spouts: the fury spent, anon Did this break from her: 'Good Antigonus, Since fate, against thy better disposition, Hath made thy person for the thrower-out Of my poor babe, according to thine oath, - Places remote enough are in Bohemia, There weep, and leave it crying; and, for the babe Is counted lost for ever, Perdita I pr'ythee call't. For this ungentle business, Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see Thy wife Paulina more': so, with shrieks, She melted into air. 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. I do believe Hermione hath suffer'd death, and that Apollo would, this being indeed the issue Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid, Either for life or death, upon the earth Of its right father. Blossom, speed thee well!

[Laying down the child.]

There lie; and there thy character: there these;

[Laying down a bundle.]

Which may if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty, And still rest thine. - 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. - Farewell! The day frowns more and more: - thou'rt like to have A lullaby too rough: - I never saw The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! - Well may I get aboard! - This is the chase: I am gone for ever.

[Exit, pursued by a bear.]

[Enter an old SHEPHERD.]

SHEPHERD. I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting. - Hark you now! Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the master: if anywhere I have them, 'tis by the sea-side, browsing of ivy. - Good luck, an't be thy will! what have we here?

[Taking up the child.]

Mercy on's, a bairn: A very pretty bairn! A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one; a very pretty one: sure, some scape: though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door-work; they were warmer that got this than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my son comes; he hallaed but even now. - Whoa, ho hoa!

CLOWN. [Within.] Hilloa, loa!

SHEPHERD. What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither.

[Enter CLOWN.]

What ail'st thou, man?

CLOWN. I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land! - but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky: betwixt the firmament and it, you cannot thrust a bodkin's point.

SHEPHERD. Why, boy, how is it?

CLOWN. I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up the shore! But that's not to the point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em; now the ship boring the moon with her mainmast, and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land service, - to see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said his name was Antigonus, a nobleman. - But to make an end of the ship, - to see how the sea flap-dragon'd it: - but first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them; - and how the poor gentleman roared, and the bear mocked him, - both roaring louder than the sea or weather.

SHEPHERD. Name of mercy! when was this, boy?

CLOWN. Now, now; I have not winked since I saw these sights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman; he's at it now.

SHEPHERD. Would I had been by to have helped the old man!

CLOWN. I would you had been by the ship-side, to have helped her: there your charity would have lacked footing.

SHEPHERD. [Aside.] Heavy matters, heavy matters! But look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself: thou mettest with things dying, I with things new-born. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's child! look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open't. So, let's see: - it was told me I should be rich by the fairies: this is some changeling: - open't. What's within, boy?

CLOWN. You're a made old man; if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!

SHEPHERD. This is fairy-gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up with it, keep it close: home, home, the next way! We are lucky, boy: and to be so still requires nothing but secrecy - Let my sheep go: - come, good boy, the next way home.

CLOWN. Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten: they are never curst but when they are hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury it.

SHEPHERD. That's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that which is left of him what he is, fetch me to the sight of him.

CLOWN. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground.

SHEPHERD. 'Tis a lucky day, boy; and we'll do good deeds on't.

[Exeunt.]


ACT IV.

SCENE I.

[Enter Time, as Chorus.]

TIME. I, - that please some, try all; both joy and terror Of good and bad; that make and unfold error, - Now take upon me, in the name of Time, To use my wings. Impute it not a crime To me or my swift passage, that I slide O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried Of that wide gap, since it is in my power To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass The same I am, ere ancient'st order was Or what is now received: I witness to The times that brought them in; so shall I do To the freshest things now reigning, and make stale The glistering of this present, as my tale Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing, I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing As you had slept between. Leontes leaving The effects of his fond jealousies, so grieving That he shuts up himself; imagine me, Gentle spectators, that I now may be In fair Bohemia; and remember well, I mention'd a son o' the king's, which Florizel I now name to you; and with speed so pace To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace Equal with wondering: what of her ensues, I list not prophesy; but let Time's news Be known when 'tis brought forth: - a shepherd's daughter, And what to her adheres, which follows after, Is the 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.

[Exit.]


SCENE II. Bohemia. A Room in the palace of POLIXENES.

[Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO.]

POLIXENES. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 'tis a sickness denying thee anything; a death to grant this.

CAMILLO. It is fifteen years since I saw my country; though I have for the most part been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to think so, - which is another spur to my departure.

POLIXENES. As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy services by leaving me now: the need I have of thee, thine own goodness hath made; better not to have had thee than thus to want thee; thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I have not enough considered, - as too much I cannot, - to be more thankful to thee shall be my study; and my profit therein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country Sicilia, pr'ythee, speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou call'st him, and reconciled king, my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved their virtues.

CAMILLO. Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown; but I have missingly noted he is of late much retired from court, and is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.