The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Winter's Tale, by William Shakespeare

ACT I
	Scene I.	Sicilia. An Antechamber in LEONTES' Palace.
	Scene II.	The same. A Room of State in the Palace.
ACT II
	Scene I.	Sicilia. A Room in the Palace.
	Scene II.	The same. The outer Room of a Prison.
	Scene III.	The same. A Room in the Palace.
ACT III
	Scene I.	Sicilia. A Street in some Town.
	Scene II.	The same. A Court of Justice.
	Scene III.	Bohemia. A desert Country near the Sea.
ACT IV
	Scene I.
	Scene II.	Bohemia. A Room in the palace of POLIXENES.
	Scene III.	The same. A Road near the Shepherd's cottage.
	Scene IV.	The same. A Shepherd's Cottage.
ACT V
	Scene I.	Sicilia. A Room in the palace of LEONTES.
	Scene II.	The same. Before the Palace.
	Scene III.	The same. A Room in PAULINA's house.

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.

Scene:

ACT I.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

ACT II.

ACT III.

[Reads.] 'Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes, king of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in committing adultery with Polixenes, king of Bohemia; and conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign lord the king, thy royal husband: the pretence whereof being by circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of true subject, didst counsel and aid them, for their better safety, to fly away by night.'

[Reads.] 'Hermione is chaste; Polixenes blameless; Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; his innocent babe truly begotten; and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found.'

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?

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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

[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?

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

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.

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.

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.

ACT IV.

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

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.

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.

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.

I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care; so far that I have eyes under my service which look upon his removedness; from whom I have this intelligence,—that he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd,—a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.

I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note: the report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage.

That's likewise part of my intelligence: but, I fear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not appearing what we are, have some question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Pr'ythee, be my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

I have serv'd Prince Florizel, and in my time wore three-pile; but now I am out of service:

My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who being, I as am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and drab I purchased this caparison; and my revenue is the silly-cheat: gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway; beating and hanging are terrors to me; for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it.—A prize! a prize!

Let me see:—every 'leven wether tods; every tod yields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?

I cannot do't without counters.—Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? 'Three pound of sugar; five pound of currants; rice'—what will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me four and twenty nosegays for the shearers,—three-man song-men all, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases; but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden pies; 'mace—dates',—none, that's out of my note; 'nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger',—but that I may beg; 'four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' the sun.'

Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off.

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

I am robb'd, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon me.

Indeed, he should be a footman, by the garments he has left with thee: if this be a horseman's coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.

Softly, dear sir! [Picks his pocket.] good sir, softly; you ha' done me a charitable office.

No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going; I shall there have money or anything I want: offer me no money, I pray you; that kills my heart.

A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with troll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the prince; I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.

His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped out of the court: they cherish it, to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but abide.

Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus.

Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings.

Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but looked big and spit at him, he'd have run.

I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant him.

Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and walk: I will even take my leave of you and pace softly towards my kinsman's.

Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat bring out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue!

O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings several tunes faster than you'll tell money: he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men's ears grew to his tunes.

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 hath songs for man or woman of all sizes; no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves: he has the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burdens of 'dildos' and 'fadings', 'jump her and thump her'; and where some stretch-mouth'd rascal would, as it were, mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man',—puts him off, slights him, with 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'

Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares?

He hath ribbons of all the colours i' the rainbow; points, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by the gross; inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns; why he sings 'em over as they were gods or goddesses; you would think a smock were a she-angel, he so chants to the sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't.

If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.

He hath paid you all he promised you: may be he has paid you more,—which will shame you to give him again.

Is there no manners left among maids? will they wear their plackets where they should bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guests? 'tis well they are whispering. Clamour your tongues, and not a word more.

And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it behoves men to be wary.

Pray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print a-life; for then we are sure they are true.

Here's one to a very doleful tune. How a usurer's wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden, and how she long'd to eat adders' heads and toads carbonadoed.

Here's the midwife's name to't, one Mistress Taleporter, and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I carry lies abroad?

Come on, lay it by; and let's first see more ballads; we'll buy the other things anon.

Here's another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids: it was thought she was a woman, and was turned into a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her. The ballad is very pitiful, and as true.

Why, this is a passing merry one, and goes to the tune of 'Two maids wooing a man.' There's scarce a maid westward but she sings it: 'tis in request, I can tell you.

We can both sing it: if thou'lt bear a part, thou shalt hear; 'tis in three parts.

We'll have this song out anon by ourselves; my father and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll not trouble them.—Come, bring away thy pack after me.—Wenches, I'll buy for you both:—Pedlar, let's have the first choice.—Follow me, girls.

Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made themselves all men of hair; they call themselves saltiers: and they have dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in't; but they themselves are o' the mind (if it be not too rough for some that know little but bowling) it will please plentifully.

Away! we'll none on't; here has been too much homely foolery already.—I know, sir, we weary you.

One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the king; and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squire.

Leave your prating: since these good men are pleased, let them come in; but quickly now.

Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a riband, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting;—they throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed, and brought a benediction to the buyer: by which means I saw whose purse was best in picture; and what I saw, to my good use I remembered. My clown (who wants but something to be a reasonable man) grew so in love with the wenches' song that he would not stir his pettitoes till he had both tune and words; which so drew the rest of the herd to me that all their other senses stuck in ears: you might have pinched a placket,—it was senseless; 'twas nothing to geld a codpiece of a purse; I would have filed keys off that hung in chains: no hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and admiring the nothing of it. So that, in this time of lethargy, I picked and cut most of their festival purses; and had not the old man come in with whoobub against his daughter and the king's son, and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army.

How now, good fellow! why shakest thou so? Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee.

Why, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from thee: yet, for the outside of thy poverty we must make an exchange; therefore discase thee instantly,—thou must think there's a necessity in't,—and change garments with this gentleman: though the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee, there's some boot. [Giving money.]

I understand the business, I hear it:—to have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cut-purse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for the other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth thrive. What an exchange had this been without boot? what a boot is here with this exchange? Sure, the gods do this year connive at us, and we may do anything extempore. The prince himself is about a piece of iniquity,—stealing away from his father with his clog at his heels: if I thought it were a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal, I would not do't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my profession.

Aside, aside;—here is more matter for a hot brain: every lane's end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man work.

See, see; what a man you are now! There is no other way but to tell the king she's a changeling, and none of your flesh and blood.

She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the king; and so your flesh and blood is not to be punished by him. Show those things you found about her; those secret things,—all but what she has with her: this being done, let the law go whistle; I warrant you.

I will tell the king all, every word,—yea, and his son's pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man neither to his father nor to me, to go about to make me the king's brother-in-law.

Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer by I know how much an ounce.

Well, let us to the king: there is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard!

[Aside.] I know not what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master.

[Aside.] Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance. Let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement. [Takes off his false beard.]—How now, rustics! whither are you bound?

Your affairs there, what, with whom, the condition of that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages, of what having, breeding, and anything that is fitting to be known? discover.

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.

Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the manner.

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-odour from me? reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Think'st thou, for that I insinuate, or toaze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-à-pie, and one that will either push on or pluck back thy business there: whereupon I command thee to open thy affair.

He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical: a great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking on's teeth.

Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box which none must know but the king; and which he shall know within this hour, if I may come to the speech of him.

The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy and air himself: for, if thou beest capable of things serious, thou must know the king is full of grief.

So 'tis said, sir,—about his son, that should have married a shepherd's daughter.

If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly: the curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster.

Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though removed fifty times, shall all come under the hangman: which, though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace! Some say he shall be stoned; but that death is too soft for him, say I. Draw our throne into a sheep-cote!—all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.

He has a son,—who shall be flayed alive; then 'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest; then stand till he be three quarters and a dram dead; then recovered again with aqua-vitæ or some other hot infusion; 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. But what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at, their offences being so capital? Tell me,—for you seem to be honest plain men,—what you have to the king: being something gently considered, 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.

He seems to be of great authority: 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. Remember,—ston'd and flayed alive.

An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for us, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much more, and leave this young man in pawn till I bring it you.

In some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.

Comfort, good comfort! We must to the king and show our strange sights. He must know 'tis none of your daughter nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does, when the business is performed; and remain, as he says, your pawn till it be brought you.

I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on the right-hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you.

If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would not suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occasion,—gold, and a means to do the prince my master good; which who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he think it fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far officious; for I am proof against that title, and what shame else belongs to't. To him will I present them: there may be matter in it.

ACT V.

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.

I make a broken delivery of the business; but the changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were very notes of admiration. They seem'd 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. Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more.

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. 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?

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; 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?

Then you have 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 countenance 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.

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.

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.

The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted.

One of the prettiest touches of all, and that which angled for mine eyes,—caught the water, though not the fish,—was, when at the relation of the queen's death, with the manner how she came to it,—bravely confessed and lamented by the king,—how attentivenes wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of dolour to another, she did with an 'Alas!'—I would fain say, bleed tears; for I am sure my heart wept blood. Who was most marble there changed colour; some swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world could have seen it, the woe had been universal.

No: the princess hearing of her mother's statue, which is in the keeping of Paulina,—a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano, who, had he himself eternity, and could put breath into his work, would beguile nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that they say one would speak to her and stand in hope of answer:—thither with all greediness of affection are they gone; and there they intend to sup.

I thought she had some great matter there in hand; for she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever since the death of Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall we thither, and with our company piece the rejoicing?

Who would be thence that has the benefit of access? every wink of an eye some new grace will be born: our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along.

Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man and his son aboard the prince; told him I heard them talk of a fardel and I know not what; but he at that time over-fond of the shepherd's daughter,—so he then took her to be,—who began to be much sea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of weather continuing, this mystery remained undiscover'd. 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. Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.

Come, boy; I am past more children, but thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born.

You are well met, sir: you denied to fight with me this other day, because I was no gentleman born. See you these clothes? say you see them not and think me still no gentleman born: you were best say these robes are not gentlemen born. Give me the lie, do; and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.

So you have:—but I was a gentleman born before my father; for the king's son took me by the hand and called me brother; and then the two kings called my father brother; and then the prince, my brother, and the princess, my sister, called my father father; and so we wept; and there was the first gentleman-like tears that ever we shed.

I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I have committed to your worship, and to give me your good report to the prince my master.

Give me thy hand: I will swear to the prince thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.

Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins say it, I'll swear it.

If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it in the behalf of his friend.—And I'll swear to the prince thou art a tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be drunk: but I'll swear it; and I would thou wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands.

Ay, by any means, prove a tall fellow: if I do not wonder how thou darest venture to be drunk, not being a tall fellow, trust me not.—Hark! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are going to see the queen's picture. Come, follow us: we'll be thy good masters.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Winter's Tale, by William Shakespeare

This e-text was prepared by
the Project Gutenberg Shakespeare Team,
a team of about twenty Project Gutenberg volunteers.

HTML version prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.

THE WINTER'S TALE

by

William Shakespeare

Contents

Dramatis Personae

Scene:

ACT I.

ACT II.

ACT III.

ACT IV.

ACT V.

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Winter's Tale, by William Shakespeare

This e-text was prepared by the Project Gutenberg Shakespeare Team, a team of about twenty Project Gutenberg volunteers. HTML version prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.

THE WINTER'S TALE

by

William Shakespeare

Contents

Dramatis Personae

Scene:

ACT I.

ACT II.

ACT III.

ACT IV.

ACT V.

This e-text was prepared by
the Project Gutenberg Shakespeare Team,
a team of about twenty Project Gutenberg volunteers.

HTML version prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.