PAULINA. I should so.
Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid you mark
Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't
You chose her; then I'd
shriek, that even your ears
Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd
Should be 'Remember mine.'
LEONTES. Stars, stars,
And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;
I'll have no wife, Paulina.
PAULINA. Will you swear
Never to marry but by my free leave?
LEONTES. Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!
PAULINA. Then, good my lords, bear
witness to his oath.
CLEOMENES. You tempt him over-much.
PAULINA. Unless another,
As like Hermione as is her picture,
Affront his eye.
CLEOMENES. Good madam-
PAULINA. I have done.
Yet, if my lord will marry- if you will, sir,
No
remedy but you will- give me the office
To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young
As was your former; but she shall be such
As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy
To see her in your arms.
LEONTES. My true Paulina,
We shall not marry till thou bid'st us.
PAULINA. That
Shall be when your first queen's again in breath;
Never till then.
Enter a GENTLEMAN
GENTLEMAN. One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,
Son of Polixenes, with his
princess- she
The fairest I have yet beheld- desires access
To your high presence.
LEONTES. What with him? He comes not
Like to his father's
greatness. His approach,
So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us
'Tis not a
visitation fram'd, but forc'd
By need and accident. What train?
GENTLEMAN. But few,
And those but mean.
LEONTES. His
princess, say you, with him?
GENTLEMAN. Ay; the most
peerless piece of earth, I think,
That e'er the sun shone bright on.
PAULINA. O Hermione,
As every present time doth boast itself
Above a better gone, so must thy grave
Give way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself
Have said and writ so, but your
writing now
Is colder than that theme: 'She had not been,
Nor was not to be equall'd.' Thus your verse
Flow'd with her beauty once; 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,
To say you have seen a better.
GENTLEMAN. Pardon, madam.
The one I have almost forgot- your
pardon;
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.
PAULINA. How! not women?
GENTLEMAN. Women will love her that she is a woman
More worth than any man; men, that she is
The rarest of all women.
LEONTES. Go, Cleomenes;
Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,
Bring them to our embracement. Exeunt
Still, 'tis strange
He thus should steal upon us.
PAULINA. Had our
prince,
Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd
Well with this lord; there was not full a month
Between their births.
LEONTES. Prithee no more; cease. Thou know'st
He dies to me again when talk'd of. Sure,
When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
Will bring me to consider that which may
Unfurnish me of reason.
Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and
ATTENDANTS
They are come.
Your mother was most true to wedlock, Prince;
For she did print your royal father off,
Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,
Your father's image is so hit in you
His very air, that I should call you brother,
As I did him, and speak of something wildly
By us perform'd before. Most
dearlywelcome!
And your fair
princess- goddess! O, alas!
I lost a couple that 'twixt heaven and earth
Might thus have stood begetting wonder as
You,
gracious couple, do. And then I lost-
All mine own folly- the society,
Amity too, of your brave father, whom,
Though
bearingmisery, I desire my life
Once more to look on him.
FLORIZEL. 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; and, but infirmity,
Which waits upon worn times, hath something seiz'd
His wish'd
ability, he had himself
The lands and waters 'twixt your
throne and his
Measur'd, to look upon you; whom he loves,
He bade me say so, more than all the sceptres
And those that bear them living.
LEONTES. O my brother-
Good gentleman!- the wrongs I have done thee stir
Afresh within me; and these thy offices,
So
rarely kind, are as interpreters
Of my behind-hand slackness! Welcome hither,
As is the spring to th' earth. 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?
FLORIZEL. Good, my lord,
She came from Libya.
LEONTES. Where the
warlike Smalus,
That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and lov'd?
FLORIZEL. Most royal sir, from
thence; from him whose daughter
His tears proclaim'd his,
parting with her;
thence,
A
prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,
To
execute the
charge my father gave me
For visiting your Highness. My best train
I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;
Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
Not only my success in Libya, sir,
But my
arrival and my wife's in safety
Here where we are.
LEONTES. The
blessed gods
Purge all
infection from our air
whilst you
Do
climate here! You have a holy father,
A
graceful gentleman, against whose person,
So
sacred as it is, I have done sin,
For which the heavens,
taking angry note,
Have left me issueless; and your father's blest,
As he from heaven merits it, with you,
Worthy his
goodness. What might I have been,
Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on,
Such
goodly things as you!
Enter a LORD
LORD. Most noble sir,
That which I shall report will bear no credit,
Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,
Bohemia greets you from himself by me;
Desires you to
attach his son, who has-
His
dignity and duty both cast off-
Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with
A shepherd's daughter.
LEONTES. Where's Bohemia? Speak.
LORD. Here in your city; I now came from him.
I speak amazedly; and it becomes
My
marvel and my message. To your court
Whiles he was hast'ning- in the chase, it seems,
Of this fair couple- meets he on the way
The father of this
seeming lady and
Her brother, having both their country quitted
With this young
prince.
FLORIZEL. Camillo has betray'd me;
Whose honour and whose
honesty till now
Endur'd all weathers.
LORD. Lay't so to his
charge;
He's with the King your father.
LEONTES. Who? Camillo?
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, pow'r no jot
Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,
Remember since you ow'd 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'd 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