The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 564
POLIXENES How should this grow?
CAMILLO 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
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Shall bear along impawn’d, away to-night!
Your followers I will whisper to the business,
And will by twos and threes, at several posterns,
Clear them o’th’ city. For myself, I’ll put
My fortunes to your service, which are here
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By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain,
For by the honour of my parents, I
Have utter’d truth: which if you seek to prove,
I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer
Than one condemned by the king’s own mouth,
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Thereon his execution sworn.
POLIXENES I do believe thee:
I saw his heart in’s face. Give me thy hand,
Be pilot to me, and thy places shall
Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready, and
My people did expect my hence departure
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Two days ago. This jealousy
Is for a precious creature: as she’s rare,
Must it be great; and, as his person’s mighty,
Must it be violent; and, as he does conceive
He is dishonour’d by a man which ever
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Profess’d to him; why, his revenges must
In that be made more bitter. Fear o’ershades me:
Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing
Of his ill-ta’en suspicion! Come, Camillo,
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I will respect thee as a father if
Thou bear’st my life off. Hence! let us avoid.
CAMILLO It is in mine authority to command
The keys of all the posterns: please your highness
To take the urgent hour. Come sir, away. Exeunt.
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2.1 Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS and Ladies.
HERMIONE Take the boy to you: he so troubles me,
’Tis past enduring.
1LADY Come, my gracious lord,
Shall I be your play-fellow?
MAMILLIUS No, I’ll none of you.
1LADY Why, my sweet lord?
MAMILLIUS You’ll kiss me hard, and speak to me as if
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I were a baby still. I love you better.
2LADY And why so, my lord?
MAMILLIUS Not for because
Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,
Become some women best, so that there be not
Too much hair there, but in a semicircle,
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Or a half-moon, made with a pen.
2LADY Who taught’ this!
MAMILLIUS
I learn’d it out of women’s faces. Pray now,
What colour are your eyebrows?
1LADY Blue, my lord.
MAMILLIUS
Nay, that’s a mock: I have seen a lady’s nose
That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.
1LADY Hark ye,
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The queen your mother rounds apace: we shall
Present our services to a fine new prince
One of these days, and then you’d wanton with us,
If we would have you.
2LADY She is spread of late
Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her!
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HERMIONE
What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now
I am for you again: ’pray you, sit by us,
And tell’s a tale.
MAMILLIUS Merry, or sad, shall’t be?
HERMIONE As merry as you will.
MAMILLIUS A sad tale’s best for winter: I have one
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Of sprites and goblins.
HERMIONE Let’s have that, good sir.
Come on, sit down, come on, and do your best
To fright me with your sprites: you’re powerful at it.
MAMILLIUS There was a man –
HERMIONE Nay, come sit down: then on.
MAMILLIUS Dwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly,
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Yond crickets shall not hear it.
HERMIONE Come on then,
And giv’t me in mine ear.
Enter LEONTES, with ANTIGONUS, Lords and others.
LEONTES
Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him?
A LORD Behind the tuft of pines I met them, never
Saw I men scour so on their way: I ey’d them
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Even to their ships.
LEONTES How blest am I
In my just censure! in my true opinion!
Alack, for lesser knowledge! how accurs’d
In being so blest! There may be in the cup
A spider steep’d, and one may drink, depart,
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And yet partake no venom (for his knowledge
Is not infected); but if one present
Th’abhorr’d ingredient to his eye, make known
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider.
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CAMILLO was his help in this, his pandar:
There is a plot against my life, my crown;
All’s true that is mistrusted: that false villain,
Whom I employ’d, was pre-employ’d by him:
He has discover’d my design, and I
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Remain a pinch’d thing; yea, a very trick
For them to play at will. How came the posterns
So easily open?
A LORD By his great authority,
Which often hath no less prevail’d than so
On your command.
LEONTES I know’t too well.
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Give me the boy: I am glad you did not nurse him:
Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you
Have too much blood in him.
HERMIONE What is this? sport?
LEONTES
Bear the boy hence, he shall not come about her,
Away with him, and let her sport herself
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With that she’s big with; for ’tis Polixenes
Has made thee swell thus.
Exit Mamillius, with a Lady.
HERMIONE But I’d say he had not;
And I’ll be sworn you would believe my saying,
How e’er you lean to th’ nay-ward.
LEONTES You, my lords,
Look on her, mark her well: be but about
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To say ‘she is a goodly lady’, and
The justice of your hearts will thereto add
‘’Tis pity she’s not honest, honourable’:
Praise her but for this her without-door form
(Which on my faith deserves high speech) and straight
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The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands
That calumny doth use – O, I am out,
That mercy does; for calumny will sear
Virtue itself – these shrugs, these hum’s and ha’s,
When you have said ‘she’s goodly’, come between,
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Ere you can say ‘she’s honest’: but be’t known,
From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,
She’s an adultress!
HERMIONE Should a villain say so
(The most replenish’d villain in the world)
He were as much more villain: you, my lord,
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Do but mistake.
LEONTES You have mistook, my lady,
POLIXENES for Leontes. O thou thing –
Which I’ll not call a creature of thy place,
>
Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
Should a like language use to all degrees,
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And mannerly distinguishment leave out
Betwixt the prince and beggar. I have said
She’s an adultress; I have said with whom:
More; she’s a traitor, and Camillo is
A federary with her, and one that knows,
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What she should shame to know herself
But with her most vile principal, that she’s
A bed-swerver, even as bad as those
That vulgars give bold’st titles; ay, and privy
To this their late escape.
HERMIONE No, by my life,
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Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you,
When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
You thus have publish’d me! Gentle my lord,
You scarce can right me throughly, then, to say
You did mistake.
LEONTES No: if I mistake
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In those foundations which I build upon,
The centre is not big enough to bear
A school-boy’s top. Away with her, to prison!
He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty
But that he speaks.
HERMIONE There’s some ill planet reigns:
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I must be patient till the heavens look
With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities: but I have
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That honourable 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; and so
The king’s will be perform’d.
LEONTES Shall I be heard?
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HERMIONE
Who is’t that goes with me? Beseech your highness,
My women may be with me, for you see
My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools,
There is no cause: when you shall know your mistress
Has deserv’d prison, then abound in tears
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As I come out: this action I now go on
Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord:
I never wish’d to see you sorry; now
I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave.
LEONTES Go, do our bidding: hence!
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Exit Queen, guarded; with Ladies.
A LORD Beseech your highness, call the queen again.
ANTIGONUS
Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice
Prove violence, in the which three great ones suffer,
Yourself, your queen, your son.
A LORD For her, my lord,
I dare my life lay down, and will do’t, sir,
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Please you t’accept it, that the queen is spotless
I’th’ eyes of heaven, and to you – I mean
In this which you accuse her.
ANTIGONUS If it prove
She’s otherwise, I’ll keep my stables where
I lodge my wife; I’ll go in couples with her;
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Than when I feel and see her no farther trust her:
For every inch of woman in the world,
Ay, every dram of woman’s flesh is false,
If she be.
LEONTES Hold your peaces.
A LORD Good my lord, –
ANTIGONUS It is for you we speak, not for ourselves:
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You are abus’d, and by some putter-on
That will be damn’d for’t: would I knew the villain,
I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw’d,
I have three daughters: the eldest is eleven;
The second and the third, nine and some five:
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If this prove true, they’ll pay for’t. By mine honour
I’ll geld ’em all; fourteen they shall not see
To bring false generations: they are co-heirs,
And I had rather glib myself, than they
Should not produce fair issue.
LEONTES Cease; no more.
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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; and see withal
The instruments that feel.
ANTIGONUS If it be so,
We need no grave to bury honesty: