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,
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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
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Too far i’th’ 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:
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I have heard, but not believ’d, the spirits o’th’ 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;
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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
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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,
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Places remote enough are in Bohemia,
There weep, and leave it crying: and, for the babe
Is counted lost for ever, Perdita,
I prithee, call’t. For this ungentle business,
Put on thee by my lord, thou ne’er shalt see
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Thy wife Paulina more.’ And 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,
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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
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Of its right father. Blossom, speed thee well!
There lie, and there thy character: there these,
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
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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
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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 a Shepherd.
SHEPHERD I would there were no age between ten and
three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the
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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,
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which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the
master: if anywhere I have them, ’tis by the sea-side,
browzing of ivy. [seeing the babe] Good luck, and’t be
thy will, what have we here? Mercy on’s, a barne! A
very pretty barne! A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty
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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
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pity: yet I’ll tarry till my son come; he hallooed but
even now. Whoa-ho-hoa!
Enter Clown.
CLOWN Hilloa, loa!
SHEPHERD What, art so near? If thou’lt see a thing to
talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither.
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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.
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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
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boring the moon with her main-mast, and anon
swallowed with yest and froth, as you’d thrust a cork
into a hogs-head. 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
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nobleman. But to make an end of the ship, to see how
the sea flap-dragoned 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.
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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
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man!
CLOWN I would you had been by the ship side, to have
helped her: there your charity would have lacked
footing.
SHEPHERD Heavy matters! heavy matters! But look thee
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here, boy. Now bless thyself: thou met’st 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
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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’t, keep it close: home, home, the next way. We
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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 ge
ntleman, and how
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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 th’
sight of him.
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CLOWN Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i’th’
ground.
SHEPHERD ’Tis a lucky day, boy, and we’ll do good
deeds on’t. Exeunt.
4.1 Enter TIME, the Chorus.
TIME I that please some, try all: both joy and terror
Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds 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
5
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,
10
Or what is now receiv’d. I witness to
The times that brought them in; so shall I do
To th’ freshest things now reigning, and make stale
The glistering of this present, as my tale
Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,
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I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing
As you had slept between: Leontes leaving,
Th’effects of his fond jealousies so grieving
That he shuts up himself, imagine me,
Gentle spectators, that I now may be
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In fair Bohemia, and remember well
I mentioned a son o’th’ king’s, which Florizel
I now name to you; and with speed so pace
To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace
Equal with wond’ring. What of her ensues
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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 th’argument of Time. Of this allow,
If ever you have spent time worse ere now;
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If never, yet that Time himself doth say,
He wishes earnestly you never may. Exit.
4.2 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
5
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 lov’st me, Camillo, wipe not out the
10
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
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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, prithee
20
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
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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:
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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.
POLIXENES I have considered so much, Camillo, and
with some care; so far that I have eyes under my
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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.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 568