The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
Page 361
Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he
Hath widowed and unchilded many a one,
Which to this hour bewail the injury,
Yet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.
A dead march sounded. Exeunt
bearing the body of Martius
THE WINTER’S TALE
THE astrologer Simon Forman saw The Winter’s Tale at the Globe on 15 May 1611. Just how much earlier the play was written is not certainly known. During the sheep-shearing feast in Act 4, twelve countrymen perform a satyrs’ dance that three of them are said to have already ‘danced before the King’. This is not necessarily a topical reference, but satyrs danced in Ben Jonson’s Masque of Oberon, performed before King James on 1 January 1611. It seems likely that this dance was incorporated in The Winter’s Tale (just as, later, another masque dance seems to have been transferred to The Two Noble Kinsmen). But it occurs in a self-contained passage that may well have been added after Shakespeare wrote the play itself. The Winter’s Tale, first printed in the 1623 Folio, is usually thought to have been written after Cymbeline, but stylistic evidence places it before that play, perhaps in 1609-10.
A mid sixteenth-century book classes ‘winter tales’ along with ‘old wives’ tales‘; Shakespeare’s title prepared his audiences for a tale of romantic improbability, one to be wondered at rather than believed; and within the play itself characters compare its events to ‘an old tale’ (5.2.61; 5.3.118). The comparison is just: Shakespeare is dramatizing a story by his old rival Robert Greene, published as Pandosto: The Triumph of Time in or before 1588. This gave Shakespeare his plot outline, of a king (Leontes) who believes his wife (Hermione) to have committed adultery with another king (Polixenes), his boyhood friend, and who casts off his new-born daughter (Perdita—the lost one) in the belief that she is his friend’s bastard. In both versions the baby is brought up as a shepherdess, falls in love with her supposed father’s son (Florizel in the play), and returns to her real father’s court where she is at last recognized as his daughter. In both versions, too, the wife’s innocence is demonstrated by the pronouncement of the Delphic oracle, and her husband passes the period of his daughter’s absence in penitence; but Shakespeare alters the ending of his source story, bringing it into line with the conventions of romance. He adopts Greene’s tripartite structure, but greatly develops it, adding for instance Leontes’ steward Antigonus and his redoubtable wife Paulina, along with the comic rogue Autolycus, ‘snapper-up of unconsidered trifles’.
The intensity of poetic suffering with which Leontes expresses his irrational jealousy is matched by the lyrical rapture of the love episodes between Florizel and Perdita. In both verse and prose The Winter’s Tale shows Shakespeare’s verbal powers at their greatest, and his theatrical mastery is apparent in, for example, Hermione’s trial (3.1) and the daring final scene in which time brings about its triumph.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
LEONTES, King of Sicily
HERMIONE, his wife
MAMILLIUS, his son
PERDITA, his daughter
PAULINA, Antigonus’s wife
EMILIA, a lady attending on Hermione
A JAILER
A MARINER
Other Lords and Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers, and Servants at Leontes’s court
POLIXENES, King of Bohemia
FLORIZEL, his son, in love with Perdita; known as Doricles
ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian lord
AUTOLYCUS, a rogue, once in the service of Florizel
OLD SHEPHERD
CLOWN, his son
SERVANT of the Old Shepherd
Other Shepherds and Shepherdesses
Twelve countrymen disguised as satyrs
TIME, as chorus
The Winter’s Tale
1.1 Enter Camillo and Archidamus
ARCHIDAMUS 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.
CAMILLO I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.
ARCHIDAMUS Wherein our entertainment shall shame us, we will be justified in our loves; for indeed—
CAMILLO Beseech you—
ARCHIDAMUS 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.
CAMILLO You pay a great deal too dear for what’s given freely.
ARCHIDAMUS Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.
CAMILLO Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind 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—hath 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.
ARCHIDAMUS 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.
CAMILLO 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.
ARCHIDAMUS Would they else be content to die?
CAMILLO Yes—if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.
ARCHIDAMUS If the King had no son they would desire to live on crutches till he had one. Exeunt
1.2 Enter Leontes, Hermione, Mamillius, Polixenes, and ⌈Camillo⌉
POLIXENES
Nine changes of the wat‘ry star hath been
The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne
Without a burden. Time as long again
Would be filled up, my brother, with our thanks,
And yet we should for perpetuity
Go hence in debt. And therefore, like a cipher,
Yet standing in rich place, I multiply
With one ‘We thank you’ many thousands more
That go before it.
LEONTES
Stay your thanks a while,
And pay them when you part.
POLIXENES
Sir, that’s tomorrow. I am questioned by my fears of what may chance
Or breed upon our absence, that may blow
No sneaping winds at home to make us say
‘This is put forth too truly.’ Besides, I have stayed
To tire your royalty.
LEONTES
We are tougher, brother,
Than you can put us to’t.
POLIXENES
No longer stay.
LEONTES
One sennight longer.
POLIXENES
Very sooth, tomorrow.
LEONTES
We’ll part the time between’s, then; and in that
I’ll no gainsaying.
POLIXENES
Press me not, beseech you, so.
There is no tongue that moves, none, none i‘th’ world
So soon as yours, could win me. So it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
’Twere needful I denied it. My affairs
Do even drag me homeward; which to hinder
Were, in your love, a whip to me; my stay
To you a charge and trouble. To save both,
Farewell, our brother.
LEONTES
Tongue-tied, our queen? Speak you.
HERMIONE
I
had thought, sir, to have held my peace until
You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,
Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure
All in Bohemia’s well. This satisfaction
The bygone day proclaimed. Say this to him,
He’s beat from his best ward.
LEONTES
Well said, Hermione!
HERMIONE
To tell he longs to see his son were strong.
But let him say so then, and let him go.
But let him swear so and he shall not stay,
We’ll thwack him hence with distaffs.
(To Polixenes) Yet of your royal presence I’ll adventure
The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
You take my lord, I’ll give him my commission
To let him there a month behind the gest
Prefixed for’s parting.—Yet, good deed, Leontes,
I love thee not a jar o’th’ clock behind
What lady she her lord.—You’ll stay?
POLIXENES
No, madam.
HERMIONE Nay, but you will?
POLIXENES I may not, verily.
HERMIONE Verily?
You put me off with limber vows. But I,
Though you would seek t‘unsphere the stars with
oaths,
Should yet say ‘Sir, no going.’ Verily
You shall not go. A lady’s ‘verily’ ’s
As potent as a lord’s. Will you go yet?
Force me to keep you as a prisoner,
Not like a guest: so you shall pay your fees
When you depart, and save your thanks. How say
you?
My prisoner? or my guest? By your dread ‘verily’,
One of them you shall be.
POLIXENES
Your guest then, madam.
To be your prisoner should import offending,
Which is for me less easy to commit
Than you to punish.
HERMIONE
Not your jailer then,
But your kind hostess. Come, I’ll question you
Of my lord’s tricks and yours when you were boys.
You were pretty lordings then?
POLIXENES
We were, fair Queen,
Two lads that thought there was no more behind
But such a day tomorrow as today,
And to be boy eternal.
HERMIONE Was not my lord
The verier wag o’th’ two?
POLIXENES
We were as twinned lambs that did frisk i‘th’ sun,
And bleat the one at th’other. What we changed
Was innocence for innocence. We knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed
That any did. Had we pursued that life,
And our weak spirits ne‘er been higher reared
With stronger blood, we should have answered
heaven
Boldly, ‘Not guilty’, the imposition cleared
Hereditary ours.
HERMIONE
By this we gather
You have tripped since.
POLIXENES
O my most sacred lady,
Temptations have since then been born to’s; for
In those unfledged days was my wife a girl.
Your precious self had then not crossed the eyes
Of my young playfellow.
HERMIONE
Grace to boot!
Of this make no conclusion, lest you say
Your queen and I are devils. Yet go on.
Th’offences we have made you do we’ll answer,
If you first sinned with us, and that with us
You did continue fault, and that you slipped not
With any but with us.
LEONTES
Is he won yet?
HERMIONE
He’ll stay, my lord.
LEONTES
At my request he would not.
Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok’st
To better purpose.
HERMIONE
Never?
LEONTES
Never but once.
HERMIONE
What, have I twice said well? When was’t before?
I prithee tell me. Cram’s with praise, and make’s
As fat as tame things. One good deed dying tongueless
Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.
Our praises are our wages. You may ride’s
With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere
With spur we heat an acre. But to th’ goal.
My last good deed was to entreat his stay.
What was my first? It has an elder sister,
Or I mistake you. O, would her name were Gracel
But once before I spoke to th’ purpose? When?
Nay, let me have’t. I long.
LEONTES
Why, that was when
Three crabbed months had soured themselves to death
Ere I could make thee open thy white hand
And clap thyself my love. Then didst thou utter,
‘I am yours for ever.’
HERMIONE
’Tis grace indeed.
Why lo you now; I have spoke to th’ purpose twice.
The one for ever earned a royal husband;
Th’other, for some while a friend.
⌈She gives her hand to Polixenes.⌉
They stand aside
LEONTES (aside)
Too hot, too hot:
To mingle friendship farre is mingling bloods.
I have tremor cordis on me. My heart dances,
But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment
May a free face put on, derive a liberty
From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,
And well become the agent. ’T may, I grant.
But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,
As now they are, and making practised smiles
As in a looking-glass; and then to sigh, as ‘twere
The mort o’th’ deer—O, that is entertainment
My bosom likes not, nor my brows.—Mamillius,
Art thou my boy?
MAMILLIUS
Ay, my good lord.
LEONTES
I’fecks,
Why, that’s my bawcock. What? Hast smutched thy
nose?
They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain,
We must be neat—not neat, but cleanly, captain.
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf
Are all called neat.—Still virginalling
Upon his palm?—How now, you wanton calf—
Art thou my calf?
MAMILLIUS
Yes, if you will, my lord.
LEONTES
Thou want‘st a rough pash and the shoots that I have,
To be full like me. Yet they say we are
Almost as like as eggs. Women say so,
That will say anything. But were they false
As o’er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false
As dice are to be wished by one that fixes
No bourn ‘twixt his and mine, yet were it true
To say this boy were like me. Come, sir page,
Look on me with your welkin eye. Sweet villain,
Most dear’st, my collop! Can thy dam—may’t be?—
Affection, thy intention stabs the centre.
Thou dost make possible things not so held,
Communicat‘st with dreams—how can this be?—
With what’s unreal thou coactive art,
And fellow’st nothing. Then ‘tis very credent
Thou mayst co-join with something, and thou dost—
And that beyond commission; and I find it—
And that to the infection of my brains
And hard’ning of my brows.
POLIXENES
What means Sicilia?
HERMIONE
He something seems unsettled.
POLIXENES
How, my lord!
LEONTES
What cheer? How is’t with you, best brother?
HERMIONE
You look
As if you held a brow of much distraction.
Are you moved, my lord?
LEONTES
No, in good earnest.
How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines
Of my boy’s face, methoughts I did recoil
Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreeched,
In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzled,
Lest it should bite its master, and so prove,
As ornament oft does, too dangerous.
How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,
This squash, this gentleman.—Mine honest friend,
Will you take eggs for money?
MAMILLIUS
No, my lord, I’ll fight.
LEONTES
You will? Why, happy man be’s dole!—My brother,
Are you so fond of your young prince as we
Do seem to be of ours?
POLIXENES
If at home, sir,
He’s all my exercise, my mirth, my matter;
Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.
He makes a July’s day short as December,
And with his varying childness cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.
LEONTES
So stands this squire
Officed with me. We two will walk, my lord,
And leave you to your graver steps. Hermione,
How thou lov’st us show in our brother’s welcome.
Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap.
Next to thyself and my young rover, he’s
Apparent to my heart.
HERMIONE
If you would seek us,
We are yours i’th’ garden. Shall’s attend you there?
LEONTES
To your own bents dispose you. You’ll be found,
Be you beneath the sky. (Aside) I am angling now,
Though you perceive me not how I give line.
Go to, go to!
How she holds up the neb, the bill to him,
And arms her with the boldness of a wife
To her allowing husband!
Exeunt Polixenes and Hermione Gone already.