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The Winter’s Tale - Act 5, scene 1
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The Winter’s Tale - Act 5, scene 1Act 5, scene 1
Scene 1
Synopsis:
Paulina insists that Leontes must not remarry, despite the urgings of his courtiers. Florizell and Perdita arrive, and are greeted warmly. Then news comes that Polixenes and Camillo are in Sicilia. Leontes agrees to speak to Polixenes on the young couple’s behalf.
Enter Leontes, Cleomenes, Dion, Paulina, ⌜and⌝Servants.
CLEOMENES
2814 Sir, you have done enough, and have performed
2815 A saintlike sorrow. No fault could you make
2816 Which you have not redeemed—indeed, paid down
2817 More penitence than done trespass. At the last,
2818 5 Do as the heavens have done: forget your evil;
2819 With them forgive yourself.
LEONTES 2820 Whilst I remember
2821 Her and her virtues, I cannot forget
2822 My blemishes in them, and so still think of
2823 10 The wrong I did myself, which was so much
2824 That heirless it hath made my kingdom and
2825 Destroyed the sweet’st companion that e’er man
2826 Bred his hopes out of.
PAULINA 2827 True, too true, my lord.
2828 15 If one by one you wedded all the world,
2829 Or from the all that are took something good
2830 To make a perfect woman, she you killed
2831 Would be unparalleled.
LEONTES 2832 I think so. Killed?
2833 20 She I killed? I did so, but thou strik’st me
2834 Sorely to say I did. It is as bitter
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197
2835
Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,2836 Say so but seldom.
CLEOMENES 2837 Not at all, good lady.
2838 25 You might have spoken a thousand things that
2839 would
2840 Have done the time more benefit and graced
2841 Your kindness better.
PAULINA 2842 You are one of those
2843 30 Would have him wed again.
DION 2844 If you would not so,
2845 You pity not the state nor the remembrance
2846 Of his most sovereign name, consider little
2847 What dangers by his Highness’ fail of issue
2848 35 May drop upon his kingdom and devour
2849 Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy
2850 Than to rejoice the former queen is well?
2851 What holier than, for royalty’s repair,
2852 For present comfort, and for future good,
2853 40 To bless the bed of majesty again
2854 With a sweet fellow to ’t?
PAULINA 2855 There is none worthy,
2856 Respecting her that’s gone. Besides, the gods
2857 Will have fulfilled their secret purposes.
2858 45 For has not the divine Apollo said,
2859 Is ’t not the tenor of his oracle,
2860 That King Leontes shall not have an heir
2861 Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall
2862 Is all as monstrous to our human reason
2863 50 As my Antigonus to break his grave
2864 And come again to me—who, on my life,
2865 Did perish with the infant. ’Tis your counsel
2866 My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
2867 Oppose against their wills. Care not for issue.
2868 55 The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander
2869 Left his to th’ worthiest; so his successor
2870 Was like to be the best.
p.
199
LEONTES
2871
Good Paulina,2872 Who hast the memory of Hermione,
2873 60 I know, in honor, O, that ever I
2874 Had squared me to thy counsel! Then even now
2875 I might have looked upon my queen’s full eyes,
2876 Have taken treasure from her lips—
PAULINA 2877 And left them
2878 65 More rich for what they yielded.
LEONTES 2879 Thou speak’st truth.
2880 No more such wives, therefore no wife. One worse,
2881 And better used, would make her sainted spirit
2882 Again possess her corpse, and on this stage,
2883 70 Where we offenders now appear, soul-vexed,
2884 And begin “Why to me?”
PAULINA 2885 Had she such power,
2886 She had just cause.
LEONTES 2887 She had, and would incense me
2888 75 To murder her I married.
PAULINA 2889 I should so.
2890 Were I the ghost that walked, I’d bid you mark
2891 Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in ’t
2892 You chose her. Then I’d shriek, that even your ears
2893 80 Should rift to hear me, and the words that followed
2894 Should be “Remember mine.”
LEONTES 2895 Stars, stars,
2896 And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;
2897 I’ll have no wife, Paulina.
PAULINA 2898 85 Will you swear
2899 Never to marry but by my free leave?
LEONTES
2900 Never, Paulina, so be blest my spirit.
PAULINA
2901 Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.
CLEOMENES
2902 You tempt him over-much.
p.
201
PAULINA
2903
90 Unless another2904 As like Hermione as is her picture
2905 Affront his eye.
CLEOMENES 2906 Good madam—
PAULINA 2907 I have done.
2908 95 Yet if my lord will marry—if you will, sir,
2909 No remedy but you will—give me the office
2910 To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young
2911 As was your former, but she shall be such
2912 As, walked your first queen’s ghost, it should take
2913 100 joy
2914 To see her in your arms.
LEONTES 2915 My true Paulina,
2916 We shall not marry till thou bid’st us.
PAULINA 2917 That
2918 105 Shall be when your first queen’s again in breath,
2919 Never till then.
Enter a Servant.
SERVANT
2920 One that gives out himself Prince Florizell,
2921 Son of Polixenes, with his princess—she
2922 The fairest I have yet beheld—desires access
2923 110 To your high presence.
LEONTES 2924 What with him? He comes not
2925 Like to his father’s greatness. His approach,
2926 So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us
2927 ’Tis not a visitation framed, but forced
2928 115 By need and accident. What train?
SERVANT 2929 But few,
2930 And those but mean.
LEONTES 2931 His princess, say you, with him?
SERVANT
2932 Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,
2933 120 That e’er the sun shone bright on.
p.
203
PAULINA
2934
O Hermione,2935 As every present time doth boast itself
2936 Above a better gone, so must thy grave
2937 Give way to what’s seen now. ⌜To Servant.⌝ Sir, you
2938 125 yourself
2939 Have said and writ so—but your writing now
2940 Is colder than that theme—she had not been
2941 Nor was not to be equalled. Thus your verse
2942 Flowed with her beauty once. ’Tis shrewdly ebbed
2943 130 To say you have seen a better.
SERVANT 2944 Pardon, madam.
2945 The one I have almost forgot—your pardon;
2946 The other, when she has obtained your eye,
2947 Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,
2948 135 Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
2949 Of all professors else, make proselytes
2950 Of who she but bid follow.
PAULINA 2951 How, not women?
SERVANT
2952 Women will love her that she is a woman
2953 140 More worth than any man; men, that she is
2954 The rarest of all women.
LEONTES 2955 Go, Cleomenes.
2956 Yourself, assisted with your honored friends,
2957 Bring them to our embracement.
⌜Cleomenes and others⌝ exit.
2958 145 Still, ’tis strange
2959 He thus should steal upon us.
PAULINA 2960 Had our prince,
2961 Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had paired
2962 Well with this lord. There was not full a month
2963 150 Between their births.
LEONTES 2964 Prithee, no more; cease. Thou
2965 know’st
2966 He dies to me again when talked of. Sure,
2967 When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
p.
205
2968
155 Will bring me to consider that which may2969 Unfurnish me of reason. They are come.
Enter Florizell, Perdita, Cleomenes, and others.
2970 Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince,
2971 For she did print your royal father off,
2972 Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,
2973 160 Your father’s image is so hit in you,
2974 His very air, that I should call you brother,
2975 As I did him, and speak of something wildly
2976 By us performed before. Most dearly welcome,
2977 And your fair princess—goddess! O, alas,
2978 165 I lost a couple that ’twixt heaven and Earth
2979 Might thus have stood, begetting wonder, as
2980 You, gracious couple, do. And then I lost—
2981 All mine own folly—the society,
2982 Amity too, of your brave father, whom,
2983 170 Though bearing misery, I desire my life
2984 Once more to look on him.
FLORIZELL 2985 By his command
2986 Have I here touched Sicilia, and from him
2987 Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,
2988 175 Can send his brother. And but infirmity,
2989 Which waits upon worn times, hath something
2990 seized
2991 His wished ability, he had himself
2992 The lands and waters ’twixt your throne and his
2993 180 Measured to look upon you, whom he loves—
2994 He bade me say so—more than all the scepters
2995 And those that bear them living.
LEONTES 2996 O my brother,
2997 Good gentleman, the wrongs I have done thee stir
2998 185 Afresh within me, and these thy offices,
2999 So rarely kind, are as interpreters
3000 Of my behindhand slackness. Welcome hither,
3001 As is the spring to th’ earth. And hath he too
p.
207
3002
Exposed this paragon to th’ fearful usage,3003 190 At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,
3004 To greet a man not worth her pains, much less
3005 Th’ adventure of her person?
FLORIZELL 3006 Good my lord,
3007 She came from Libya.
LEONTES 3008 195 Where the warlike Smalus,
3009 That noble honored lord, is feared and loved?
FLORIZELL
3010 Most royal sir, from thence, from him, whose
3011 daughter
3012 His tears proclaimed his, parting with her. Thence,
3013 200 A prosperous south wind friendly, we have crossed
3014 To execute the charge my father gave me
3015 For visiting your Highness. My best train
3016 I have from your Sicilian shores dismissed,
3017 Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
3018 205 Not only my success in Libya, sir,
3019 But my arrival and my wife’s in safety
3020 Here where we are.
LEONTES 3021 The blessèd gods
3022 Purge all infection from our air whilst you
3023 210 Do climate here! You have a holy father,
3024 A graceful gentleman, against whose person,
3025 So sacred as it is, I have done sin,
3026 For which the heavens, taking angry note,
3027 Have left me issueless. And your father’s blest,
3028 215 As he from heaven merits it, with you,
3029 Worthy his goodness. What might I have been
3030 Might I a son and daughter now have looked on,
3031 Such goodly things as you?
Enter a Lord.
LORD 3032 Most noble sir,
3033 220 That which I shall report will bear no credit,
p.
209
3034
Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,3035 Bohemia greets you from himself by me,
3036 Desires you to attach his son, who has—
3037 His dignity and duty both cast off—
3038 225 Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with
3039 A shepherd’s daughter.
LEONTES 3040 Where’s Bohemia? Speak.
LORD
3041 Here in your city. I now came from him.
3042 I speak amazedly, and it becomes
3043 230 My marvel and my message. To your court
3044 Whiles he was hast’ning—in the chase, it seems,
3045 Of this fair couple—meets he on the way
3046 The father of this seeming lady and
3047 Her brother, having both their country quitted
3048 235 With this young prince.
FLORIZELL 3049 Camillo has betrayed me,
3050 Whose honor and whose honesty till now
3051 Endured all weathers.
LORD 3052 Lay ’t so to his charge.
3053 240 He’s with the King your father.
LEONTES 3054 Who? Camillo?
LORD
3055 Camillo, sir. I spake with him, who now
3056 Has these poor men in question. Never saw I
3057 Wretches so quake. They kneel, they kiss the earth,
3058 245 Forswear themselves as often as they speak.
3059 Bohemia stops his ears and threatens them
3060 With divers deaths in death.
PERDITA 3061 O my poor father!
3062 The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have
3063 250 Our contract celebrated.
LEONTES 3064 You are married?
FLORIZELL
3065 We are not, sir, nor are we like to be.
p.
211
3066
The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first.3067 The odds for high and low’s alike.
LEONTES 3068 255 My lord,
3069 Is this the daughter of a king?
FLORIZELL 3070 She is
3071 When once she is my wife.
LEONTES
3072 That “once,” I see, by your good father’s speed
3073 260 Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,
3074 Most sorry, you have broken from his liking,
3075 Where you were tied in duty, and as sorry
3076 Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,
3077 That you might well enjoy her.
FLORIZELL, ⌜to Perdita⌝ 3078 265 Dear, look up.
3079 Though Fortune, visible an enemy,
3080 Should chase us with my father, power no jot
3081 Hath she to change our loves.—Beseech you, sir,
3082 Remember since you owed no more to time
3083 270 Than I do now. With thought of such affections,
3084 Step forth mine advocate. At your request,
3085 My father will grant precious things as trifles.
LEONTES
3086 Would he do so, I’d beg your precious mistress,
3087 Which he counts but a trifle.
PAULINA 3088 275 Sir, my liege,
3089 Your eye hath too much youth in ’t. Not a month
3090 ’Fore your queen died, she was more worth such
3091 gazes
3092 Than what you look on now.
LEONTES 3093 280 I thought of her
3094 Even in these looks I made. ⌜To Florizell.⌝ But your
3095 petition
3096 Is yet unanswered. I will to your father.
3097 Your honor not o’erthrown by your desires,
3098 285 I am friend to them and you. Upon which errand
p.
213
3099
I now go toward him. Therefore follow me,3100 And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord.
They exit.