Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub
[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

To make a perfect woman, she you killed Would be unparalleled.

[blocks in formation]

now, Say so but seldom. Cleo.

Not at all, good lady: You might have spoken a thousand things that would

Have done the time more benefit, and graced
Your kindness better.

Paul. You are one of those
Would have him wed again.
Dion. If you would not so,
You pity not the state, nor the remembrance
Of his most sovereign dame; consider little
What dangers, by his highness' fail of issue,
May drop upon his kingdom, and devour
Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy
Than to rejoice the former queen is well?

[blocks in formation]

Is 't not the tenour of his oracle,

That King Leontes shall not have an heir

Till his lost child be found? which that it shall
Is all as monstrous to our human reason,
As my Antigonus to break his grave,
And come again to me; who, on my life,
Did perish with the infant. "Tis your counsel
My lord should to the heavens be contrary;
Oppose against their wills.-Care not for issue;
[TO LEONTES.

The crown will find an heir: great Alexander
Left his to the worthiest; so his successor
Was like to be the best.

[blocks in formation]

Cleo. Good madam, I have done. Paul. 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, walked your first queen's ghost, it should take joy To see her in your arms.

[blocks in formation]

We shall not marry till thou bidd'st us.

[blocks in formation]

Well with this lord: there was not full a month Between their births.

Leon.

Pr'y thee, no more; cease; thou know'st

He dies to me again when talked of: sure, When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches Will bring me to consider that which may Unfurnish me of reason.-They are come.

Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and Attendants.

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 performed before. Most dearly welcome;
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 bearing misery, I desire my life
Once more to look upon.

[blocks in formation]

Have I here touched 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 seized

His wished ability, he had himself

The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
Measured to look upon you; whom he loves
(He bade me say so) more than all the sceptres,
And those that bear them, living.
O, my brother,

Leon. (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 the earth. And hath he too
Exposed this paragon to the fearful usage
(At least ungentle) of the dreadful Neptune,
To greet a man not worth her pains, much less
The adventure of her person?

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Forswear themselves as often as they speak; Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them With divers deaths in death.

Per. O, my poor father!—

The heavens set spies upon us; will not have Our contract celebrated.

[blocks in formation]

Flo. 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.

[blocks in formation]

Your eye hath too much youth in 't: not a month 'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes

Than what you look on now.

Leon. I thought of her Even in these looks I made.-But your petition [TO FLORIZEL.

Is yet unanswered: I will to your father;
Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires,
I am a friend to them and you: upon which errand
I now go toward him; therefore follow me,
And mark what way I make.-Come, good my
lord.

[ocr errors]

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The same. Before the Palace.

Enter AUTOLYCUS and a Gentleman.

Aut. 'Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?

1st Gent. I was by at the opening of the fardel; heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it whereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber: only this, methought I heard the shepherd say he found the child.

Aut. I would most gladly know the issue of it. 1st Gent. I make a broken delivery of the business but the changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were very notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture:

[blocks in formation]

2nd Gent. Nothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled; the king's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder has broken out within this hour, that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it.

Enter a third Gentleman.

Here comes the lady Paulina's steward; he can deliver you more.-How goes it now, sir? this news, which is called true, is so like an old tale, that the verity of it is in strong suspicion. Has the king found his heir?

3rd Gent. Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance: that which you hear you'll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione: her jewel about the neck of it: the letters of Antigonus, found with it, which they knew to be his character: the majesty of the creature, in resemblance of the mother: the affection of nobleness which nature shews above her breeding, and many other evidences, proclaim her, with all certainty, to be the king's daughter.-Did you see the meeting of the two kings?

2nd Gent. No.

3rd Gent. Then have you lost a sight which was to be seen; cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them; for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands; with countenance of such distraction that they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries,—“O, thy mother, thy mother!" then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his daughter with clipping her; now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by, like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings' reigns. I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it, and undoes description to do it.

2nd Gent. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child?

3rd Gent. Like an old tale still; which will have matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep

[ocr errors]

and not an ear open :—he was torn to pieces with a bear: this avouches the shepherd's son; who has not only his innocence (which seems much) to justify him, but a handkerchief and rings of his, that Paulina knows.

1st Gent. What became of his bark and his followers?

3rd Gent. Wrecked the same instant of their master's death, and in the view of the shepherd: so that all the instruments which aided to expose the child, were even then lost when it was found. But O, the noble combat that, 'twixt joy and sorrow, was fought in Paulina !—she had one eye declined for the loss of her husband; another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled. She lifted the princess from the earth; and so locks her in embracing as if she would pin her to her heart, that she might no more be in danger of losing.

1st Gent. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted.

3rd Gent. One of the prettiest touches of all, and that which angled for mine eyes (caught the water, though not the fish), was when, at the relation of the queen's death, with the manner how she came to it (bravely confessed and lamented by the king), how attentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of dolour to another, she did, with an "Alas!" I would fain say, bleed tears; for I am sure my heart wept blood. Who was most marble there, changed colour; some swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world could have seen it, the woe had been universal.

1st Gent. Are they returned to the court?

3rd Gent. No: the princess, hearing of her mother's statue, which is in the keeping of Paulina,—a piece many years in doing, and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano; who, had he himself eternity, and could put breath into his work, would beguile nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione, that they say one would speak to her, and stand in hope of answer :-thither, with all greediness of affection, are they gone; and there they intend to sup.

1st Gent. I thought she had some great matter there in hand; for she hath privately, twice or thrice a-day, ever since the death of Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall we thither, and with our company piece the rejoicing?

3rd Gent. Who would be thence that has the benefit of access? Every wink of an eye, some new grace will be born: our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along.

[Exeunt Gentlemen.

Aut. Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man and his son aboard the prince: told him I heard him talk of a fardel, and I know not what: but he at that time, overfond of the shepherd's daughter (so he then took her to be), who began to be much sea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of weather continuing, this mystery remained undiscovered. But 't is all one to me: for had I been the finderout of this secret, it would not have relished among my other discredits.

Enter Shepherd and Clown. Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.

Shep. Come, boy: I am past more children, but thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born.

Clo. You are well met, sir: you denied to fight with me this other day, because I was no gentleman born :—see you these clothes? say you see them not, and think me still no gentleman born: you were best say these robes are not gentlemen born. Give me the lie; do; and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.

Aut. I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born. Clo. Ay, and have been so any time these four hours.

Shep. And so have I, boy.

Clo. So you have:-but I was a gentleman born before my father: for the king's son took me by the hand, and called me brother; and then the two kings called my father, brother: and then the prince my brother, and the princess my sister, called my father, father; and so we wept and there was the first gentleman-like tears that ever we shed.

Shep. We may live, son, to shed many more. Clo. Ay; or else 't were hard luck, being in so preposterous estate as we are.

Aut. I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I have committed to your worship, and to give me your good report to the prince my master.

Shep. Pr'y thee, son, do; for we must be gentle now we are gentlemen.

Clo. Thou wilt amend thy life?

Aut. Ay, an it like your good worship.

Clo. Give me thy hand: I will swear to the prince thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.

Shep. You may say it, but not swear it.

Clo. Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins say it; I'll swear it. Shep. How if it be false, son?

« PředchozíPokračovat »