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 perform'd 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 on him.

Flo.

By his command

Have I here touch'd 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 seiz'd
His wish'd ability, he had himself

The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
Measur'd, to look upon you, whom he loves,-
He bade me say so,-more than all the sceptres,
And those that bear them, living.

Leon.
O my brother,-
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
Expos'd 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?

Flo.

She came from Libya.

Leon.

Good, my lord,

Where the warlike Smalus,

That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and lov'd?

Flo. Most royal sir, from thence; from him whose

daughter

His tears proclaim'd his parting with her: thence,—

A prosperous south wind friendly, -we have cross'd,

To execute the charge my father gave me
For visiting your highness: my best train
I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;
Who for Bohemia bend, to signify

Not only my success in Libya, sir,

But my arrival, and my wife's, in safety
Here, where we are.

Leon.

you

The blessed gods
Purge all infection from our air whilst
Do climate here! You have a holy father,
A graceful gentleman; against whose person,
So sacred as it is, I have done sin:

For which the heavens, taking angry note,
Have left me issueless; and your father's bless'd,-
As he from heaven merits it,-with you,

Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,
Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on,
Such goodly things as you!

Lord.

Enter a Lord.

Most noble sir,

That which I shall report will bear no credit,

Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir, Bohemia greets you from himself by me;

Desires you to attach his son, who has,

His dignity and duty both cast off,

Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with
A shepherd's daughter.

Leon.

Where's Bohemia? speak. Lord. Here in your city; I now came from him: I speak amazedly; and it becomes

My marvel and my message. To your court

Whiles he was hast'ning,-in the chase, it seems,
Of this fair couple,-meets he on the way
The father of this seeming lady, and

Her brother, having both their country quitted
With this young prince.

Flo.

Whose honour, and whose honesty, till now,

Endur'd all weathers.

Lord.

Camillo has betray'd me;

Lay 't so to his charge;

Who? Camillo?

He's with the king your father.

Leon.

Lord. Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now Has these poor men in question. Never saw I Wretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth; 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 heaven sets spies upon us, will not have
Our contract celebrated.

Leon.

You are married?

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.

Leon.

Is this the daughter of a king?
Flo

When once she is my wife.

My lord,

She is,

Leon. That once, I see, by your good father's speed,
Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,

Most sorry, you have broken from his liking,
Where you were tied in duty; and as sorry
Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,
That you might well enjoy her.

Flo.
Dear, look up:
Though Fortune, visible an enemy,

Should chase us, with my father, power no jot
Hath she to change our loves.-Beseech you, sir,
Remember since you ow'd no more to time
Than I do now: with thought of such affections,
Step forth mine advocate; at your request
My father will grant precious things as trifles.

Leon. Would he do so, I'd beg your precious mistress, Which he counts but a trifle.

Sir, my liege,

Paul.
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

Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father:
Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires,

[TO FLORIZEL.

I am 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. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The same.

Before the Palace.

Enter AUTOLYCUS and a Gentleman.

Aut. Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation? 1 Gent. I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it: where

upon, 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.

1 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; they looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not say if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be. Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more.

The news, Rogero?

Enter a Gentleman,

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

express it. Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward: he can deliver you more.

Enter a third Gentleman.

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?

3 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 know to be his character; the majesty of the creature in resemblance of the mother; the affection of nobleness, which nature shows 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?

2 Gent. No.

3 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.

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

He

3 Gent. Like an old tale still, which will have matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep, and not an ear open. was torn to pieces with a bear: this avouches the shepherd's 's son; who has not only his innocence,-which seems much, to justify him, but a handkerchief and rings of his, that Paulina knows.

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

3 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.

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

3 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.

1 Gent. Are they returned to the court?

3 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 cus