Had our prince,

Paul.
Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd
Well with this lord: there was not full a month
Between their births.

Leon. Prithee, no more; cease; thou know'st
He dies to me again when talk'd 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 and others, with FLORIZEL and PERDITA.

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 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

120

130

Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,

140

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 th' earth.

And hath he too

Expos'd this paragon to the fearful usage,

(At best ungentle,) of the dreadful Neptune,

To greet a man not worth her pains, much less

The adventure of her person?

150

154 At best ungentle. Perhaps I should say that the folio reads, "At least." etc., which just possibly may be right.

Good my lord,

Where the warlike Smalus,

Flo.

She came from Libya.

Leon.

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.

The blessed gods

Purge all infection from our air whilst you
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 blest,
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 hastening, 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.

157 Smalus

160

170

180

190

Who Smalus was 8. may possibly have known. I remember no other mention of him.

170 climate an amazing and utterly reckless use of this noun in a verbal sense, to mean, dwell in our air.

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.

O my poor father!

Per.
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'ld beg your precious mistress,

Which he counts but a trifle.

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,

200

210

220

Even in these looks I made. [To Florizel.] But your petition

214 in worth: Leontes uses worth in regard to birth, as most people use it now in regard to money.

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

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.

SCENE II. Before LEONTES' palace.

Enter AUTOLYCUS and a Gentleman.

230

[Exeunt.

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

First 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 seem'd 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 look'd as they had heard of a world ransom'd, 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 th' importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be. Here comes a gentleman that haply knows more.

The news, Rogero?

Enter another Gentleman.

18

Sec. Gent. Nothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfill'd; 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 call'd true is so like an old tale, that the verity of it is in strong suspicion: has the King found his heir?

Third 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's, 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 evi

15 importance import.
30 character hand-writing.

dences proclaim her with all certainty to be the King's daughter. Did you see the meeting of the two kings?

Sec. Gent. No.

Third 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 seem'd sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenances 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.

50

Sec. Gent. What, 'pray you, became of Antigonus, that car

ried hence the child?

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

First Gent. What became of his bark and his followers? Third Gent. Wrack'd 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 declin'd for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfill'd: 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.

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

69

Third 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 't bravely confess'd 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

43 favour face, countenance.

47 clipping embracing.

49 weather-bitten: thus the folio. The word seems expressive; but owes its form probably to chance, a phonetic spelling of weather-beaten; i pronounced e.