They say, it's a copy out of mine. Come, captain, | Offic'd with me: We two will walk. my lord,
We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain:
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf,
Are all call'd, neat.-Still virginalling!
[Observing POLIXENES and HERMIONE.
Upon his palm?-How now, you wanton calf?
Art thou my calf?
Yes, if you will, my lord.
Leon. Thou want'st a rough pash, and the shoots
To be full' like me: yet, they say, we are
Almost as like as eggs; women say so,
That will say any thing: But were they false
As o'er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters; false
As dice are to be wish'd, 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 may'st conjoin with something; and thou dost;
(And that beyond commission, and I find it ;)
And that to the infection of my brains,
And hardening of my brows.
Pol.
What means Sicilia?
Her. He something seems unsettled.
Pol.
How, my lord?
What cheer? how is't with you, best brother?
Her.
You look,
As if you held a brow of much distraction:
Are you mov'd, my lord?
Leon.
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, methought I did recoil
Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech'd,
In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzled,
Lest it should bite its master, and so prove,
As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.
How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,
This squash, this gentleman :-Mine honest friend,
Will you take eggs for money ?10
Mam. No, my lord, I'll fight.
Leon. You will? why, happy man be his dole
my brother,
Are you so fond of your young prince, as we
Do seem to be of ours?
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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
Apparent12 to my heart."
Her.
We are yours 'the garden; Shall's attend you there. Leon. To your own bents dispose you: you'll be
Be you beneath the sky:-I am angling now,
Though you perceive me not how I give line.
Go to, go to!
[Aside. Observing POLIXENES and HERMIONE.
How she holds up the neb,13 the bill to him!
And arms her with the boldness of a wife
To her allowing14 husband! Gone already!
Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd
[Exeunt PoL. HER. and Attendants. Go, play, boy, play;-thy mother plays, and I Play too; but so disgrac'd a part, whose issue Will hiss me to my grave; contempt and clamour Will be my knell.-Go, play, boy, play.-There have been,
Or I am much deceiv'd, cuckolds ere now;
And many a man there is, even at this present,
Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm,
That little thinks, she has been sluic'd in his absence,
And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by
Sir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in't,
Whiles other men have gates; and those gates
open'd,
As mine, against their will: Should all despair,
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hang themselves. Physic for't there is none;
It is a bawdy planet, that will strike
Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful, think it, From east, west, north, and south: Be it concluded, No barricado for a belly; know it;
It will let in and out the enemy,
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With bag and baggage: many a thousand of us
Have the disease, and feel't not.-How
Mam. I am like you, they say.
Leon.
Why, that's some comfort.-
What! Camillo there?
Cam. Ay, my good lord.
Leon. Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest [Eat MAMILLIUS. !!!-Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.
posed to be derived from beau-co7, or boy-cock. It occurs again in Twelfth Night, and in King Henry V. and in both places is coupled with chuck or chick. It is Baid that bra'cock is still used in Scotland.
1 Still playing with her fingers as a girl playing on the virginals. Virginals were stringed instruments played with keys like a spinnet, which they resembled in all respects but in shape, spinnets being nearly triangular, and virginals of an oblong square shape like a small piano forte.
2 Thou wantest a rough head, and the budding horns that I have. A pash in some places denoting a young bull calf whose horns are springing; a mad pash, a mad-brained boy.
4 i. e. old faded stuffs of other colours dyed black. 5 Welkin is blue, i. e. the colour of the welkin
sky.
6 In King Henry VI. Part I. we have-
God knows, thou art a collop of my flesh.'
Cam. You had much ado to make his anchor hold; When you cast out, it still came home.16 Leon. Didst note it? Cam. He would not stay at your petitions; made His business more material.17
conjure up unreal causes of disquiet; and thus, in the
poet's language, stabs him to the centre.'
8 Credent, credible.
9 i. e. an immature pea-pod.
10 Will you take eggs for money? A proverbial phrase for will you suffer yourself to be cajoled or imposed upon?'
11 i. e. may happiness be his portion!
12 Heir apparent, next claimant.
13 i. e. mouth.
14 i. e. approving
15 i. e. a horned one, a cuckold.
16 It still came home,' a nautical term, meaning,
'the anchor would not take hold,"
17 The more you requested him to stay, the more urgent he represented that business to be which summon. ored him away. 18 Not Polixenes and Hermione, but casual obser
7 Affection here means imagination. Intention is earnest consideration, eager attention. It is this vehe. mence of mind which affects Leontes, by making him]
Leon. At the queen's, be't: good, should be per- ! (Or else be impudently negative,
But so it is, it is not. Was this taken
By any understanding pate but thine?
For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in
More than the common blocks :-Not noted, is't,
But of the finer natures? by some severals,
Of head-piece extraordinary? lower messes,'
Perchance, are to this business purblind: say.
Cam. Business, my lord? I think, most understand
Bohemia stays here longer.
Ha?
Stays here longer.
Leon. Ay, but why?
Cam. To satisfy your highness, and the entreaties
Of our most gracious mistress.
Leon.
Be it forbid, my lord!
Leon. To bide upon't :-Thou art not honest: or,
If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward;
Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining
From course requir'd: Or else thou must be counted
A servant, grafted in my serious trust,
And therein negligent; or else a fool,
To have nor eyes, nor ears, nor thought,) then say,
My wife's a hobby-horse; deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench, that puts to
Before a troth-plight say it, and justify it.
Cam. I would not be a stander-by, to hear
My sovereign mistress clouded so, without
My present vengeance taken: 'Shrew my hear
You never spoke what did become you less
Than this, which to reiterate, were sin
As deep as that, though true.
Leon.
Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh? (a note infallible
Of breaking honesty:) horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?
Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes blind
With the pin and web, but theirs, theirs only,
That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing?
Why, then, the world, and all that's in't, is nothing;
The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;
My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,
If this be nothing.
Good my lord, be cur'd Of this diseas'd opinion, and betimes; For 'tis most dangerous.
Cam. No, no, my lord. Leon.
It is: you lie, you lie:
I say,
thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee;
Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave;
That see'st a game play'd home, the rich stake Or else a hovering temporizer, that
And tak'st it all for jest.
Cam. My gracious lord, I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful; In every one of these no man is free, But that his negligence, his folly, fear, Amongst the infinite doings of the world, Sometime puts forth: In your affairs, my lord, If ever I were wilful-negligent,
It was my folly; if industriously
I play'd the fool, it was my negligence,
Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful
To do a thing, where I the issue doubted,
Whereof the execution did cry out
Against the non-performance,' 'twas a fear
Which oft affects the wisest: these, my lord,
Are such allow'd infirmities, that honesty
Is never free of. But, 'beseech your grace,
Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass
By its own visage: if I then deny it,
'Tis none of mine.
Have not you seen, Camillo, (But that's past doubt: you have; or your eye-glass Is thicker than a cuckold's horn ;) or heard, (For, to a vision so apparent, rumour Cannot be mute,) or thought,-(for cogitation Resides not in that man, that does not think,)4My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess,
1 Messes is here put for degrees, conditions. The company at great tables were divided according to their rank into higher and lower messes. Those of lower condition sitting below the great standing salt in the centre of the table.
2 To hox is to hamstring, the proper word is to hough.
Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,
Inclining to them both: Were my wife's liver
Infected as her life, she would not live
The running of one glass."
I could do this: and that with no rash1° potion,
But with a ling'ring dram, that should not work
Maliciously like poison: But I cannot
Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress,
So sovereignly being honourable.
I have lov'd thee,-
Leon.
Make't thy question, and go rot!!!
not think my wife is slippery.) The four latter words, though disjoined from the word think by the necessity of a parenthesis, are evidently to be connected in construction with it.
5 To reiterate your accusation of her would be as great a sin as that, if committed, of which you accuse her.
6 The pin and web is the cataract in an early stage. 7 i. e. one hour.
3 This is expressed obscurely, but seems to mean 'the execution of which (when done) cried out against S The old copy reads her medal.' The allusion is the nonperformance of it before; or, as Johnson laco-to the custom of wearing a medallion or jewel ap nically expresses it, was a thing necessary to be done, but which Camillo had delayed doing because he doubted the issue.
pended to a ribbon about the neck.
9 Bespice a cup.' So in Chapman's Translation of the tenth book of the Odyssey:
She'll first receive thee; but will spice thy bread With flowery poisons.'
4 Theobald quoted this passage in defence of the well known line in his Double Falsehood, None but | himself can be his parallel. For who does not see at once,' says he, that he who does not think has no 10 Rash is hasty; as in King Henry IV. Part II. thought in him. In the same light the subsequent edi-rash gunpowder. Maliciously is malignantly, with tors view this passage, and read with Pope, that does effects openly hurtful. not think it. But the old reading is right, and the absurdity only in the misapprehension of it. Leontes means to say, 'Have you not thought that my wife is slippery (for cogitation resides not in the man that does
11 Make that, i. e. Hermione's disloyalty, which is a clear point, a subject of doubt, and go rot! Dost think. I am such a fool as to torment myself, and bring dia grace on me and my child, without sufficient grounds'
Dost think, I am so muddy, so unsettled,
To appoint myself in this vexation? sully
The purity and whiteness of my sheets,
Which to preserve, is sleep; which being spotted,
Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps ?
Give scandal to the blood o' the prince my son,
Who, I do think is mine, and love as mine;
Without ripe moving to't? Would I do this?
Could man so blench ??
Cam.
I must believe you, sir;
I do: and will fetch off Bohemia for't:
Provided, that when he's remov'd, your highness
Will take again your queen, as yours at first;
Even for your son's sake; and thereby, for sealing
The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms
Known and allied to yours.
Leon.
Thou dost advise me,
Even so as I mine own course have set down:
I'll give no blemish to her honour, none.
Cam. My lord,
Go then; and with a countenance as clear
As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia,
And with your queen: I am his cupbearer;
If from me he have wholesome beverage,
Account me not your servant.
Leon.
This is all;
Do't, and thou hast the one half of my heart;
Do't not, thou split'st thine own.
Cam.
I'll do't, my lord.
Leon. I will seem friendly, as thou hast advis'd
Cam. O miserable lady!-But, for me,
What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner
Of good Polixenes: and my ground to do't
Is the obedience to a master; one,
Who, in rebellion with himself, will have
All that are his, so too.-To do this deed,
Promotion follows: If I could find example
Of thousands, that had struck anointed kings,
And flourish'd after, I'd not do't: but since
Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,
Let villany itself forswear't. I must
Forsake the court: to do't, or no, is certain
To me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now!
Here comes Bohemia.
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Hail, most royal sir!
Pol. What is the news i'the court?
Clm.
None rare, my lord.
Pol. The king hath on him such a countenance,
As he had lost some province, and a region,
Lov'd as he loves himself: even now I met him
With customary compliment; when he,
Wafting his eyes to the contrary, and falling
A lip of much contempt, speeds from me; and
So leaves me to consider what is breeding,
That changes thus his manners.
Cam. I dare not know, my lord.
Is not this suit of mine,-that thou declare
What incidency thou dost guess of harm
Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near;
Which way to be prevented, if to be;
If not, how best to bear it.
Cam.
Sir, I'll tell you;
Since I am charg'd in honour, and by him
That I think honourable: Therefore, mark my
counsel;
Which must be even as swiftly follow'd, as
I mean to utter it; or both yourself and me
Cry, lost, and so good-night.
O, then my best blood turn
To an infected jelly; and my name
Be yoked with his, that did betray the best !
Turn then my freshest reputation to
A savour, that may strike the dullest nostril
Where I arrive; and my approach be shunn'd,
Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection
That e'er was heard, or read!
Cam. Swear his thought over By each particular star in heaven, and By all their influences, you may as well Forbid the sea for to obey the moon, As, or by oath, remove, or counsel, shake The fabric of his folly; whose foundation Is pil'd upon his faith, and will continue The standing of his body.
How should this grow? Cam. I know not: but, I am sure, 'tis safer to Avoid what's grown, than question how 'tis born.
Pol. How! dare not? do not. Do you know, If therefore you dare trust my honesty,
Be intelligent to me? 'Tis thereabouts;
For, to yourself, what you do know, you must;
And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,
Your chang'd complexions are to me a mirror,
Which shows me mine chang'd too: for I must be
A party in this alteration, finding
Myself thus alter'd with it.
Cam.
There is a sickness
Which puts some of us in distemper; but
1 Something is necessary to complete the verse. Hanmer reads:
Is goads and thorns, nettles and tails of wasps.' 2 To blench is to start off, to shrink.
3 Success, for succession. Gentle, well born, was opposed to simple.
4 I am appointed him to murder you,' I am the person appointed to murder you.
5 i. e. to screw or move you to it. A vice in Shak s
That lies enclosed in this trunk, which you
Shall bear along impawn'd,-away to-night.
Your followers I will whisper to the business;
And will, by twos, and threes, at several posterns,
Clear them o' the city: For myself, I'll put
My fortunes to your service, which are here
By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain:
For, by the honour of my parents, I
Have utter'd truth: which if you seek to prove,
I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer
peare's time meant any kind of winding screw. The rice of a clock was a common expression.
6 That is Judas. A clause in the sentence of excommunicated persons was: let them have part with Judas that betrayed Christ.'
7'Swear his thought over. The meaning apparently is 'over-swear his thought by,' &c.
S'Is pil'd upon his faith. This folly which is erected on the foundation of settled belief.
Give me thy hand;
Be pilot to me, and thy places shall
Still neighbour mine;2 My ships are ready, and
My people did expect my hence departure
Two days ago.-This jealousy
I saw his heart in his face.'
Is for a precious creature; as she's rare,
Must it be great; and, as his person's mighty,
Must it be violent; and as he does conceive,
He is dishonour'd by a man which ever
Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must
In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me;
Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing
Of his ill-ta'en suspicion!3 Come, Camillo;
I will respect thee as a father, if
Thou bear'st my life off hence: Let us avoid.
Cam. It is in mine authority, to command
The keys of all the posterns: Please your highness
To take the urgent hour: come, sir, away.
[Exeunt.
The same. Enter HERMIONE, MA
MILLIUS, and Ladies.
Her. Take the boy to you: he so troubles me, 'Tis past enduring. 1 Lady.
Come, my gracious lord,
Shall I be your playfellow?
Mam.
No, I'll none of you.
1 Lady. Why, my sweet lord?
Mam. You'll kiss me hard; and speak to me as
if I were a baby still.-I love you better.
2 Lady. And why so, my lord?
Not for because
Mam.
Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,
Become some women best; so that there be not
Too much hair there, but in a semicircle,
Or half-moon made with a pen.
Who taught you this?
2 Lady.
Mam. I learn'd it out of women's faces.-Pray
What colour are your eye-brows?
Blue, my lord.
1 Lady.
Mam. Nay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's
That has been blue, but not her eye-brows.
2 Lady.
Hark ye:
The queen, your mother, rounds apace: we shall
Present our services to a fine new prince,
One of these days; and then you'd wanton with us,
If we would have you.
She is spread of late
1 Lady.
Into a goodly bulk: Good time encounter her!
Her. What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come,
sir, now
I am for you again: Pray you, sit by us,
And tell's a tale.
Merry, or sad, shall't be?
Her. As merry as you will.
Mam.
A sad tale's best for winter:
I have one of sprites and goblins.
Let's have that, good sir.
Her.
Come on, sit down:-Come on, and do your best
To fright me with your sprites: you're powerful at it.
Mam. There was a man,-
1 'I saw his heart in his face.' In Macbeth we have :-
To find the mind's construction in the face.'
21. e. I will place thee in elevated rank always near
to my own in dignity, or near my person.
3 Johnson might well say, 'I can make nothing of the following words :'
The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing
Of his ill-ta en suspicion.'
He suspected the line which connected them to the rest
to have been lost. I have sometimes thought that we
Her. Nay, come, sit down; then on.
Mam. Dwelt by a church-yard;-I will tel
softly;
Yon crickets shall not hear it.
Her.
And give't me in mine ear.
Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, Lords, and others. Leon. Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him?
1 Lord. Behind the tuft of pines I met them;
Saw I men scour so on their way: Iey'd them
Even to their ships.
How bless'd am I
In my just censure 74 in my true opinion ?---
Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accurs'd,
In being so blest!-There may be in the cup
A spider steep'd, and one may drink; depart,
And yet partake no venom; for his knowledgə‐
Is not infected: but if one present
The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye; make known,
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides
With violent hefts:-I have drunk, and seen the
spider.
Camillo was his help in this, his pander:
There is a plot against my life, my crown ;
All's true that is mistrusted :-that false villain,
Whom I employ'd, was pre-employ'd by him:
He has discover'd my design, and I
Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick
For them to play at will:--How came the posterns
So easily open?
By his great authority;
Which often hath no less prevail'd than so,
On your command.
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Give me the boy; I am glad, you did not nurse him:
Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you
Have too much blood in him.
What is this? sport?
Her.
Leon. Bear the boy hence, he shall not come about
her;
Away with him:-and let her sport herself
With that she's big with; for 'tis Polixenes
But I'd say, he had not,
Her.
Has made thee swell thus.
And, I'll be sworn, you would believe my saying,
Howe'er you lean to the nayward.
Leon.
You, my lords,
Look on her, mark her well; be but about
To say, she is a goodly lady, and
The justice of your hearts will thereto add,
'Tis pity, she's not honest, honourable:
Praise her but for this her without-door form,
straight
(Which, on my faith, deserves high speech) and
The shrug, the hum, or ha; these petty brands,
That calumny doth use:-O, I am out,
That mercy does; for calumny will sear
Virtue itself:-theso shrugs, these hums, and has,
she's goodly, come between,
When have
you said,
Ere you can say she's honest: But be it known,
From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,
She's an adultress.
Should a villain say so,
The most replenish villain in the world,
He were as much more villain: you, my lord,
You have mistook, my lady,
Leon.
Polixenes for Leontes: 0 thou thing,
Which I'll not call a creature of thy place,
be my friend, and may my absence bring comfort to the
nothing of his unjust suspicion.'
gracious queen who is part of his theme, but who knotes
5 Alack, for lesser knowledge! that is, O that my knowledge were less!
6 Spiders were esteemed poisonous in our author's time.
7 Hefts, heavings, things which are heaved up.
9i. e. a thing pinched out of clouts, a puppet for
9 i. e. will brand it.
should read not noting instead of but nothing. Per-them to move and actuate as they please.'
haps they will bear this construction: Good expedition |
Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
Should a like language use to all degrees,
And mannerly distinguishment leave out
Betwixt the prince and beggar!---I have said,
She's an adultress; I have said with whom :
More, she's a traitor! and Camillo is
A federary with her; and one that knows
What she should shame to know herself,
But with her most vile principal, that she's
A bed-swerver, even as bad as those
That vulgars give bold'st titles; ay, and privy
To this their late escape.
Her.
No, by my life,
Privy to none of this: How will this grieve you,
When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
You thus have publish'd me? Gentle my lord,
You scarce can right me throughly then, to say
You did mistake.
No, no; if I mistake
In those foundations which I build upon,
The centre is not big enough to bear
A school-boy's top.-Away with her to prison:
He, who shall speak for her, is afar off guilty,
But that he speaks.4
Her.
There's some ill planet reigns:
I must be patient till the heavens look
With an aspect more favourable.-Good my lords,
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew,
Perchance, shall dry your pities: but I have
That honourable grief lodg'd here, which burns
Worse than tears drown: 'Beseech you all,
lords,
With thoughts so qualified as your charities
Shall best instruct you, measure me;-and so
The king's will be perform'd!
Leon.
Shall I be heard? [To the Guards. Her. Who is't that goes with me?-'Beseech
My women may be with me; for, you see,
My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools;
There is no cause: when you shall know your mis-
Has deserv'd prison, then abound in tears,
As I come out: this action, I now go on,
Is for my better grace.-Adieu, my lord:
I never wish'd to see you sorry; now,
I trust, I shall.
leave.
Good my lord.—
Ant. It is for you we speak, not for ourselves:
You are abus'd, and by some putter-on,
That will be damn'd for't; 'would I knew the villain,
I would land-damn' him: Be she honour-flaw'd,-
I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven;
The second, and the third, nine, and some five;
If this prove true, they'll pay for't: by mine honour,
I'll geld them all: fourteen they shall not see,
To bring false generations; they are coheirs;
And I had rather glib myself, than they
Should not produce fair issue.
Cease; no more.
You smell this business with a sense as cold
As is a dead man's nose: but I do see't and feel't,
As you feel doing thus; and see withal
The instruments that feel."
1 Lord. I had rather you did lack, than I, my lord,
Upon this ground: and more it would content me
To have her honour true, than your suspicion;
Be blam'd for't how you might.
Leon.
Why, what need we
Commune with you of this? but rather follow
Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative
Calls not your counsels; but our natural goodness
Imparts this: which, if you (or stupified,
Or seeming so in skill) cannot, or will not,
Relish as truth, like us; inform yourselves,
We need no more of your advice: the matter,
The loss, the gain, the ordering on't, is all
Properly ours.
Ant.
And I wish, my liege,
You had only in your silent judgment tried it,
Without more overture.
How could that be?
Either thou art most ignorant by age,
Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight,
Added to their familiarity,
(Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture,
That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation,11
But only seeing, all other circumstances
Made up to the deed) doth push on this proceeding:
-My women, come; you have Yet, for a greater confirmation,
Leon. Go, do our bidding; hence.
[Exeunt Queen and Ladies.
1 Lord. 'Beseech your highness, call the queen
again.
Ant. Be certain what you do, sir; lest your justice
Prove violence; in the which three great ones suffer,
Yourself, your queen, your son.
1 Lord.
For her, my lord,-
I dare my life lay down, and will do't, sir,
Please
you to accept it, that the queen is spotless
Pthe eyes of heaven, and to you; I mean,
In this which you accuse her.
If it prove
She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where
I lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;
Then when I feel, and see her, no further trust her;
For every inch of woman in the world,
Ay, every dram of woman's flesh, is false,
1 Federary. This word, which is probably of the poet's own invention, is used for confederate, accomplice. 2 One that knows what she should be ashamed to know herself, even if the knowledge of it was shared but with her paramour. It is the use of but for be-out (only, according to Malone) that obscures the sense. 3 i. e. no foundation can be trusted.
4 'He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty, But that he speaks.'
He who shall speak for her is remotely guilty in merely speaking.
5 i. e. what I am now about to do.
6 Much has been said about this passage: one has thought it should be stable-stand; another that it means station. But it may be explained thus:-'If she prove
(For, in an act of this importance, 'twere
Most piteous to be wild) I have despatch'd in post,
To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple,
Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know
Of stuff'd sufficiency:12 Now from the oracle
They will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had
Shall stop, or spur me. Have I done well?
1 Lord. Well done, my lord.
Leon. Though I am satisfied, and need no more
Than what I know, yet shall the oracle
Give rest to the minds of others; such as he,
Whose ignorant credulity will not
Come up to the truth: so have we thought it good,
From our free person she should be confined;
Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence,
Be left her to perform. Come, follow us;
We are to speak in public: for this business
Will raise us all.
Ant. [Aside.] To laughter, as I take it,
If the good truth were known.
[Exeunt.
false, I'll make my stables or kennel of my wife's chamber; I'll go in couples with her like a dog, and never leave her for a moment; trust her no further than I can feel and see her.'
7 'I would land-damn him.' Johnson interprets this: 'I will damn or condemn him to quit the land.' 8 Glib or lib, i. e. castrate.
9 I see and feel my disgrace, as you, Antigonus, now feel my doing this to you, and as you now see the instru ments that feel, i. e. my fingers. Leontes must here be supposed to touch or lay hold of Antigonus. 10 The old copy reads a truth. Rowe made the cor rection. 11 i. e. proof.
12 i. e. of abilities more than sufficient.
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