The Winter's Tale: ACT I
Introduction ACT I SCENE I. Antechamber in LEONTES' palace. SCENE II. A room of state in the same. ACT II ACT III ACT IV ACT V About the Play Feedback			Search: All the plays Hamlet Coriolanus Julius Caesar King Lear Macbeth Othello Romeo and Juliet Richard II Richard III Titus Andronicus Antony and Cleopatra Timon of Athens Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry the Fifth Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry VIII King John Pericles Troilus and Cressida All's Well... As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Cymbeline A Midsummer... Love's Labour's Lost Measure for Measure The Merry Wives... Much Ado about Nothing The Merchant of Venice Twelfth Night The Taming of... The Tempest The Two Gentlemen... The Winter's Tale    for: SCENE I. Antechamber in LEONTES' palace. Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS ARCHIDAMUS       If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on       the like occasion whereon my services are now on       foot, you shall see, as I have said, great       difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia. CAMILLO 5     I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia       means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him. ARCHIDAMUS       Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be       justified in our loves; for indeed-- CAMILLO       Beseech you,-- ARCHIDAMUS 10    Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge:       we cannot with such magnificence--in so rare--I know       not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks,       that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience,       may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse 15    us. CAMILLO       You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. ARCHIDAMUS       Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me       and as mine honesty puts it to utterance. CAMILLO       Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. 20    They were trained together in their childhoods; and       there rooted betwixt them then such an affection,       which cannot choose but branch now. Since their       more mature dignities and royal necessities made       separation of their society, their encounters, 25    though not personal, have been royally attorneyed       with interchange of gifts, letters, loving       embassies; that they have seemed to be together,       though absent, shook hands, as over a vast, and       embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed 30    winds. The heavens continue their loves! ARCHIDAMUS       I think there is not in the world either malice or       matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable       comfort of your young prince Mamillius: it is a       gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came 35    into my note. CAMILLO       I very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it       is a gallant child; one that indeed physics the       subject, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on       crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to 40    see him a man. ARCHIDAMUS       Would they else be content to die? CAMILLO       Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should       desire to live. ARCHIDAMUS       If the king had no son, they would desire to live 45    on crutches till he had one. Exeunt Return to top of page ... or ... Go to next scene