The Winter's Tale: ACT IV
Introduction ACT I ACT II ACT III ACT IV SCENE I SCENE II. Bohemia. The palace of POLIXENES. SCENE III. A road near the Shepherd's cottage. SCENE IV. The Shepherd's cottage. 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 Enter Time, the Chorus Time       I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror       Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,       Now take upon me, in the name of Time,       To use my wings. Impute it not a crime 5     To me or my swift passage, that I slide       O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried       Of that wide gap, since it is in my power       To o'erthrow law and in one self-born hour       To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass 10    The same I am, ere ancient'st order was       Or what is now received: I witness to       The times that brought them in; so shall I do       To the freshest things now reigning and make stale       The glistering of this present, as my tale 15    Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,       I turn my glass and give my scene such growing       As you had slept between: Leontes leaving,       The effects of his fond jealousies so grieving       That he shuts up himself, imagine me, 20    Gentle spectators, that I now may be       In fair Bohemia, and remember well,       I mentioned a son o' the king's, which Florizel       I now name to you; and with speed so pace       To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace 25    Equal with wondering: what of her ensues       I list not prophecy; but let Time's news       Be known when 'tis brought forth.       A shepherd's daughter,       And what to her adheres, which follows after, 30    Is the argument of Time. Of this allow,       If ever you have spent time worse ere now;       If never, yet that Time himself doth say       He wishes earnestly you never may. Exit Return to top of page ... or ... Go to next scene