TPTT The Winter's Tale: ACT V
Introduction
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
SCENE I. A room in LEONTES' palace.
SCENE II. Before LEONTES' palace.
SCENE III. A chapel in PAULINA'S house.
About the Play
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SCENE I. A room in LEONTES' palace.
Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and Servants
CLEOMENES
      Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd
      A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make,
      Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down
      More penitence than done trespass: at the last,
5     Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil;
      With them forgive yourself.
LEONTES
      Whilst I remember
      Her and her virtues, I cannot forget
      My blemishes in them, and so still think of
10    The wrong I did myself; which was so much,
      That heirless it hath made my kingdom and
      Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man
      Bred his hopes out of.
PAULINA
      True, too true, my lord:
15    If, one by one, you wedded all the world,
      Or from the all that are took something good,
      To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd
      Would be unparallel'd.
LEONTES
      I think so. Kill'd!
20    She I kill'd! I did so: but thou strikest me
      Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter
      Upon thy tongue as in my thought: now, good now,
      Say so but seldom.
CLEOMENES
      Not at all, good lady:
25    You might have spoken a thousand things that would
      Have done the time more benefit and graced
      Your kindness better.
PAULINA
      You are one of those
      Would have him wed again.
DION
30    If you would not so,
      You pity not the state, nor the remembrance
      Of his most sovereign name; consider little
      What dangers, by his highness' fail of issue,
      May drop upon his kingdom and devour
35    Incertain lookers on. What were more holy
      Than to rejoice the former queen is well?
      What holier than, for royalty's repair,
      For present comfort and for future good,
      To bless the bed of majesty again
40    With a sweet fellow to't?
PAULINA
      There is none worthy,
      Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods
      Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes;
      For has not the divine Apollo said,
45    Is't not the tenor of his oracle,
      That King Leontes shall not have an heir
      Till his lost child be found? which that it shall,
      Is all as monstrous to our human reason
      As my Antigonus to break his grave
50    And come again to me; who, on my life,
      Did perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel
      My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
      Oppose against their wills.

To LEONTES

      Care not for issue;
55    The crown will find an heir: great Alexander
      Left his to the worthiest; so his successor
      Was like to be the best.
LEONTES
      Good Paulina,
      Who hast the memory of Hermione,
60    I know, in honour, O, that ever I
      Had squared me to thy counsel! then, even now,
      I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes,
      Have taken treasure from her lips--
PAULINA
      And left them
65    More rich for what they yielded.
LEONTES
      Thou speak'st truth.
      No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse,
      And better used, would make her sainted spirit
      Again possess her corpse, and on this stage,
70    Where we're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd,
      And begin, 'Why to me?'
PAULINA
      Had she such power,
      She had just cause.
LEONTES
      She had; and would incense me
75    To murder her I married.
PAULINA
      I should so.
      Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark
      Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't
      You chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your ears
80    Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd
      Should be 'Remember mine.'
LEONTES
      Stars, stars,
      And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;
      I'll have no wife, Paulina.
PAULINA
85    Will you swear
      Never to marry but by my free leave?
LEONTES
      Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!
PAULINA
      Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.
CLEOMENES
      You tempt him over-much.
PAULINA
90    Unless another,
      As like Hermione as is her picture,
      Affront his eye.
CLEOMENES
      Good madam,--
PAULINA
      I have done.
95    Yet, if my lord will marry,--if you will, sir,
      No remedy, but you will,--give me the office
      To choose you a queen: she shall not be so young
      As was your former; but she shall be such
      As, walk'd your first queen's ghost,
100   it should take joy
      To see her in your arms.
LEONTES
      My true Paulina,
      We shall not marry till thou bid'st us.
PAULINA
      That
105   Shall be when your first queen's again in breath;
      Never till then.
Enter a Gentleman
Gentleman
      One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,
      Son of Polixenes, with his princess, she
      The fairest I have yet beheld, desires access
110   To your high presence.
LEONTES
      What with him? he comes not
      Like to his father's greatness: his approach,
      So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us
      'Tis not a visitation framed, but forced
115   By need and accident. What train?
Gentleman
      But few,
      And those but mean.
LEONTES
      His princess, say you, with him?
Gentleman
      Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,
120   That e'er the sun shone bright on.
PAULINA
      O Hermione,
      As every present time doth boast itself
      Above a better gone, so must thy grave
      Give way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself
125   Have said and writ so, but your writing now
      Is colder than that theme, 'She had not been,
      Nor was not to be equall'd;'--thus your verse
      Flow'd with her beauty once: 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,
      To say you have seen a better.
Gentleman
130   Pardon, madam:
      The one I have almost forgot,--your pardon,--
      The other, when she has obtain'd your eye,
      Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,
      Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
135   Of all professors else, make proselytes
      Of who she but bid follow.
PAULINA
      How! not women?
Gentleman
      Women will love her, that she is a woman
      More worth than any man; men, that she is
140   The rarest of all women.
LEONTES
      Go, Cleomenes;
      Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,
      Bring them to our embracement. Still, 'tis strange

Exeunt CLEOMENES and others

      He thus should steal upon us.
PAULINA
145   Had our prince,
      Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd
      Well with this lord: there was not full a month
      Between their births.
LEONTES
      Prithee, no more; cease; thou know'st
150   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;
155   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
160   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--
165   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.
FLORIZEL
      By his command
170   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 seized
      His wish'd ability, he had himself
175   The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
      Measured to look upon you; whom he loves--
      He bade me say so--more than all the sceptres
      And those that bear them living.
LEONTES
      O my brother,
180   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
185   Exposed 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?
FLORIZEL
      Good my lord,
190   She came from Libya.
LEONTES
      Where the warlike Smalus,
      That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and loved?
FLORIZEL
      Most royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter
      His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence,
195   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
200   Not only my success in Libya, sir,
      But my arrival and my wife's in safety
      Here where we are.
LEONTES
      The blessed gods
      Purge all infection from our air whilst you
205   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,
210   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!
Enter a Lord
Lord
      Most noble sir,
215   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--
220   Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with
      A shepherd's daughter.
LEONTES
      Where's Bohemia? speak.
Lord
      Here in your city; I now came from him:
      I speak amazedly; and it becomes
225   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
230   With this young prince.
FLORIZEL
      Camillo has betray'd me;
      Whose honour and whose honesty till now
      Endured all weathers.
Lord
      Lay't so to his charge:
235   He's with the king your father.
LEONTES
      Who? Camillo?
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;
240   Forswear themselves as often as they speak:
      Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them
      With divers deaths in death.
PERDITA
      O my poor father!
      The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have
245   Our contract celebrated.
LEONTES
      You are married?
FLORIZEL
      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.
LEONTES
250   My lord,
      Is this the daughter of a king?
FLORIZEL
      She is,
      When once she is my wife.
LEONTES
      That 'once' I see by your good father's speed
255   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.
FLORIZEL
260   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 owed no more to time
265   Than I do now: with thought of such affections,
      Step forth mine advocate; at your request
      My father will grant precious things as trifles.
LEONTES
      Would he do so, I'ld beg your precious mistress,
      Which he counts but a trifle.
PAULINA
270   Sir, my liege,
      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.
LEONTES
      I thought of her,
275   Even in these looks I made.

To FLORIZEL

      But your petition
      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
280   I now go toward him; therefore follow me
      And mark what way I make: come, good my lord.
Exeunt
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