Act 5, Scene 1: A room in LEONTES' palace

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,
    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
    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:
    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!
    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:
    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

    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
    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
    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,
    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
    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;
    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,
    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
    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,
    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
    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
    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

    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

    Unless another,
    As like Hermione as is her picture,
    Affront his eye.

CLEOMENES

    Good madam,--

PAULINA

    I have done.
    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,
    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
    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
    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
    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,
    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
    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

    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
    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
    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

    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
    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.

FLORIZEL

    By his command
    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
    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,
    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
    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,
    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,
    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.

LEONTES

    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!

    Enter a Lord

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.

LEONTES

    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.

FLORIZEL

    Camillo has betray'd me;
    Whose honour and whose honesty till now
    Endured all weathers.

Lord

    Lay't so to his charge:
    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;
    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
    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

    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
    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

    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
    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

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

    Exeunt

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