SHAKESPEARS WINTERS TALE

ARCHIDAMUS: if you shall chance Camilo to visit Bohemia on the like occasion, where on my services are now on foot you shall see as I have said great difference, beTwix, our Bohemia and your Sicilia

CAMILLO: I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.

ARCHIDAMUS: Wherin our entertainment shall shame us; we will be justified in our loves. For indeed – I know not what to say we will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficient, May, so they cannot praise us, as little accuse us.

CAMILLO: You pay a great deal too dear for what’s given freely.

ARCHUDAMUS: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. They were trained together in their childhoods, and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now. Since they’re more mature, dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, hath 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 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 Mamillus. It is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came 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, make Old hearts fresh.

(Scene 2.2) LEONTES: Why, that’s some comfort.— What, Camillo there?

(Coming forward)CAMILLO: Ay, my good lord.

LEONTES: Go Play, Mamillius. Thou’rt an honest man. Camillo, this great sir will stay yet longer.

CAMILLO: You had much ado to make his anchor hold. When you cast out, it still came home.

LEONTES: Didst note it?

CAMILLO: He would not stay at your petitions, made his business more material.

LEONTES: Didst perceive it? (Aside) They’re here with me already, whisp’ring, rounding: “Sicilia is a so-forth.” —how came’t, Camillo, that he did stay?

CAMILLO: At the good queen’s entreaty.

LEONTES: “At the Queen’s” be’t. “Good” should be pertinent, But-so it is, it is not. Was this taken by any understanding pate but thine?

CAMILLO: I think most understand Bohemia stays here longer.

LEONTES: Ha?

CAMILLO: stays here longer.

LEONTES: Ay, but why?

CAMILLO: To satisfy your Highness and the entreaties Of our most gracious mistress.

LEONTES: Satisfy? Th’ and treaties of your mistress? Satisfy? Let that suffice. I have entrusted thee, Camillo, with all the nearest things to my heart, as well My chamber-counsels, wherein, priestlike, thou hast cleaned my bosom; I from thee departed Thy penitent reformed. But we have been Deceived in thy integrity, deceived in that which seems so.

CAMILLO: Be it forbid, my lord!

LEONTES: to bide upon’t: thou art not honest; or, if thou inclin’st that way, thou art a coward; or else thou must be counted a servant grafted in my serious trust and therein negligent; or else a fool that seest a game played home.

CAMILLO: my gracious Lord, I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful. In every one of these no man is free in your affairs, my Lord, if ever I were willful – negligent, it was my folly; if industriously, I played the fool, it was my negligence. These, my Lord, are such allowed 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.

LEONTES: Ha’ you not seen, Camillo—but that’s past doubt; you have, or your eyeglass is thicker than a cuckolds horn—or heard— For a vision so apparent, rumor cannot be mute – or thought – for cogitation Resides not in that man that does not think – my wife is slippery if thou wilt confess— Or else be impudently negative to have nor eyes nor ears nor thought – then say my wife’s A hobby horse. Say’t, and justify’t.

CAMILLO: I would not be a stander-by To hear my sovereign mistress clouded so without my present vengeance taken. ‘Shrew my heart, you never spoke what did become you less than this, which to reiterate were sin as deep as that, though true.

LEONTES: is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is Meeting noses? Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career of laughter with a sigh? Housing foot on foot? Sulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift? Hours minutes? Noon midnights? And all eyes blind with the pin and Web, but theirs, theirs only, that would be unseen, be wicked? Is this nothing? Why then the world and all that’s in’t would be nothing, The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia. Nothing, my wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings If this be nothing.

CAMILLO: Good my lord, be cured of this diseased opinion, and bedtimes, for ‘tis most dangerous.

LEONTES: Say it be, ‘tis true.

CAMILLO: No, no my lord.

LEONTES: it is. You lie, you lie. I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee, were my wife’s liver infected as her life, she would not live the running of one glass.

CAMILLO: who does infect her?

LEONTES: Why he that wears her like her medal, hanging about his neck – Bohemia. At and thou his cupbearer—mightst bespice a cup to give To give Mine enemy, a lasting wink, which draft to me were cordial.

CAMILLO: Sir, my lord, I could do this, and that with no rash potion, but with a ling’ring dram That should not work maliciously like poison. But I cannot believe this crack to be in my dead mistress, so sovereignly being honorable. I have loved thee—

LEONTES: make that thy Question, and go rot! Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled, to appoint myself in this vexation, sully The purity and whiteness of my sheets—give scandal to the blood o’ th’ 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?

CAMILLO: I must believe you, sir. I do, and will fetch off Bohemia for’t— Provided that, when he’s removed, your highness will take again your queen as yours at first, even for your son’s sake.

LEONTES: Thou dost advise me Even so as I mine own course have set down. I’ll give no blemish to her honor, none.

CAMILLO: 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.

LEONTES: This is all. Do’t and thou hast the one half of my heart; Do’t not, thou spiltt’st thine own.

CAMILLO: I’ll do’t, my lord.

LEONTES: I will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me. (He exits)

(Scene 2.3) CAMILLO: O miserable lady! But, for me, what case stand I in? I must be the prisoner 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 flourished after, I’d not do’t. I must forsake the court. To do’t or no is certain to me a breakneck. Happy star reign now! Here comes Bohemia.

(Enter Polixenes) POLIXENES: This is strange. Methinks my favor here begins to warp. Not speak?—Good day Camillo.

CAMILLO: Hail, most royal sir.

POLIXENES: What is the news I’ th’ court?

CAMILLO: None rare, my lord.

POLIXENES: The kind hath on him such A Countenance as he had lost some province and a region loved as he loves himself. Even now I met him with customary compliment, When he, wafting his eyes to th’ Contrary and failing a lip of a much contempt, speeds from me, and so leaves me to consider what is breeding that changes thus His manners.

CAMILLO: I dare not know, my lord.

POLIXENES: How, dare not? Do not? Do you know and dare not? Be intelligent to me. Good Camillo, You changed complexions are to me a mirror which shows me mine changed too.

CAMILLO: There is a sickness which puts some of us in distemper, but I cannot name the disease, and it is caught Of you that yet are well.

POLIXENES: How caught of me? I have looked on thousands who have sped the better By my regard, but killed none so. Camilo, as you are certainly a gentleman, I beseech you, if you know aught Which does behoove My knowledge thereof To be informed, imprison’t not in ignorant concealment.

CAMILLO: I may not answer.

POLIXENES: I must be answered. Dost thou hear, Camillo? I conjure thee by all the parts of man which honor does acknowledge, whereof The least 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.

CAMILLO: Sir, I will tell you, Since I am charged in honor and by him that I think honorable.

POLOXENES: On, good Camillo.

CAMILLO: I am appointed him to murder you.

POLIXENES: By whom, Camillo?

CAMILLO: By the king

POLIXENES: for what?

CAMILLO: he thinks, nay with all confidence he swears, as he had seen’t or been an instrument to vice you to’t , that you have touched his Queen Forbiddenly.

POLIXENES: O, then my best blood turn to an infected jelly, and my name be yoked with his that did betray the best!

CAMILLO: swear his thought over by each particular star in heaven, and by all their influences, you may as well forbid the sea to Obey the moon as or by oath remove or counsel shake the fabric of his folly, whose foundation is piled upon his faith.

POLIXENES: How should this grow?

CAMILLO: I know not. But I am sure ‘tis safer to avoid what’s grown then question how ‘tis Born. If therefore you dare trust my honesty, away tonight! Your followers, I will whisper to the business, and will by two and threes at several posterns clear them o’ th’ city. For myself, I’ll put my fortunes to your service, which are here by this discovery lost. Be not uncertain, four, by the honor of my parents, I have uttered truth – which if you seek to prove, I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer than one commended by the king’s own mouth, thereon his execution sworn.

(Act 4, scene 2) POLIXENES: I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate. ‘Tis A sickness denying thee anything, a death to grant this.

CAMILLO: it is 15 years since I saw my country. Though I have for the most part been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, The penitent King, my master, hath Sent for me, whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay.

POLIXENES: as thou lov’st me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy Services by leaving me now. The need I have of thee thine own goodness hath made. Better not to have had thee than thus to want thee. Of that fatal country Sicilia, prithee speak no more, whose very naming punishes me with the rememberance of that penitent and reconciled king my brother, whose loss of his most precious queen and children are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when sawst thou the prince Florizell, my son?

CAMILLO: Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What his happier affairs may be are to me unknown, but I have missingly noted he is of late much retired from court and is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.

POLIXENES: I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care so far that I have eyes under my service which look upon his removedness, from whom I have this intelligence: that he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd, a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbors, is grown into an unspeakable estate.

CAMILLO: I have heard, sir, of such a man, whose hath A daughter of most rare note. The report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage.

POLIXENES: that’s likewise part of my intelligence, but I fear, the angle that pluck our son thither. Thou shalt Accompany us to the place, where we will, not appearing what we are, have some question with the Shepherd, from who’s simplicity I think it’s not an easy to get the cause of my son’s resort thither. Prithee Be my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

CAMILLO: I willingly obey your command.

(Scene 4.2 in disguise) PERDITA: These are flowers of middle summer, and I think they are given to men of middle age. You’re very welcome.

CAMMILO: I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, and only live by gazing.

(Scene 4.5) PERDITA: Even here undone. I was about to speak and tell him plainly the self same sun That shines upon his court hides not his visage from our cottage, but Looks on alike. (To florizell) Will’t please you, sir, be gone? I told you what would come of this. This Dream of mine – being now awake, I’ll Queen it no inch further, But milk my ewes and weep.

CAMILLO: (to Shepard) Why, how now, father? Speak ere thou diest.

FLORIZELL: (to Perdita) Why look you so upon me? I am but sorry, not afeard; delayed, but nothing altered. What I was, I am.

CAMILLO: gracious my Lord, you know your father’s temper. At this time, he will allow no speech; and as hardly will he endure Your sight As yet, I fear. Come not before him.

FLORIZELL: I not purpose it. I think Camillo?

CAMILLO: (removing his disguise) Even he, my lord.

FLORIZELL: it cannot fail, but by the violation of my faith; and then let nature crush the sides ‘o th’ Earth together and mar the seeds within. Lift up thy looks. From my succession wipe me, Father. I am heir to my affection.

CAMILLO: be advised.

FLORIZELL: I am and by my fancy, if my reason will thereto Be obedient, I have reason. If not, my senses, better pleased with madness, do bid it welcome.

CAMILLO: This is desperate, sir.

FLORIZELL: so call it, but it does fulfill my vow. I needs must think it honesty. Camillo, not for Bohemia nor the pomp That may be thereat gleaned, Will I break my oath To this my fair beloved. Therefore, I pray you, as you have ever been my father‘s honored friend, when he shall miss me, as in faith, I mean not to see him anymore, cast your good councils upon his passion. This you may know, and so deliver: I am put to sea With her who here I cannot hold on shore. And most opportune to our need I have a vessel rides fast by.

CAMILLO: O my lord, I would your spirit were easier for advice Or stronger for your need.

FLORIZELL: Hark Perdita.— I’ll hear you by and by.

CAMILLO: he’s irremovable, resolved for flight. Now were I happy if his going I could frame to serve my turn, save him from danger, do him love and honor, purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia and that unhappy king, my master, whom I so much thirst to see.

FLORIZELL: Now, good Camillo, I am so fraught with curious business that I leave out ceremony.

CAMILLO: Sir, I think you have heard of my poor services I’ th’ love that I have borne Your father? Well, my lord, if you May please to think that I love the king and, Through him, what’s nearest to him, Which is your gracious self, embrace but my direction. On mine honor, I’ll point you where you shall have such Receiving as shall become your highness, where you may enjoy your mistress, marry her, and with my best Endeavors in your absence, your discontenting father strife to qualify and bring him up to liking.

FLORIZELL: How, Camillo, may this, almost a miracle, be done?

CAMILLO: have you thought on a place whereto you’ll go?

FLORIZELL: Not any yet.

CAMILLO: Then list to me. This follows: if you will not change your purpose, but undergo this flight, make for Sicilia, and their present yourself And your fair Princess, for so I see she must be, ‘fore Leontes. Methinks I see Leontes opening his free arms and weeping his welcome forth, asks thee, the son, forgiveness, as ‘twere I’ th’ father’s person.

FLORIZELL: Worthy Camillo, what color for my visitation shall I hold up before him?

CAMILLO: sent by the king your father to greet him and to give him comforts. I’ll write you down, the which shall point you forth at every sitting what you must say, that he shall not perceive, but that you have your father‘s bosom there and speak his very heart.

FLORIZELL: I am bound to you. There is some sap in this.

CAMILLO: Yes, say you so? There shall not at your father’s house these seven years be born another such.

FLORIZELL: My prettiest Perdita. But O, The thorns we Stand upon! —Camillo, Preserver of my father, now of me, the medicine of our house, how shall we do? We are not furnished like Bohemias son, nor shall appear in Sicilia.

CAMILLO: my Lord, fear none of this. I think you know my fortunes do all lie there. it shall be so my care To have you royally appointed as if the scene you play were mine. For instance, sir, that you may know you shall not want, one word.

AUTOLYCUS: ha ha, what a fool honesty is! And trust, his sworn, brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my Trumpery. Not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, Glass, pomander, Brooch, table book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe tie, bracelet, horn ring, to keep my pack from fasting. In this time of lethargy I picked and cut most of There Festival Purses. And had not the old man come in with a hubbub against his daughter and the king’s son, and scared my choughs From the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army.

CAMILLO: (to Florizell) Nay, but my letters, by this means being there So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.

FLORIZELL: And those that you’ll procure from the king Leontes—

CAMILLO: Shall satisfy your father.

PERDITA: Happy be you! All that you speak shows fair.

CAMILLO: (noticing Autolycus) Who have we here? We’ll make an instrument of this, omit nothing may give us aid.

AUTOLYCUS: If they have overheard me now, why, hanging.

CAMILLO: How now, good fellow? Why shak’st thou so? Fear not, man. Here’s no harm intended to thee.

AUTOLYCUS: I am a poor fellow, sir.

CAMILLO: Why, be so still. Here’s nobody Will steal that from thee. Yet for the outside of thy Poverty, we must make an exchange. Therefore discase thee instantly— thou must think there’s a necessity in ‘t—and change garments with this gentleman.

AUTOLYCUS: I am a poor fellow, sir.

CAMILLO: Nay, prithee, dispatch. The gentleman is half flayed already.

FLORIZELL: Dispatch, I prithee.

CAMILLO: unbuckle, unbuckle. Fortunate mistress – you must retire yourself into some covert. Take your sweetheart’s hat and pluck it o’er your brows, muffle your face, dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken the truth of your own seeming, that you may—for I do fear eyes over—to shipboard Get undescried.

PERDITA: I see the play so lies that I must bear a part.

CAMILLO: No remedy.—have you done there?

FLORIZELL: should I now meet my father, he would not call me son.

CAMILLO: Nay, you shall have no hat. Come, lady, come.—farewell, my friend.

FLORIZELL: O perdita, what have we Twain forgot? Pray you, a word.

CAMILLO: (aside) What I do next shall be to tell the king of this escape, and wither they are bound; wherein My hope is, I shall so prevail to force him after, in whose company I shall re-view Sicilia, for whose sight I have a woman’s longing.

FLORIZELL: Fortune speed us!—thus we set on, Camillo, to th’ seaside.

CAMILLO: The swifter speed the better.

(Scene 3) PAULINA: O, patience! The statue is but newly fixed; the color’s not dry.

CAMILLO: (to LEONTES): My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on, which sixteen winters cannot blow away, so many summers dry.

POLIXENES: She embraces him.

CAMILLO: she hangs about his neck. If she pertain to life, let her speak too.