1    Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd
2    A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make,
3    Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down
4    More penitence than done trespass: at the last,
5    Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil;
6    With them forgive yourself.

7    Whilst I remember
8    Her and her virtues, I cannot forget
9    My blemishes in them, and so still think of
10   The wrong I did myself; which was so much,
11   That heirless it hath made my kingdom and
12   Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man
13   Bred his hopes out of.

14   True, too true, my lord:
15   If, one by one, you wedded all the world,
16   Or from the all that are took something good,
17   To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd
18   Would be unparallel'd.

19   I think so. Kill'd!
20   She I kill'd! I did so: but thou strikest me
21   Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter
22   Upon thy tongue as in my thought: now, good now,
23   Say so but seldom.

24   Not at all, good lady:
25   You might have spoken a thousand things that would
26   Have done the time more benefit and graced
27   Your kindness better.

28   You are one of those
29   Would have him wed again.

30   If you would not so,
31   You pity not the state, nor the remembrance
32   Of his most sovereign name; consider little
33   What dangers, by his highness' fail of issue,
34   May drop upon his kingdom and devour
35   Incertain lookers on. What were more holy
36   Than to rejoice the former queen is well?
37   What holier than, for royalty's repair,
38   For present comfort and for future good,
39   To bless the bed of majesty again
40   With a sweet fellow to't?

41   There is none worthy,
42   Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods
43   Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes;
44   For has not the divine Apollo said,
45   Is't not the tenor of his oracle,
46   That King Leontes shall not have an heir
47   Till his lost child be found? which that it shall,
48   Is all as monstrous to our human reason
49   As my Antigonus to break his grave
50   And come again to me; who, on my life,
51   Did perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel
52   My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
53   Oppose against their wills.
To LEONTES
54   Care not for issue;
55   The crown will find an heir: great Alexander
56   Left his to the worthiest; so his successor
57   Was like to be the best.

58   Good Paulina,
59   Who hast the memory of Hermione,
60   I know, in honour, O, that ever I
61   Had squared me to thy counsel! then, even now,
62   I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes,
63   Have taken treasure from her lips--

64   And left them
65   More rich for what they yielded.

66   Thou speak'st truth.
67   No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse,
68   And better used, would make her sainted spirit
69   Again possess her corpse, and on this stage,
70   Where we're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd,
71   And begin, 'Why to me?'

72   Had she such power,
73   She had just cause.

74   She had; and would incense me
75   To murder her I married.

76   I should so.
77   Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark
78   Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't
79   You chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your ears
80   Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd
81   Should be 'Remember mine.'

82   Stars, stars,
83   And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;
84   I'll have no wife, Paulina.

85   Will you swear
86   Never to marry but by my free leave?

87   Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!

88   Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.

89   You tempt him over-much.

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

93   Good madam,--

94   I have done.
95   Yet, if my lord will marry,--if you will, sir,
96   No remedy, but you will,--give me the office
97   To choose you a queen: she shall not be so young
98   As was your former; but she shall be such
99   As, walk'd your first queen's ghost,
100  it should take joy
101  To see her in your arms.

102  My true Paulina,
103  We shall not marry till thou bid'st us.

104  That
105  Shall be when your first queen's again in breath;
106  Never till then.

107  One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,
108  Son of Polixenes, with his princess, she
109  The fairest I have yet beheld, desires access
110  To your high presence.

111  What with him? he comes not
112  Like to his father's greatness: his approach,
113  So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us
114  'Tis not a visitation framed, but forced
115  By need and accident. What train?

116  But few,
117  And those but mean.

118  His princess, say you, with him?

119  Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,
120  That e'er the sun shone bright on.

121  O Hermione,
122  As every present time doth boast itself
123  Above a better gone, so must thy grave
124  Give way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself
125  Have said and writ so, but your writing now
126  Is colder than that theme, 'She had not been,
127  Nor was not to be equall'd;'--thus your verse
128  Flow'd with her beauty once: 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,
129  To say you have seen a better.

130  Pardon, madam:
131  The one I have almost forgot,--your pardon,--
132  The other, when she has obtain'd your eye,
133  Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,
134  Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
135  Of all professors else, make proselytes
136  Of who she but bid follow.

137  How! not women?

138  Women will love her, that she is a woman
139  More worth than any man; men, that she is
140  The rarest of all women.

141  Go, Cleomenes;
142  Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,
143  Bring them to our embracement. Still, 'tis strange
Exeunt CLEOMENES and others
144  He thus should steal upon us.

145  Had our prince,
146  Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd
147  Well with this lord: there was not full a month
148  Between their births.

149  Prithee, no more; cease; thou know'st
150  He dies to me again when talk'd of: sure,
151  When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
152  Will bring me to consider that which may
153  Unfurnish me of reason. They are come.
Re-enter CLEOMENES and others, with FLORIZEL and PERDITA
154  Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince;
155  For she did print your royal father off,
156  Conceiving you: were I but twenty-one,
157  Your father's image is so hit in you,
158  His very air, that I should call you brother,
159  As I did him, and speak of something wildly
160  By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!
161  And your fair princess,--goddess!--O, alas!
162  I lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth
163  Might thus have stood begetting wonder as
164  You, gracious couple, do: and then I lost--
165  All mine own folly--the society,
166  Amity too, of your brave father, whom,
167  Though bearing misery, I desire my life
168  Once more to look on him.

169  By his command
170  Have I here touch'd Sicilia and from him
171  Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,
172  Can send his brother: and, but infirmity
173  Which waits upon worn times hath something seized
174  His wish'd ability, he had himself
175  The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
176  Measured to look upon you; whom he loves--
177  He bade me say so--more than all the sceptres
178  And those that bear them living.

179  O my brother,
180  Good gentleman! the wrongs I have done thee stir
181  Afresh within me, and these thy offices,
182  So rarely kind, are as interpreters
183  Of my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither,
184  As is the spring to the earth. And hath he too
185  Exposed this paragon to the fearful usage,
186  At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,
187  To greet a man not worth her pains, much less
188  The adventure of her person?

189  Good my lord,
190  She came from Libya.

191  Where the warlike Smalus,
192  That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and loved?

193  Most royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter
194  His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence,
195  A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,
196  To execute the charge my father gave me
197  For visiting your highness: my best train
198  I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;
199  Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
200  Not only my success in Libya, sir,
201  But my arrival and my wife's in safety
202  Here where we are.

203  The blessed gods
204  Purge all infection from our air whilst you
205  Do climate here! You have a holy father,
206  A graceful gentleman; against whose person,
207  So sacred as it is, I have done sin:
208  For which the heavens, taking angry note,
209  Have left me issueless; and your father's blest,
210  As he from heaven merits it, with you
211  Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,
212  Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on,
213  Such goodly things as you!

214  Most noble sir,
215  That which I shall report will bear no credit,
216  Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,
217  Bohemia greets you from himself by me;
218  Desires you to attach his son, who has--
219  His dignity and duty both cast off--
220  Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with
221  A shepherd's daughter.

222  Where's Bohemia? speak.

223  Here in your city; I now came from him:
224  I speak amazedly; and it becomes
225  My marvel and my message. To your court
226  Whiles he was hastening, in the chase, it seems,
227  Of this fair couple, meets he on the way
228  The father of this seeming lady and
229  Her brother, having both their country quitted
230  With this young prince.

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

234  Lay't so to his charge:
235  He's with the king your father.

236  Who? Camillo?

237  Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now
238  Has these poor men in question. Never saw I
239  Wretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth;
240  Forswear themselves as often as they speak:
241  Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them
242  With divers deaths in death.

243  O my poor father!
244  The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have
245  Our contract celebrated.

246  You are married?

247  We are not, sir, nor are we like to be;
248  The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first:
249  The odds for high and low's alike.

250  My lord,
251  Is this the daughter of a king?

252  She is,
253  When once she is my wife.

254  That 'once' I see by your good father's speed
255  Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,
256  Most sorry, you have broken from his liking
257  Where you were tied in duty, and as sorry
258  Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,
259  That you might well enjoy her.

260  Dear, look up:
261  Though Fortune, visible an enemy,
262  Should chase us with my father, power no jot
263  Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,
264  Remember since you owed no more to time
265  Than I do now: with thought of such affections,
266  Step forth mine advocate; at your request
267  My father will grant precious things as trifles.

268  Would he do so, I'ld beg your precious mistress,
269  Which he counts but a trifle.

270  Sir, my liege,
271  Your eye hath too much youth in't: not a month
272  'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes
273  Than what you look on now.

274  I thought of her,
275  Even in these looks I made.
To FLORIZEL
276  But your petition
277  Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father:
278  Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires,
279  I am friend to them and you: upon which errand
280  I now go toward him; therefore follow me
281  And mark what way I make: come, good my lord.