Oppose against their wills.-Care not for issue;

[To LEONTES.

The crown will find an heir: Great Alexander
Left his to the worthiest; so his successor

Was like to be the best.

Leon. Good Paulina,

Who hast the memory of Hermione,

I know, in honour,-O, that ever I

Had squar'd me to thy counsel!-then, even now,
I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes;
Have taken treasure from her lips,-

Paul. And left them

More rich, for what they yielded.

Leon. Thou speak'st truth.

No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse,

And better us'd, would make her sainted spirit
Again possess her corps; and, on this stage,
(Where we offenders now appear,) soul-vex'd,
Begin, And why to me?

Paul. Had she such power,

She had just cause.

Leon. She had; and would incense me

To murder her I married.

Paul. I should so:

Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid

you mark

Her eye; and tell me, for what dull part in't

You chose her: then I'd shriek, that even your ears Shou'd rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd Should be, Remember mine.

Leon. Stars, very stars,

And all eyes else dead coals!-fear thou no wife,
I'll have no wife, Paulina.

Paul. Will you swear

Never to marry, but by my free leave?

Leon. Never, Paulina; so be bless'd my spirit!

Paul. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath. Cleo. You tempt him over-much.

Paul. Unless another,

As like Hermione as is her picture,

Affront his eye.

Cleo. Good madam,

Paul. 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.

Leon. My true Paulina,

We shall not marry, till thou bidd'st us.

Paul. That

Shall be, when your first queen's again in breath;
Never till then.

Enter a Gentleman.

Gent. 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.

Leon. 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 fram'd, but forc'd
By need, and accident. What train?

Gent. But few,

And those but mean.

Leon. His princess, say you, with him?

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

Paul. 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,
say, you have seen a better.

Το

Gent. 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 such a creature,
Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
Of all professors else; make proselytes

Of who she but bid follow.

Paul. How? not women?

Gent. Women will love her, that she is a woman More worth than any man; men, that she is

The rarest of all women.

Leon. Go, Cleomenes;

Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,

Bring them to our embracement.-Still 'tis strange, [Exeunt CLEOMENES, Lords, and Gentleman.

He thus should steal upon us.

Paul. 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.

Leon. Pr'ythee, no more; 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, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and
Attendants.

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 upon.

Flo. 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 seiz'd His wish'd ability, he had himself

The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his

Measur'd, to look upon you; whom he loves

(He bade me say so,) more than all the sceptres, And those that bear them, living.

Leon. 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
Expos'd 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?

Flo. Good my lord,

She came from Libya.

Leon. Where the warlike Smalus,

That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd, and lov'd?

Flo. 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.

Leon. 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,