a

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?

PAUL.

There is none worthy, Besides, the gods Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes; For has not the divine Apollo said,

Respecting her that's gone.

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.-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.

Theobald reads,

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

That

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

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.

And those but mean. LEON.

But few,

His princess, say you, with him? GENT. Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,

That c'er the sun shone bright on.

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

(Where we offend her now) appear," &c.

She had just cause.] The first and second folios have,-"She had just such cause."

d PAUL. I have done.] In the old editions, the words, "I have done," form part of the preceding speech; they were properly assigned by Capell.

so must thy grave

Give way to what's seen now.]

"Grave" has been changed by some editors to grace, by other to graces; to the destruction of a very fine idea.

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.
FLO.

By his command

a that a king, at friend,-] This has been variously and needlessly altered; the most recent change is," a king as friend; buta king at friend" means a king on terms of friendship, and is as much the phraseology of Shakespeare's age as "to friend,"—

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. She came from Libya. LEON.

Good my lord,

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,
So sacred as it is, I have done sin,

For which the heavens, taking angry note,
Have left me issueless; and your father's bless'd
(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!

AUT. Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?

GENT. I was by at the opening of the fardel; heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it whereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber; only this, methought I heard the shepherd say he found the child.

AUT. I would most gladly know the issue of it. GENT. I make a broken delivery of the business;-but the changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were very notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture; they looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not say if the importance were joy or sorrow, but in the extremity of the one it must needs be.-Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more:

Enter Paulina's Steward.

How goes it now, sir? this news, which is called true, is so like an old tale, that the verity of it is in strong suspicion: has the king found his heir?

STEW. Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance: that which you hear you'll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of queen Hermione's;-her jewel about the neck of it; the letters of Antigonus, found with it, which they know to be his character;-the majesty of the creature, in resemblance of the mother; the affection of nobleness, which nature shows above her breeding;-and many other evidences, proclaim her with all certainty to be the king's daughter. Did you see the meeting of the two kings?

ROG. No.

STEW. Then have you lost a sight, which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in such

manner, that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenance of such distraction, that they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries, O, thy mother, thy mother! then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces his son-inclippinga her; now he thanks the old shepherd, law; then again worries he his daughter with which stands by like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings' reigns. I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it, and undoes description to do it.

ROG. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child?

STEW. Like an old tale still, which will have matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep, and not an ear open. He was torn to pieces with a bear : this arouches the shepherd's son; who has not only his innocence (which seems much) to justify him, but a handkerchief and rings of his, that Paulina knows.

GENT. What became of his bark and his followers?

STEW. Wrecked the same instant of their

"O! let me clip ye

In arms as sound as when I woo'd."

so that all the instruments which aided to expose the child, were even then lost when it was found. But, O, the noble combat that, 'twixt joy and sorrow, was fought in Paulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled: she lifted the princess from the earth; and so locks her in embracing, as if she would pin her to her heart, that she might no more be in danger of losing.

GENT. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted.

STEW. One of the prettiest touches of all, and that which angled for mine eyes, (caught the water, though not the fish) was, when at the relation of the queen's death, with the manner how she came to 't, (bravely confessed and lamented by the king) how attentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of dolour to another, she did, with an Alas! I would fain say, bleed tears,-for I am sure my heart wept blood. Who was most marble there changed colour; some swooned, all sorrowed if all the world could have seen 't, the woe had been universal.

GENT. Are they returned to the court?

STEW. No: the princess hearing of her mother's statue, which is in the keeping of Paulina, -a piece many years in doing, and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano, who, had he himself eternity, and could put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione, that they say one would speak to her, and stand in hope of answer :-thither, with all greediness of affection, are they gone; and there they intend to sup.

ROG. I thought she had some great matter there in hand; for she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever since the death of Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall we thither, and with our company piece the rejoicing?

GENT. Who would be thence that has the benefit of access? every wink of an eye, some new grace will be born: our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along.

[Exeunt.

AUT. Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man and his son aboard the prince; told him I heard them talk of a fardel, and I know not what; but he at that time, over-fond of the shepherd's daughter, (so he then took her to be) who began to be much sea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of weather continuing, this mystery remained undiscovered. But 't is all one to me; for had I been the finder-out of this secret, it would not have relished among my other dis

against my will, and already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.

Enter Shepherd and Clown.

SHEP. Come, boy; I am past more children, but thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born.

CLO. You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me this other day, because I was no gentleman born. See you these clothes? say, you see them not, and think me still no gentleman born: you were best say these robes are not gentlemen born. Give me the lie, do; and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.

AUT. I know you are now, sir, a gentleman

born.

CLO. Ay, and have been so any time these four hours.

SHEP. And so have I, boy.

CLO. So you have:-but I was a gentleman born before my father; for the king's son took me by the hand, and called me brother; and then the two kings called my father brother; and then the prince my brother, and the princess my sister, called my father father; and so we wept,-and there was the first gentleman-like tears that ever we shed.

SHEP. We may live, son, to shed many more. CLO. Ay; or else 't were hard luck, being in so preposterous estate as we are.

AUT. I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I have committed to your worship, and to give me your good report to the prince my

master.

SHEP. Pr'ythee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are gentlemen.

CLO. Thou wilt amend thy life?

AUT. Ay, an it like your good worship.

CLO. Give me thy hand: I will swear to the prince thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.

SHEP. You may say it, but not swear it. CLO. Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins say it, I'll swear it. SHEP. How if it be false, son?

CLO. If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it in the behalf of his friend :—and I'll swear to the prince, thou art a tall fellow of thy hands," and that thou wilt not be drunk ; but I know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands, and that thou wilt be drunk; but I'll swear it; and I would thou wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands.

a a tall fellow of thy hands,-] See note (a), p. 237, Vol. II.