The Winter's Tale

  AUTOLYCUS. Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn    brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all mytrumpery;    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. They throng whoshould    buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed and brought a    benediction to the buyer; by which means I saw whose pursewas    best in picture; and what I saw, to my good use I rememb'red.My    clown, who wants but something to be a reasonable man, grewso in    love with the wenches' song that he would not stir hispettitoes    till he had both tune and words, which so drew the rest ofthe    herd to me that all their other senses stuck in ears. Youmight    have pinch'd a placket, it was senseless; 'twas nothing togeld a    codpiece of a purse; I would have fil'd keys off that hung in    chains. No hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, andadmiring    the nothing of it. So that in this time of lethargy I pick'dand    cut most of their festival purses; and had not the old mancome    in with whoobub against his daughter and the King's son and    scar'd my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a pursealive in    the whole army.

CAMILLO, FLORIZEL, and PERDITA come forward

  CAMILLO. Nay, but my letters, by this means being there    So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.  FLORIZEL. And those that you'll procure from King Leontes?  CAMILLO. Shall satisfy your father.  PERDITA. Happy be you!    All that you speak shows fair.  CAMILLO. [seeing AUTOLYCUS] Who have we here?    We'll make an instrument of this; omit    Nothing may give us aid.  AUTOLYCUS. [Aside] 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 fromthee.    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.Though    the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee,there's    some boot. [Giving money]  AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir. [Aside] I know ye well    enough.  CAMILLO. Nay, prithee dispatch. The gentleman is half flay'd    already.  AUTOLYCUS. Are you in camest, sir? [Aside] I smell the trick    on't.  FLORIZEL. Dispatch, I prithee.  AUTOLYCUS. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot withconscience    take it.  CAMILLO. Unbuckle, unbuckle.

FLORIZEL and AUTOLYCUS exchange garments

    Fortunate mistress- let my prophecy    Come home to ye! – 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?  FLORIZEL. Should I now meet my father,    He would not call me son.  CAMILLO. Nay, you shall have no hat.                                          [Giving it to PERDITA]    Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.  AUTOLYCUS. Adieu, sir.  FLORIZEL. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!    Pray you a word. [They converse apart]  CAMILLO. [Aside] What I do next shall be to tell the King    Of this escape, and whither 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.  FLORIZEL. Fortune speed us!    Thus we set on, Camillo, to th' sea-side.  CAMILLO. The swifter speed the better.                           Exeunt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO  AUTOLYCUS. I understand the business, I hear it. To have anopen    ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a    cut-purse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out workfor    th' other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust mandoth    thrive. What an exchange had this been without boot! What aboot    is here with this exchange! Sure, the gods do this yearconnive    at us, and we may do anything extempore. The Prince himselfis    about a piece of iniquity- stealing away from his father withhis    clog at his heels. If I thought it were a piece of honesty to    acquaint the King withal, I would not do't. I hold it themore    knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my    profession.

Re-enter CLOWN and SHEPHERD

Aside, aside- here is more matter for a hot brain. Every lane's end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man work. CLOWN. See, see; what a man you are now! There is no other way but to tell the King she's a changeling and none of your flesh and blood. SHEPHERD. Nay, but hear me. CLOWN. Nay- but hear me. SHEPHERD. Go to, then. CLOWN. She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the King; and so your flesh and blood is not to be punish'd by him. Show those things you found about her, those secret things- all but what she has with her. This being done, let the law go whistle; I warrant you. SHEPHERD. I will tell the King all, every word- yea, and his son's pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man, neither to his father nor to me, to go about to make me the King's brother-in-law. CLOWN. Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer by I know how much an ounce. AUTOLYCUS. [Aside] Very wisely, puppies! SHEPHERD. Well, let us to the King. There is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard. AUTOLYCUS. [Aside] I know not what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master. CLOWN. Pray heartily he be at palace. AUTOLYCUS. [Aside] Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance. Let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement. [Takes off his false beard] How now, rustics! Whither are you bound? SHEPHERD. To th' palace, an it like your worship. AUTOLYCUS. Your affairs there, what, with whom, the condition of that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages, of what having, breeding, and anything that is fitting to be known- discover. CLOWN. We are but plain fellows, sir. AUTOLYCUS. A lie: you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie; but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel; therefore they do not give us the lie. CLOWN. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the manner. SHEPHERD. Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir? AUTOLYCUS. Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings? Hath not my gait in it the measure of the court? Receives not thy nose court-odour from me? Reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Think'st thou, for that I insinuate, that toaze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-a-pe, and one that will either push on or pluck back thy business there; whereupon I command the to open thy affair. SHEPHERD. My business, sir, is to the King. AUTOLYCUS. What advocate hast thou to him? SHEPHERD. I know not, an't like you. CLOWN. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say you have none. SHEPHERD. None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen. AUTOLYCUS. How blessed are we that are not simple men! Yet nature might have made me as these are, Therefore I will not disdain. CLOWN. This cannot be but a great courtier. SHEPHERD. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely. CLOWN. He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical. A great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking on's teeth. AUTOLYCUS. The fardel there? What's i' th' fardel? Wherefore that box? SHEPHERD. Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box which none must know but the King; and which he shall know within this hour, if I may come to th' speech of him. AUTOLYCUS. Age, thou hast lost thy labour. SHEPHERD. Why, Sir? AUTOLYCUS. The King is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy and air himself; for, if thou be'st capable of things serious, thou must know the King is full of grief. SHEPHERD. So 'tis said, sir- about his son, that should have married a shepherd's daughter. AUTOLYCUS. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly; the curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster. CLOWN. Think you so, sir? AUTOLYCUS. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though remov'd fifty times, shall all come under the hangman- which, though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace! Some say he shall be ston'd; but that death is too soft for him, say I. Draw our throne into a sheep-cote! – all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy. CLOWN. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an't like you, sir? AUTOLYCUS. He has a son- who shall be flay'd alive; then 'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest; then stand till he be three quarters and a dram dead; then recover'd again with aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set against a brick wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he is to behold him with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smil'd at, their offences being so capital? Tell me, for you seem to be honest plain men, what you have to the King. Being something gently consider'd, I'll bring you where he is aboard, tender your persons to his presence, whisper him in your behalfs; and if it be in man besides the King to effect your suits, here is man shall do it. CLOWN. He seems to be of great authority. Close with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold. Show the inside of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado. Remember- ston'd and flay'd alive. SHEPHERD. An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for us, here is that gold I have. I'll make it as much more, and leave this young man in pawn till I bring it you. AUTOLYCUS. After I have done what I promised? SHEPHERD. Ay, sir. AUTOLYCUS. Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this business? CLOWN. In some sort, sir; but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flay'd out of it. AUTOLYCUS. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son! Hang him, he'll be made an example. CLOWN. Comfort, good comfort! We must to the King and show our strange sights. He must know 'tis none of your daughter nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does, when the business is performed; and remain, as he says, your pawn till it be brought you. AUTOLYCUS. I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on the right-hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you. CLOWN. We are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest. SHEPHERD. Let's before, as he bids us. He was provided to do us good. Exeunt SHEPHERD and CLOWN AUTOLYCUS. If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would not suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occasion- gold, and a means to do the Prince my master good; which who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him. If he think it fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they have to the King concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far officious; for I am proof against that title, and what shame else belongs to't. To him will I present them. There may be matter in it. Exit

ACT V. SCENE I. Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES

Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and OTHERS

  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 strik'st 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 grac'd    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 tenour 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 forissue;    The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander    Left his to th' 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 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-  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 us'd, would make her sainted spirit    Again possess her corpse, and on this stage,    Where we offend her 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'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    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 fram'd, but forc'd    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. Exeunt    Still, 'tis strange    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.Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and ATTENDANTS    They are come.    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 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.  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 th' earth. And hath he too    Expos'd this paragon to th' fearful usage,    At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,    To greet a man not worth her pains, much less    Th' 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 lov'd?  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 hast'ning- 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    Endur'd 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, pow'r no jot    Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,    Remember since you ow'd 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'd 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

SCENE II. Sicilia. Before the palace of LEONTES

Enter AUTOLYCUS and a GENTLEMAN

  AUTOLYCUS. Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I was by at the opening of the fardel, heardthe    old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it; whereupon,after    a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of thechamber;    only this, methought I heard the shepherd say he found thechild.  AUTOLYCUS. I would most gladly know the issue of it.  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I make a broken delivery of the business; butthe    changes I perceived in the King and Camillo were very notesof    admiration. They seem'd almost, with staring on one another,to    tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in theirdumbness,    language in their very gesture; they look'd as they had heardof    a world ransom'd, or one destroyed. A notable passion ofwonder    appeared in them; but the wisest beholder that knew no morebut    seeing could not say if th' importance were joy or sorrow-but in    the extremity of the one it must needs be.

Enter another GENTLEMAN

    Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more. The news,Rogero?  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Nothing but bonfires. The oracle isfulfill'd:    the King's daughter is found. Such a deal of wonder is brokenout    within this hour that ballad-makers cannot be able to expressit.Enter another GENTLEMAN    Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward; he can deliver youmore.    How goes it now, sir? This news, which is call'd true, is solike    an old tale that the verity of it is in strong suspicion. Hasthe    King found his heir?  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by    circumstance. That which you hear you'll swear you see, thereis    such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione's; her    jewel about the neck of it; the letters of Antigonus foundwith    it, which they know to be his character; the majesty of the    creature in resemblance of the mother; the affection ofnobleness    which nature shows above her breeding; and many otherevidences-    proclaim her with all certainty to be the King's daughter.Did    you see the meeting of the two kings?  SECOND GENTLEMAN. No.  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Then you have lost a sight which was to beseen,    cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joycrown    another, so and in such manner that it seem'd sorrow wept totake    leave of them; for their joy waded in tears. There wascasting up    of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenance of such    distraction that they were to be known by garment, not byfavour.    Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of hisfound    daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries 'O,thy    mother, thy mother!' then asks Bohemia forgiveness; thenembraces    his son-in-law; then again worries he his daughter withclipping    her. Now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by like a    weather-bitten conduit of many kings' reigns. I never heardof    such another encounter, which lames report to follow it and    undoes description to do it.  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, thatcarried    hence the child?  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Like an old tale still, which will have matterto    rehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear open: he was

torn to pieces with a bear. This avouches 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. FIRST GENTLEMAN. What became of his bark and his followers? THIRD GENTLEMAN. Wreck'd the same instant of their master's death, and in the view of the shepherd; 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 declin'd for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfill'd. 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. FIRST GENTLEMAN. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted. THIRD GENTLEMAN. One of the prettiest touches of all, and that which angl'd 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 confess'd and lamented by the King, how attentivenes 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. FIRST GENTLEMAN. Are they returned to the court? THIRD GENTLEMAN. 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 perform'd 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. SECOND GENTLEMAN. 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? FIRST GENTLEMAN. Who would be thence that has the benefit of access? Every wink of an eye some new grace will be born. Our