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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

Page 575

by William Shakespeare


  LEONTES You are married?

  FLORIZEL We are not, sir, nor are we like to be:

  The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first:

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  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,

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  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,

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  Should chase us, with my father, power 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,

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  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

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  Than what you look on now.

  LEONTES I thought of her,

  Even as 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

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  I now go toward him; therefore follow me

  And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord.

  Exeunt.

  5.2 Enter AUTOLYCUS and a Gentleman.

  AUTOLYCUS Beseech you, sir, were you present at this

  relation?

  1GENTLEMAN 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

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  were all commanded out of the chamber; only this,

  methought I heard the shepherd say he found the

  child.

  AUTOLYCUS I would most gladly know the issue of it.

  1GENTLEMAN I make a broken delivery of the business;

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  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

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  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 th’

  importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of

  the one it must needs be.

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  Enter another Gentleman.

  Here comes a gentleman that haply knows more. The

  news, Rogero?

  2GENTLEMAN Nothing but bonfires: the Oracle is

  fulfilled; the king’s daughter is found: such a deal of

  wonder is broken out within this hour, that ballad-

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  makers cannot be able to express it.

  Enter a third Gentleman.

  Here comes the Lady Paulina’s steward: he can deliver

  you more. 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?

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  3GENTLEMAN 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

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  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

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  two kings?

  2GENTLEMAN No.

  3GENTLEMAN 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

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  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

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  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-in-law; then again worries he his

  DAUGHTER with clipping her; now he thanks the old

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  Shepherd, 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.

  2GENTLEMAN What, pray you, became of Antigonus,

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  that carried hence the child?

  3GENTLEMAN 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

  avouches the shepherd’s son; who has not only his

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  innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a

  handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.

  1GENTLEMAN What became of his bark and his

  followers?

  3GENTLEMAN Wrecked the same instant of their

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  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 declined for the

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  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.

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  1GENTLEMAN The dignity of this act was worth the

  audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted.

  3GENTLEMAN 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

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  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

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  blood. Who was most marble, there changed colour;

  some swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world couldr />
  have seen’t, the woe had been universal.

  1GENTLEMAN Are they returned to the court?

  3GENTLEMAN No: the princess hearing of her mother’s

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  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

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  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.

  2 GENTLEMAN I thought she had some great matter

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  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?

  1GENTLEMAN Who would be thence that has the

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  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 Gentlemen.

  AUTOLYCUS Now, had I not the dash of my former life

  in me, would preferment drop on my head. I brought

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  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 overfond 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

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  continuing, this mystery remained undiscovered. But

  ’tis all one to me; for had I been the finder out of this

  secret, it would not have relished among my other

  discredits.

  Enter Shepherd and Clown.

  Here come those I have done good to against my

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  will, and already appearing in the blossoms of their

  fortune.

  SHEPHERD Come, boy; I am past moe children, but thy

  sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born.

  CLOWN You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with

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  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 gentleman born: give me the lie;

  do; and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.

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  AUTOLYCUS I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.

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

  SHEPHERD And so have I, boy.

  CLOWN So you have: but I was a gentleman born before

  my father; for the king’s son took me by the hand, and

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  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.

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  SHEPHERD We may live, son, to shed many more.

  CLOWN Ay; or else ’twere hard luck, being in so

  preposterous estate as we are.

  AUTOLYCUS I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all

  the faults I have committed to your worship, and to

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  give me your good report to the prince my master.

  SHEPHERD Prithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now

  we are gentlemen.

  CLOWN Thou wilt amend thy life?

  AUTOLYCUS Ay, and it like your good worship.

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  CLOWN Give me thy hand: I will swear to the prince

  thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.

  SHEPHERD You may say it, but not swear it.

  CLOWN Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors

  and franklins say it, I’ll swear it.

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  SHEPHERD How if it be false, son?

  CLOWN 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

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  fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be drunk: but

  I’ll swear it, and I would thou would’st be a tall

  fellow of thy hands.

  AUTOLYCUS I will prove so, sir, to my power.

  CLOWN Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow: if I do not

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  wonder how thou dar’st venture to be drunk, not

  being a tall fellow, trust me not. Hark! the kings and

 

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