The Winter’s Tale: Act 1, Scene 2 Translation

Enter Leontes, Hermione, Mamillius, Polixenes, Camillo,
and Attendants.

POLIXENES
Nine changes of the wat’ry star hath been
The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne
Without a burden. Time as long again
Would be filled up, my brother, with our thanks,
And yet we should for perpetuity 5
Go hence in debt. And therefore, like a cipher,
Yet standing in rich place, I multiply
With one “We thank you” many thousands more
That go before it.

LEONTES Stay your thanks awhile, 10
And pay them when you part.

POLIXENES Sir, that’s tomorrow.
I am questioned by my fears of what may chance
Or breed upon our absence, that may blow
No sneaping winds at home to make us say 15
“This is put forth too truly.” Besides, I have stayed
To tire your Royalty.

LEONTES We are tougher, brother,
Than you can put us to ’t.

POLIXENES No longer stay. 20

LEONTES
One sev’nnight longer.

POLIXENES Very sooth, tomorrow.

LEONTES
We’ll part the time between ’s, then, and in that
I’ll no gainsaying.

POLIXENES Press me not, beseech you, so. 25
There is no tongue that moves, none, none i’ th’
world,
So soon as yours could win me. So it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
’Twere needful I denied it. My affairs 30
Do even drag me homeward, which to hinder
Were in your love a whip to me, my stay
To you a charge and trouble. To save both,
Farewell, our brother.

LEONTES Tongue-tied, our queen? 35
Speak you.

HERMIONE
I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until
You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,
Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure
All in Bohemia’s well. This satisfaction 40
The bygone day proclaimed. Say this to him,
He’s beat from his best ward.

LEONTES Well said, Hermione.

HERMIONE
To tell he longs to see his son were strong.
But let him say so then, and let him go. 45
But let him swear so and he shall not stay;
We’ll thwack him hence with distaffs.
To Polixenes. Yet of your royal presence I’ll
adventure
The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia 50
You take my lord, I’ll give him my commission
To let him there a month behind the gest
Prefixed for ’s parting.—Yet, good deed, Leontes,
I love thee not a jar o’ th’ clock behind
What lady she her lord.—You’ll stay? 55

POLIXENES No, madam.

HERMIONE
Nay, but you will?

POLIXENES I may not, verily.

HERMIONE Verily?
You put me off with limber vows. But I, 60
Though you would seek t’ unsphere the stars with
oaths,
Should yet say “Sir, no going.” Verily,
You shall not go. A lady’s “verily” is
As potent as a lord’s. Will you go yet? 65
Force me to keep you as a prisoner,
Not like a guest, so you shall pay your fees
When you depart and save your thanks. How say you?
My prisoner or my guest? By your dread “verily,”
One of them you shall be. 70

POLIXENES Your guest, then, madam.
To be your prisoner should import offending,
Which is for me less easy to commit
Than you to punish.

HERMIONE Not your jailer, then, 75
But your kind hostess. Come, I’ll question you
Of my lord’s tricks and yours when you were boys.
You were pretty lordings then?

POLIXENES We were, fair queen,
Two lads that thought there was no more behind 80
But such a day tomorrow as today,
And to be boy eternal.

HERMIONE Was not my lord
The verier wag o’ th’ two?

POLIXENES
We were as twinned lambs that did frisk i’ th’ sun 85
And bleat the one at th’ other. What we changed
Was innocence for innocence. We knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed
That any did. Had we pursued that life,
And our weak spirits ne’er been higher reared 90
With stronger blood, we should have answered
heaven
Boldly “Not guilty,” the imposition cleared
Hereditary ours.

HERMIONE By this we gather 95
You have tripped since.

POLIXENES O my most sacred lady,
Temptations have since then been born to ’s, for
In those unfledged days was my wife a girl;
Your precious self had then not crossed the eyes 100
Of my young playfellow.

HERMIONE Grace to boot!
Of this make no conclusion, lest you say
Your queen and I are devils. Yet go on.
Th’ offenses we have made you do we’ll answer, 105
If you first sinned with us, and that with us
You did continue fault, and that you slipped not
With any but with us.

LEONTES Is he won yet?

HERMIONE
He’ll stay, my lord. 110

LEONTES At my request he would not.
Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok’st
To better purpose.

HERMIONE Never?

LEONTES Never but once. 115

HERMIONE
What, have I twice said well? When was ’t before?
I prithee tell me. Cram ’s with praise, and make ’s
As fat as tame things. One good deed dying
tongueless
Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that. 120
Our praises are our wages. You may ride ’s
With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere
With spur we heat an acre. But to th’ goal:
My last good deed was to entreat his stay.
What was my first? It has an elder sister, 125
Or I mistake you. O, would her name were Grace!
But once before I spoke to th’ purpose? When?
Nay, let me have ’t; I long.

LEONTES Why, that was when
Three crabbèd months had soured themselves to 130
death
Ere I could make thee open thy white hand
And clap thyself my love; then didst thou utter
“I am yours forever.”

HERMIONE ’Tis grace indeed. 135
Why, lo you now, I have spoke to th’ purpose twice.
The one forever earned a royal husband,
Th’ other for some while a friend.
She gives Polixenes her hand.
LEONTES, aside Too hot, too hot!
To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods. 140
I have tremor cordis on me. My heart dances,
But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment
May a free face put on, derive a liberty
From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,
And well become the agent. ’T may, I grant. 145
But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,
As now they are, and making practiced smiles
As in a looking glass, and then to sigh, as ’twere
The mort o’ th’ deer—O, that is entertainment
My bosom likes not, nor my brows.—Mamillius, 150
Art thou my boy?

MAMILLIUS Ay, my good lord.

LEONTES I’ fecks!
Why, that’s my bawcock. What, hast smutched thy
nose? 155
They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain,
We must be neat—not neat, but cleanly, captain.
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf
Are all called neat.—Still virginalling
Upon his palm?—How now, you wanton calf? 160
Art thou my calf?

MAMILLIUS Yes, if you will, my lord.

LEONTES
Thou want’st a rough pash and the shoots that I
have
To be full like me; yet they say we are 165
Almost as like as eggs. Women say so,
That will say anything. But were they false
As o’erdyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false
As dice are to be wished by one that fixes
No bourn ’twixt his and mine, yet were it true 170
To say this boy were like me. Come, sir page,
Look on me with your welkin eye. Sweet villain,
Most dear’st, my collop! Can thy dam?—may ’t
be?—
Affection, thy intention stabs the center. 175
Thou dost make possible things not so held,
Communicat’st with dreams—how can this be?
With what’s unreal thou coactive art,
And fellow’st nothing. Then ’tis very credent
Thou may’st co-join with something; and thou dost, 180
And that beyond commission, and I find it,
And that to the infection of my brains
And hard’ning of my brows.

POLIXENES What means Sicilia?

HERMIONE
He something seems unsettled. 185

POLIXENES How, my lord?

LEONTES
What cheer? How is ’t with you, best brother?

HERMIONE You look
As if you held a brow of much distraction.
Are you moved, my lord? 190

LEONTES No, in good earnest.
How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines
Of my boy’s face, methoughts I did recoil 195
Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreeched,
In my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled
Lest it should bite its master and so prove,
As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.
How like, methought, I then was to this kernel, 200
This squash, this gentleman.—Mine honest friend,
Will you take eggs for money?

MAMILLIUS No, my lord, I’ll fight.

LEONTES
You will? Why, happy man be ’s dole!—My brother,
Are you so fond of your young prince as we 205
Do seem to be of ours?

POLIXENES If at home, sir,
He’s all my exercise, my mirth, my matter,
Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy,
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all. 210
He makes a July’s day short as December,
And with his varying childness cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.

LEONTES So stands this
squire 215
Officed with me. We two will walk, my lord,
And leave you to your graver steps.—Hermione,
How thou lov’st us show in our brother’s welcome.
Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap.
Next to thyself and my young rover, he’s 220
Apparent to my heart.

HERMIONE If you would seek us,
We are yours i’ th’ garden. Shall ’s attend you there?

LEONTES
To your own bents dispose you. You’ll be found,
Be you beneath the sky. Aside. I am angling now, 225
Though you perceive me not how I give line.
Go to, go to!
How she holds up the neb, the bill to him,
And arms her with the boldness of a wife
To her allowing husband! 230

Exit Hermione, Polixenes, and Attendants.

Gone already.
Inch thick, knee-deep, o’er head and ears a forked
one!—
Go play, boy, play. Thy mother plays, and I
Play too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue 235
Will hiss me to my grave. Contempt and clamor
Will be my knell. Go play, boy, play.—There have
been,
Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now;
And many a man there is, even at this present, 240
Now while I speak this, holds his wife by th’ arm,
That little thinks she has been sluiced in ’s absence,
And his pond fished by his next neighbor, by
Sir Smile, his neighbor. Nay, there’s comfort in ’t
Whiles other men have gates and those gates 245
opened,
As mine, against their will. Should all despair
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hang themselves. Physic for ’t there’s none.
It is a bawdy planet, that will strike 250
Where ’tis predominant; and ’tis powerful, think it,
From east, west, north, and south. Be it concluded,
No barricado for a belly. Know ’t,
It will let in and out the enemy
With bag and baggage. Many thousand on ’s 255
Have the disease and feel ’t not.—How now, boy?

MAMILLIUS
I am like you, they say.

LEONTES Why, that’s some comfort.—
What, Camillo there?

CAMILLO, coming forward Ay, my good lord. 260

LEONTES
Go play, Mamillius. Thou ’rt an honest man.

Mamillius exits.

Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.

CAMILLO
You had much ado to make his anchor hold.
When you cast out, it still came home.

LEONTES Didst note it? 265

CAMILLO
He would not stay at your petitions, made
His business more material.

LEONTES Didst perceive it?
Aside. They’re here with me already, whisp’ring,
rounding: 270
“Sicilia is a so-forth.” ’Tis far gone
When I shall gust it last.—How came ’t, Camillo,
That he did stay?

CAMILLO At the good queen’s entreaty.

LEONTES
“At the queen’s” be ’t. “Good” should be pertinent, 275
But so it is, it is not. Was this taken
By any understanding pate but thine?
For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in
More than the common blocks. Not noted, is ’t,
But of the finer natures, by some severals 280
Of headpiece extraordinary? Lower messes
Perchance are to this business purblind? Say.

CAMILLO
Business, my lord? I think most understand
Bohemia stays here longer.

LEONTES
Ha? 285

CAMILLO Stays here longer.

LEONTES Ay, but why?

CAMILLO
To satisfy your Highness and the entreaties
Of our most gracious mistress.

LEONTES Satisfy? 290
Th’ entreaties of your mistress? Satisfy?
Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,
With all the nearest things to my heart, as well
My chamber-counsels, wherein, priestlike, thou
Hast cleansed my bosom; I from thee departed 295
Thy penitent reformed. But we have been
Deceived in thy integrity, deceived
In that which seems so.

CAMILLO Be it forbid, my lord!

LEONTES
To bide upon ’t: thou art not honest; or, 300
If thou inclin’st that way, thou art a coward,
Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining
From course required; or else thou must be
counted
A servant grafted in my serious trust 305
And therein negligent; or else a fool
That seest a game played home, the rich stake
drawn,
And tak’st it all for jest.

CAMILLO My gracious lord, 310
I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful.
In every one of these no man is free,
But that his negligence, his folly, fear,
Among the infinite doings of the world,
Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord, 315
If ever I were willful-negligent,
It was my folly; if industriously
I played the fool, it was my negligence,
Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful
To do a thing where I the issue doubted, 320
Whereof the execution did cry out
Against the non-performance, ’twas a fear
Which oft infects the wisest. These, my lord,
Are such allowed infirmities that honesty
Is never free of. But, beseech your Grace, 325
Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass
By its own visage. If I then deny it,
’Tis none of mine.

LEONTES Ha’ not you seen, Camillo—
But that’s past doubt; you have, or your eyeglass 330
Is thicker than a cuckold’s horn—or heard—
For to a vision so apparent, rumor
Cannot be mute—or thought—for cogitation
Resides not in that man that does not think—
My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess— 335
Or else be impudently negative
To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought—then say
My wife’s a hobby-horse, deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench that puts to
Before her troth-plight. Say ’t, and justify ’t. 340

CAMILLO
I would not be a stander-by to hear
My sovereign mistress clouded so without
My present vengeance taken. ’Shrew my heart,
You never spoke what did become you less
Than this, which to reiterate were sin 345
As deep as that, though true.

LEONTES Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh?—a note infallible 350
Of breaking honesty. Horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift?
Hours minutes? Noon midnight? And all eyes
Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
That would unseen be wicked? Is this nothing? 355
Why, then the world and all that’s in ’t is nothing,
The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing,
My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings,
If this be nothing.

CAMILLO Good my lord, be cured 360
Of this diseased opinion, and betimes,
For ’tis most dangerous.

LEONTES Say it be, ’tis true.

CAMILLO
No, no, my lord.

LEONTES It is. You lie, you lie. 365
I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee,
Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,
Or else a hovering temporizer that
Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,
Inclining to them both. Were my wife’s liver 370
Infected as her life, she would not live
The running of one glass.

CAMILLO Who does infect her?

LEONTES
Why, he that wears her like her medal, hanging
About his neck—Bohemia, who, if I 375
Had servants true about me, that bare eyes
To see alike mine honor as their profits,
Their own particular thrifts, they would do that
Which should undo more doing. Ay, and thou,
His cupbearer—whom I from meaner form 380
Have benched and reared to worship, who mayst see
Plainly as heaven sees Earth and Earth sees heaven
How I am galled—mightst bespice a cup
To give mine enemy a lasting wink,
Which draft to me were cordial. 385

CAMILLO Sir, my lord,
I could do this, and that with no rash potion,
But with a ling’ring dram that should not work
Maliciously like poison. But I cannot
Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress, 390
So sovereignly being honorable. I have loved thee—

LEONTES Make that thy question, and go rot!
Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled,
To appoint myself in this vexation, sully
The purity and whiteness of my sheets— 395
Which to preserve is sleep, which being spotted
Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps—
Give scandal to the blood o’ th’ Prince, my son,
Who I do think is mine and love as mine,
Without ripe moving to ’t? Would I do this? 400
Could man so blench?

CAMILLO I must believe you, sir.
I do, and will fetch off Bohemia for ’t—
Provided that, when he’s removed, your Highness
Will take again your queen as yours at first, 405
Even for your son’s sake, and thereby for sealing
The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms
Known and allied to yours.

LEONTES Thou dost advise me
Even so as I mine own course have set down. 410
I’ll give no blemish to her honor, none.

CAMILLO My lord,
Go then, and with a countenance as clear
As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia
And with your queen. I am his cupbearer. 415
If from me he have wholesome beverage,
Account me not your servant.

LEONTES This is all.
Do ’t and thou hast the one half of my heart;
Do ’t not, thou splitt’st thine own. 420

CAMILLO I’ll do ’t, my lord.

LEONTES
I will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me.

He exits.

CAMILLO
O miserable lady! But, for me,
What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner
Of good Polixenes, and my ground to do ’t 425
Is the obedience to a master, one
Who in rebellion with himself will have
All that are his so too. To do this deed,
Promotion follows. If I could find example
Of thousands that had struck anointed kings 430
And flourished after, I’d not do ’t. But since
Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment bears not one,
Let villainy itself forswear ’t. I must
Forsake the court. To do ’t or no is certain
To me a breakneck. Happy star reign now! 435
Here comes Bohemia.

Enter Polixenes.

POLIXENES, aside This is strange. Methinks
My favor here begins to warp. Not speak?—
Good day, Camillo.

CAMILLO Hail, most royal sir. 440

POLIXENES
What is the news i’ th’ court?

CAMILLO None rare, my lord.

POLIXENES
The King hath on him such a countenance
As he had lost some province and a region
Loved as he loves himself. Even now I met him 445
With customary compliment, when he,
Wafting his eyes to th’ contrary and falling
A lip of much contempt, speeds from me, and
So leaves me to consider what is breeding
That changes thus his manners. 450

CAMILLO I dare not know, my
lord.

POLIXENES
How, dare not? Do not? Do you know and dare not?
Be intelligent to me—’tis thereabouts;
For to yourself what you do know, you must, 455
And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,
Your changed complexions are to me a mirror
Which shows me mine changed too, for I must be
A party in this alteration, finding
Myself thus altered with ’t. 460

CAMILLO There is a sickness
Which puts some of us in distemper, but
I cannot name the disease, and it is caught
Of you that yet are well.

POLIXENES How caught of me? 465
Make me not sighted like the basilisk.
I have looked on thousands who have sped the
better
By my regard, but killed none so. Camillo,
As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto 470
Clerklike experienced, which no less adorns
Our gentry than our parents’ noble names,
In whose success we are gentle, I beseech you,
If you know aught which does behoove my
knowledge 475
Thereof to be informed, imprison ’t not
In ignorant concealment.

CAMILLO I may not answer.

POLIXENES
A sickness caught of me, and yet I well?
I must be answered. Dost thou hear, Camillo? 480
I conjure thee by all the parts of man
Which honor does acknowledge, whereof the least
Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare
What incidency thou dost guess of harm
Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near; 485
Which way to be prevented, if to be;
If not, how best to bear it.

CAMILLO Sir, I will tell you,
Since I am charged in honor and by him
That I think honorable. Therefore mark my counsel, 490
Which must be e’en as swiftly followed as
I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me
Cry lost, and so goodnight.

POLIXENES On, good Camillo.

CAMILLO
I am appointed him to murder you. 495

POLIXENES
By whom, Camillo?

CAMILLO By the King.

POLIXENES For what?

CAMILLO
He thinks, nay with all confidence he swears,
As he had seen ’t or been an instrument 500
To vice you to ’t, that you have touched his queen
Forbiddenly.

POLIXENES O, then my best blood turn
To an infected jelly, and my name
Be yoked with his that did betray the Best! 505
Turn then my freshest reputation to
A savor that may strike the dullest nostril
Where I arrive, and my approach be shunned,
Nay, hated too, worse than the great’st infection
That e’er was heard or read. 510

CAMILLO Swear his thought over
By each particular star in heaven and
By all their influences, you may as well
Forbid the sea for to obey the moon
As or by oath remove or counsel shake 515
The fabric of his folly, whose foundation
Is piled upon his faith and will continue
The standing of his body.

POLIXENES How should this grow?

CAMILLO
I know not. But I am sure ’tis safer to 520
Avoid what’s grown than question how ’tis born.
If therefore you dare trust my honesty,
That lies enclosèd in this trunk which you
Shall bear along impawned, away tonight!
Your followers I will whisper to the business, 525
And will by twos and threes at several posterns
Clear them o’ th’ city. For myself, I’ll put
My fortunes to your service, which are here
By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain,
For, by the honor of my parents, I 530
Have uttered truth—which if you seek to prove,
I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer
Than one condemned by the King’s own mouth,
thereon
His execution sworn. 535

POLIXENES I do believe thee.
I saw his heart in ’s face. Give me thy hand.
Be pilot to me and thy places shall
Still neighbor mine. My ships are ready and
My people did expect my hence departure 540
Two days ago. This jealousy
Is for a precious creature. As she’s rare,
Must it be great; and as his person’s mighty,
Must it be violent; and as he does conceive
He is dishonored by a man which ever 545
Professed to him, why, his revenges must
In that be made more bitter. Fear o’ershades me.
Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing
Of his ill-ta’en suspicion. Come, Camillo, 550
I will respect thee as a father if
Thou bear’st my life off hence. Let us avoid.

CAMILLO
It is in mine authority to command
The keys of all the posterns. Please your Highness
To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away. 555
They exit.