THE WINTER'S TALE

Other Lords and Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers, and Servants, Shepherds,

and Shepherdesses.

Time, as Chorus.

SCENE: Partly in Sicilia, and partly in Bohemia.

1 First compiled by Rowe; given imperfectly as "The Names of the Actors " in Ff.

2 Rowe I etc.; Mamillus Ff 1, 2, Rowe 2, Pope, Hanmer; Mamilius Ff 3, 4. 3 Warburton, Capell, etc.; Cleomines Ff.

THE WINTER'S TALE

ACT I

SCENE I.-Antechamber in Leontes' Palace.

Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS.

Arch. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.

Cam. I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.

Arch. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us: we will be justified in our loves; for indeed

Cam. Beseech you,

Arch. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge:

wecannot with such magnificence-in so rare-I know
not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks,
that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience,
may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse

us.

Cam. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given
freely.

Arch. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs
me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.
Cam. Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia.

5

ΙΟ

15

20

8. us:] us,

Antechamber .] Theobald; A Palace, Rowe. 1. Bohemia] Bithynia Hanmer (and throughout). 5. coming] common Ff 2, 3, 4. Theobald; us Camb. Edd.

8-9. Wherein. . . loves] I follow the Folios in placing a colon after shame us. The Camb. Edd. omit a mark of punctuation here. Accepting the colon, the meaning would be: On

3

the occasion of your visit our entertainment of you, when compared with your entertainment of us, may put us to shame; but the cordiality of our welcome shall make amends.

They were trained together in their childhoods; and
there rooted betwixt them then such an affection,
which cannot choose but branch now. Since their
more mature dignities and royal necessities made 25
separation of their society, their encounters, though
not personal, have been royally attorneyed with in-
terchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that
they have seemed to be together, though absent;
shook hands, as over a vast; and embraced, as it 30
were, from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens
continue their loves!

Arch. I think there is not in the world either malice or
matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort
of your young prince Mamillius: it is a gentleman 35
of the greatest promise that ever came into my

note.

Cam. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it is a gallant child; one that indeed physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on crutches 40 ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a

man.

Arch. Would they else be content to die?

Cam. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should

desire to live.

Arch. If the king had no son, they would desire to live 45

on crutches till he had one.

27. have] Ff 2, 3, 4; hath F 1. gifts] Ff 1, 3, 4; gift F 2. 30. Pope, Hanmer. 35. Mamillius]

[Exeunt.

27. royally] so royally Collier MS. 28. vast] F 1; vast sea Ff 2, 3, 4; also Rowe, Mamillus Rowe (ed. 2).

27. attorneyed] An attorney is primarily a substitute or deputy; compare "I will have no attorney but myself" (Comedy of Errors, v. i. 100). Johnson interprets the passage: "nobly supplied by substitution of embassies," etc. 30. a vast] a waste, a wide expanse. This use of "vast as a substantive is common in Elizabethan English, and survives to-day in dialect; compare "In the dead vast and middle of the night' (Hamlet, 1. ii. 198); "The God of this great vast" (i.e. the ocean) (Pericles, III. i. 1).

33-34. I think there . . . alter it] This speech of Archidamus, and to a less degree, the whole of this first scene,