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
Apparent to my heart.
Her. If you would seek us,
We are yours i' the garden: Shall's attend you there?
Leon. To your own bents dispose you: you'll be found,
Be you beneath the sky :-I am angling now,
Though you perceive me not how I give line.
Go to, go to!
[Aside. Observing POLIXENES and HERMIONE.
How she holds up the neb,t the bill to him!
And arms her with the boldness of a wife
To her allowingt husband! Gone already;
Inch thick, knee-deep; o'er head and ears a fork'd one.§-
[Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and Attendants.
Go, play, boy, play;-thy mother plays, and I
Play too; but so disgraced a part, whose issue
Will hiss me to my grave; contempt and clamour
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,
Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm,
That little thinks she has been sluiced in his absence,
And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by
Sir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in't,
Whiles other men have gates; and those gates open'd,
As mine, against their will: Should all despair,
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hang themselves. Physic for't there is none;
It is a bawdy planet, that will strike
Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful, think it,
From east, west, north, and south: Be it concluded,
No barricado for a belly; know it;
It will let in and out the enemy,
With bag and baggage: many a thousand of us
Have the disease, and feel't not.-How now, boy?
Mam. I am like you, they say.
Leon. Why that's some comfort.—
What! Camillo there ?
Cam. Ay, my good lord.
Leon. Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man.
Camillo, this great Sir will yet stay longer.
Cam. You had much ado to make his anchor hold: When you cast out, it still came home.
Leon. Didst note it?
Cam. He would not stay at your petitions; made His business more material.
Leon. Didst perceive it ?—
* Next heir.
* Approving.
+ Mouth. A horned one, a cuckold.
They're here with me already; whispering, rounding,*
Sicilia is a so-forth: "Tis far gone,
When I shall gust† it last.-How came't, Camillo,
That he did stay?
Cam. At the good queen's entreaty.
Leon. At the queen's, be't: good, should be pertinent;
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,
Of head-piece extraordinary? lower messes,‡
Perchance, are to this business purblind: say.
Cam. Business, my lord? I think most understand
Bohemia stays here longer.
Leon. Ha?
Cam. Stays here longer.
Leon. Ay, but why?
Cam. To satisfy your highness, and the entreaties Of our most gracious mistress.
Leon. Satisfy
The 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 councils: wherein, priest-like, thou
Hast cleansed my bosom; I from thee departed
Thy penitent reform'd: but we have been
Deceived in thy integrity, deceived
In that which seems so.
Cam. Be it forbid, my lord!
Leon. To bide upon't;-Thou art not honest: or 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,
And therein negligent; or else a fool,
That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn,
And tak'st it all for jest.
Cam. My gracious lord,
I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful;
In every one of these no man is free,
But that his negligence, his folly, fear,
Amongst the infinite doings of the world,
Sometime puts forth; in your affairs, my lord,
If ever I were wilful-negligent,
It was my folly; if industriously
I play'd the fool, it was my negligence,
Not weighing well the end: if ever fearful
To do a thing, where I the issue doubted,
Whereof the execution did cry out
To round in the ear, was to tell secretly.
Inferiors in rank.
Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear
Which oft affects the wisest: these, my lord,
Are such allow'd infirmities, that honesty
Is never free of. But, 'beseech your grace,
Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass
By its own visage: if I then deny it,
"Tis none of mine.
Leon. Have you not seen, Camillo
(But that's past doubt: you have; or your eye-glass
Is thicker than a cuckold's horn); or heard
(For, to a vision so apparent, rumour
Cannot be mute), or thought (for cogitation
Resides not in that man, that does not think it),
My wife is slippery? if thou wilt confess
(Or else be impudently negative,
To have nor eyes, nor ears, nor thought), then say
My wife's a hobbyhorse; deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench, that puts to
Before her troth-plight: say it, and justify it.
Cam. 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
As deep as that, though true.
Leon. 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
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?
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.
Cam. Good, my lord, be cured
Of this diseased opinion, and betimes;
For 'tis most dangerous.
Leon. Say, it be; 'tis true.
Cam. No, no, my lord.
Leon. It is; you lie, you lie:
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
Infected as her life, she would not live
The running of one glass.†
* Disorders of the eye.
Cam. Who does infect her?
Leon. Why he, that wears her like her medal, hanging
About his neck, Bohemia: Who-if I
Had servants true about me: that bear eyes
To see alike mine honour 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
Have bench'd, and rear'd 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 draught to me were cordial.
Cam. 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,
So sovereignly being honourable.
I have loved thee,-
Leon. Make't 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,
Which to preserve, is sleep; which being spotted,
Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps ?
Give scandal to the blood o' the prince my son,
Who, I do think is mine, and love as mine;
Without ripe moving to't? Would I do this?
Could man so blench?
Cam. 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;
Even for your son's sake; and, thereby, for sealing
The injury of tongues, in courts and kingdoms
Known and allied to yours.
Leon. Thou dost advise me,
Even so as I mine own course have set down:
I'll give no blemish to her honour, none.
Cam. 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;
If from me he have wholesome beverage,
Account me not your servant.
Leon. This is all:
Do't, and thou hast one-half of my heart;
Do't not, thou split'st thine own.
Cam. I'll do't, my lord.
Leon. I will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me.
* Hasty.
† Effects openly hurtful.
Cam. 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
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,
And flourish'd after, I'd not do't: but since
Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,
Let villany itself forswear't. I must
Forsake the court: to do't, or no, is certain
To me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now!
Here comes Bohemia.
Pol. This is strange! methinks,
My favour here begins to warp. Not speak ?-
Good-day, Camillo.
Cam. Hail, most royal Sir !
Pol. What is the news i' the court?
Cam. None rare, my lord.
Pol. 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
With customary compliment; when he,
Wafting his eyes to the 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.
Cam. I dare not know, my lord.
Pol. 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; 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 it.
Cam. 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.
Pol. How! caught of me?
Make me not sighted like the basilisk:
I have look'd on thousands, who have sped the better
By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo,-
As you are certainly a gentleman; thereto
Clerk-like, experienced, which no less adorns
Our gentry, than our parents' noble names,
In whose success* we are gentle,t-I beseech you,
* Succession.
† Well born.
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