Published by Good Press, 2019

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      EAN 4057664092977

Table of Contents

       Dramatis Personae

       Scene

       ACT I.

       ACT II.

       ACT III.

       ACT IV.

       ACT V.

Dramatis Personae

       Table of Contents

      LEONTES, King of Sicilia

      MAMILLIUS, his son

      CAMILLO, Sicilian Lord

      ANTIGONUS, Sicilian Lord

      CLEOMENES, Sicilian Lord

      DION, Sicilian Lord

      POLIXENES, King of Bohemia

      FLORIZEL, his son

      ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian Lord

      An Old Shepherd, reputed father of Perdita

      CLOWN, his son

      AUTOLYCUS, a rogue

      A Mariner

      Gaoler

      Servant to the Old Shepherd

      Other Sicilian Lords

      Sicilian Gentlemen

      Officers of a Court of Judicature

      HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes

      PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Hermione

      PAULINA, wife to Antigonus

      EMILIA, a lady attending on the Queen

      MOPSA, shepherdess

      DORCAS, shepherdess

      Other Ladies, attending on the Queen

      Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Satyrs

      for a Dance; Shepherds,

      Shepherdesses, Guards, &c.

      TIME, as Chorus

Scene:

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      Sometimes in Sicilia; sometimes in Bohemia.

ACT I.

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      SCENE I. Sicilia. An Antechamber in LEONTES' Palace.

      [Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS]

      ARCHIDAMUS

      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.

      CAMILLO

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

      ARCHIDAMUS

      Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be justified in our loves; for indeed—

      CAMILLO

      Beseech you—

      ARCHIDAMUS

      Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we cannot 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.

      CAMILLO

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

      ARCHIDAMUS

      Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.

      CAMILLO

      Sicilia cannot show himself overkind to Bohemia. 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 separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have seemed to be together, though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embraced as it were from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves!

      ARCHIDAMUS

      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 of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.

      CAMILLO

      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 ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man.

      ARCHIDAMUS

      Would they else be content to die?

      CAMILLO

      Yes, if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.

      ARCHIDAMUS

      If the king had no son, they would desire to live on crutches till he had one.

      [Exeunt.]

      SCENE II. The same. A Room of State in the Palace.

      [Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and Attendants.]

      POLIXENES

      Nine changes of the watery star hath been

      The shepherd's note since we have left our throne

      Without a burden: time as long again

      Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks;

      And yet we should, for perpetuity,

      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