Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em? How camest thou in this pickle ? 281 Trin. I have been in such a pickle since I saw you last that, I fear me, will never out of my bones I shall not fear fly-blowing. Seb. Why, how now, Stephano! Ste. O, touch me not; I am not Stephano, but a cramp. Pros. You'ld be king o' the isle, sirrah? Ste. I should have been a sore one then. Alon. This is a strange thing as e'er I look'd on. [Pointing to Caliban. Pros. He is as disproportion'd in his man ners 290 SPOKEN BY PROSPERO. Now my charms are all o'erthrown, As you from crimes would pardon'd be, 20 THE WINTER'S TALE. (WRITTEN ABOUT 1610-11.) INTRODUCTION. It The Winter's Tale was seen at the Globe on May 15, 1611, by Dr. Forman, and is described in his MS. Booke of Plaies and Notes thereof. The versification is that of Shakespeare's latest group of plays: no five-measure lines are rhymed; run-on lines and double endings are numerous. Its tone and feeling place it in the same period with The Tempest and Cymbeline; its breezy air is surely that which blew over Warwickshire fields upon Shakespeare now returned to Stratford; its country lads and lasses, and their junketings, are those with which the poet had in a happy spirit renewed his acquaintance. The Winter's Tale is perhaps the last complete play that Shakespeare wrote. is founded upon Greene's Pandosto (or, as it was afterward named, Dorastus and Fawnia) first published in 1588. The idea of introducing Time as a chorus comes from Greene, and all the principal characters, except Pauline and the incomparable rogue Autolycus. After his manner, Shakespeare drives forward to what chiefly interests him in the subject. The jealousy of Leontes is not a detailed dramatic study like the love and jealousy of Othello. It is a gross madness which mounts to the brain, and turns Leontes' whole nature into unreasoning passion. The character of the noble sufferer Hermione is that with which the dramatist is above all concerned-this first; and, secondly, the grace, beauty, and girlish happiness of Perdita; while of the subordinate persons of the drama, Shakespeare delights chiefly in his own creation, Autolycus, the most charming of rogues and rovers. Hermione may be placed side by side with the Queen Katharine of Henry VIII., which play belongs to this period. Both are noble sufferers, who by the dignity and purity of their natures transcend all feeling of vulgar resentment. Deep and even quick feeling never renders Hermione incapable of an admirable justice, nor deprives her of a true sense of pity for him who so gravely wrongs both her and himself. The meeting of kindred, with forgiveness and reconciliation, if these are called for by past offences, forms the common ending of the last plays of Shakespeare. Perdita belongs to the group of exquisite youthful figures set over against those of their graver and sadder elders in the plays of this period. She is one of the same company with Miranda and Marina, and the youthful sons of Cymbeline. The shepherdess-princess, "queen of curds and cream,' is less a vision than Miranda, the child of wonder, but more perhaps a creature of this earth. There is nothing lovelier or more innocently joyous in poetry than Perdita at the rustic merry-making, sharing her flowers with old and young. And in Florizel she has found a lover, full of the innocence and chivalry of unstained early manhood. Autolycus stands by himself among the creations of the dramatist. The art of thieving as practised by him is no crime, but the gift of some knavish god. He does not trample on the laws of morality, but dances or leaps over them with so nimble a foot that we forbear to stay him. In the sad world which contains a Leontes and can lose a Mamillius, so light-hearted a wanderer must be pardoned even if he be light-fingered, and sometimes mistakes for his own the sheet bleaching on the hedge, which happens to be ours. 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 indeed10 Cam. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. 19 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. 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! 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 of the greatest promise that ever came into my note. : 40 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 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 on crutches till he had one. 50 [Exeunt. SCENE II. A room of state in the same. Enter LEONTES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, POLIXENES, CAMILLO, and Attendants. Pol. Nine changes of the watery star hath been The shepherd's note since we have left our now, Were there necessity in your request, although Leon. Tongue-tied, our queen? speak you. Her. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until You have drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir, Charge him too coldly. Tell him, you are 30 sure All in Bohemia's well; this satisfaction Leon. But let him say so then, and let him go; To let him there a month behind the gest Pol. Her. Nay, but you will ? Pol. No, madam. I may not, verily, throne Her. Verily ! with oaths, 50 Should yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily, My prisoner? or my guest? by your dread 'Verily,' One of them you shall be. Pol. Your guest, then, madam: To be your prisoner should import offending; Which is for me less easy to commit Than you to punish. Her. Not your gaoler, then, But your kind hostess. Come, I'll question And bleat the one at the other what we changed 70 Was innocence for innocence; we knew not Boldly not guilty;' the imposition clear'd 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 cross'd the eyes Of my young play-fellow. Grace to boot! 80 Her. Of this make no conclusion, lest you say Your queen and I are devils: yet go on; The offences we have made you do we'll answer, Never, but once. Her. What have I twice said well? when was't before? 90 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. But once before I spoke to the purpose: when? Leon. Why, that was when 101 Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death, Ere I could make thee open thy white hand And clap thyself my love: then didst thou utter 'I am yours for ever.' Her. 'Tis grace indeed. Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice: The one for ever earn'd a royal husband; Leon. The mort o' the deer; O, that is entertainment My bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius, Art thou my boy? And yet the steer, the heifer and the calf Mam. 130 To be full like me: yet they say we are 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 centre: Thou dost make possible things not so held, Communicatest with dreams;-how can this be?140 With what's unreal thou coactive art, And that beyond commission, and I find it, Pol. 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, From east, west, north and south: be it con cluded, No barricado for a belly; know't; It will let in and out the enemy With bag and baggage: many thousand on's Have the disease, and feel't not. How now boy! Mam. I am like you, they say. What, Camillo there ? Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer. Cam. You had much ado to make his an chor 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. Didst perceive it? Leon. [Aside] They're here with me already, whis pering, rounding 'Sicilia is a so-forth: 'tis far gone, When I shall gust it last. How came't, Ca millo, That he did stay? 220 Cam. At the good queen's entreaty. Leon. At the queen's be't: 'good' should be pertinent; |