The Winter's Tale, William Shakespeare [best books to read .TXT] 📗

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.

LEONTES.
Have not you 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 hobby-horse; deserves a name As rank as any flax-wench that puts to Before her troth-plight: say't and justify't.

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 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 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 is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings, If this be nothing.

CAMILLO.
Good my lord, be cur'd Of this diseas'd 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: 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.

CAMILLO.
Who does infect her?

LEONTES. Why, he that wears her like her medal, hanging About his neck, Bohemia: who - if I Had servants true about me, that bare 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.

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, So sovereignly being honourable. I have lov'd 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, - 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?

CAMILLO.
I must believe you, sir: I do; and will fetch off Bohemia for't; Provided that, when he's remov'd, 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.

LEONTES.
Thou dost advise me Even so as I mine own course have set down: I'll give no blemish to her honour, 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. 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.

CAMILLO.
I'll do't, my lord.

LEONTES. I will seem friendly, as thou hast advis'd me.

[Exit.]

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 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 villainy 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.

[Enter POLIXENES.]

POLIXENES.
This is strange! methinks My favour here begins to warp. Not speak? - Good-day, Camillo.

CAMILLO.
Hail, most royal sir!

POLIXENES. What is the news i' the court?

CAMILLO.
None rare, my lord.

POLIXENES. The king hath on him such a countenance As he had lost some province, and a region Lov'd 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; So leaves me to consider what is breeding That changes thus his manners.

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, And cannot say, you dare not. Good Camillo, Your chang'd complexions are to me a mirror Which shows me mine chang'd too; for I must be A party in this alteration, finding Myself thus alter'd with't.

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! 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, experienc'd, 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 behove my knowledge Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not In ignorant concealment.

CAMILLO.
I may not answer.

POLIXENES. A sickness caught of me, and yet I well! I must be answer'd. - Dost thou hear, Camillo, I conjure thee, by all the parts of man Which honour 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; Which way to be prevented, if to be; If not, how best to bear it.

CAMILLO.
Sir, I will tell you; Since I am charg'd in honour, and by him That I think honourable: therefore mark my counsel, Which must be ev'n as swiftly follow'd 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.

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 To vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen Forbiddenly.

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

CAMILLO.
Swear his thought over By each particular star in heaven and By all their influences, you may