SCENE II.

The same. A Room of State in the Palace.

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

Pol, Nine changes of the watʼry star have 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 go before it.

Leon.

Stay your thanks awhile;

And pay them when you part.

Pol.

Sir, that's to-morrow.

I am question'd by my fears, of what may chance,
Or breed upon our absence: That may blow
No sneaping winds at home, to make us say,
This is put forth too truly! Besides, I have stay'd
To tire your royalty.

No sneaping winds-] Dr. Warburton calls this nonsense; and Dr. Johnson tells us it is a Gallicism. It happens, however, to be both sense and English. That, for Oh! that-is not uncommon. In an old translation of the famous Alcoran of the Franciscans: "St. Francis observing the holiness of friar Juniper, said to the priors, That I had a wood of such Junipers!" And, in The Two Noble Kinsmen :

66 In thy rumination,

"That I poor man might eftsoons come between!" And so in other places. This is the construction of the passage in Romeo and Juliet:

"That runaway's eyes may wink!"

Which in other respects Mr. Steevens has rightly interpreted.

Farmer.

sneaping winds -—] Nipping winds. So, in Gawin Douglas's Translation of Virgil's Eneid. Prologue of the seuynth Booke: Scharp soppis of sleit, and of the snyppand snaw."

66

Leon. We'll part the time between 's then: and in

that

I'll no gain-saying.

Pol.

Press me not, 'beseech you, so;

There is no tongue that moves, none, none i̇' the world,
So soon as yours, could win me: so it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs

Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder,
Were, in your love, a whip to me; my stay,
To you a charge, and trouble: to save both,
Farewel, our brother.

Leon.

Tongue-tied, our queen? speak you. Her. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace, until You had drawn oaths from him, not to stay.

You, sir,
Charge him too coldly: Tell him, you are sure,
All in Bohemia's well: this satisfaction"

The by-gone day proclaim'd; say this to him,
He's beat from his best ward.

Leon.

Well said, Hermione. Her. To tell, he longs to see his son, were strong :

But let him say so then, and let him go;

But let him swear so, and he shall not stay,

We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.

Yet of your royal presence [to POL.] I 'll adventure

The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia

You take my lord, I'll give him my commission,

7

this satisfaction] We had satisfactory accounts yesterday of the state of Bohemia. Johnson.

:

8 I'll give him my commission,] We should read:

I'll give you my commission,

The verb let, or hinder, which follows, shows the necessity of it for she could not say she would give her husband a commission to let or hinder himself. The commission is given to Polixenes, to whom she is speaking, to let or hinder her husband.

Warburton.

"I'll give him my licence of absence, so as to obstruct or retard his departure for a month," &c. To let him, however, may

To let him there a month, behind the gest
Prefix'd for his parting: yet, good-deed,' Leontes,
I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind

be used as many other reflective verbs are by Shakspeare, for to let or hinder himself: then the meaning will be: "I'll give him my permission to tarry for a month," &c. Dr. Warburton and the subsequent editors read, I think, without necessity-"I'll give you my commission, &c. Malone.

9—

behind the gest] Mr. Theobald says: he can neither trace, nor understand the phrase, and therefore thinks it should be just: But the word gest is right, and signifies a stage or journey. In the time of royal progresses the king's stages, as we may see by the journals of them in the herald's office, were called his gests; from the old French word giste, diversorium. Warburton.

In Strype's Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, p. 283,-The Archbishop entreats Cecil, "to let him have the new resolved upon gests, from that time to the end, that he might from time to time know where the king was."

Again, in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1594:

"Castile, and lovely Elinor with him,

"Have in their gests resolv'd for Oxford town." Again, in The White Devil, or, Vittoria Corombona, 1612: Do, like the gests in the progress,

66

Steevens.

"You know where you shall find me." Gests, or rather gists, from the Fr. giste, (which signifies both a bed, and a lodging place) were the names of the houses or towns where the King or Prince intended to lie every night during his PROGRESS. They were written in a scroll, and probably each of the royal attendants was furnished with a copy. Malone. - yet, good-deed,] Signifies, indeed, in very deed, as Shakspeare in another place expresses it. Good-deed, is used in the same sense by the Earl of Surrey, Sir John Hayward, and Gascoigne.

1

What lady she her lord.-You'll stay?

You put me off with limber vows: But I,

Though you would seek to unsphere the stars with oaths, Should yet say, sir, no going. Verily,

You shall not go; a lady's verily is

As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet?

Force me to keep you as a prisoner,

Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees,

When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you? 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 you
Of my lord's tricks, and yours, when you were boys;
You were pretty lordings3 then.

Pol.
We were, fair queen,
Two lads, that thought there was no more behind,
But such a day to-morrow as to-day,

And to be boy eternal.

Her. Was not my lord the verier wag o' the two?

Pol. We were as twinn'd lambs, that did frisk i̇’the

sun,

And bleat the one at the other: what we chang'd,
Was innocence for innocence; we knew not

The doctrine of ill-doing, no, nor dream'd1

So, in The Spanish Tragedy, 1601:-"the owle shrieking, the toades croaking, the minutes jerring, and the clocke striking twelve." Malone.

3

lordings] This diminutive of lord is often used by Chaucer. So, in the prologue to his Canterbury Tales, the host says to the company, v. 790, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit:

That any did: Had we pursued that life,
And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd
With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven
Boldly, Not guilty; the imposition clear'd,"

Hereditary ours.

Her.

By this we gather,

You have tripp'd since.
Pol.

O my most sacred lady,
Temptations have since then been born to us: for
In those unfledg'd days was my wife a girl;
Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes
Of my young play-fellow.

Her.

Grace to boot!

Of this make no conclusion; lest you say,

used as a trisyllable. So children, tickling, and many others. The editor of the second folio inserted the word no, to supply a supposed defect in the metre, [-no, nor dream'd] and the interpolation was adopted in all the subsequent editions. Malone. I cannot suppose myself to be reading a verse, unless I adopt the emendation of the second folio. Steevens.

5 -

the imposition clear'd,

Hereditary ours.] i. e. setting aside original sin; bating the imposition from the offence of our first parents, we might have boldly protested our innocence to Heaven. Warburton.

6 Grace to boot!

Of this make no conclusion; lest you say, &c.] Polixenes had said, that since the time of childhood and innocence, temptations had grown to them; for that, in that interval, the two Queens were become women. To each part of this observation the Queen answers in order. To that of temptations she replies, Grace to boot! i. e. though temptations have grown up, yet I hope grace too has kept pace with them._ Grace to boot, was a proverbial expression on these occasions. To the other part, she replies, as for our tempting you, pray take heed you draw no conclusion from thence, for that would be making your Queen and me devils, &c. Warburton.

This explanation may be right; but I have no great faith in the existence of such a proverbial expression. Steevens.

She calls for Heaven's grace, to purify and vindicate her own character, and that of the wife of Polixenes, which might seem to be sullied by a species of argument that made them appear to have led their husbands into temptation.

Grace or Heaven help me!-Do not argue in that manner; do not draw any conclusion or inference from your, and your friend's, having, since those days of childhood and innocence, become acquainted with your Queen and me; for, as you have said that in