PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Leontes, king of Sicilia:
Mamillius, his son.
Camillo,
Antigonus,

Sicilian lords.
Cleomenes,
Dion,
Another Sicilian lord.
Rogero, a Sicilian gentleman.
An attendant on the young prince Mamillius.
Officers of a court of judicature.
Polixenes, king of Bohemia:
Florizel, his son.
Archidamus, a Bohemian lord.
A mariner.
Gaoler.
An old shepherd, reputed father of Perdita:
Clown, his son.
Servant to the old shepherd.
Autolycus, a rogue.
Time, as Chorus.

Hermione, Queen to Leontes.
Perdita, daughter to Leontes and Hermione,
Paulina, wife to Antigonus.
Emelia, a lady,
Two other ladies,

attending the queen.

}

Mopsas,} shepherdesses.

Dorcas
Lords, ladies, and attendants ; satyrs for a dance; shen-

herds, shepherdesses, guards, &c.

SCENE,
Sometimes in Sicilia, sometimes in Bohemia.

WINTER'S TALE.

ACT I.....SCENE I.

Sicilia. An Antichamber in Leontes' Palace.

Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS.

1

.

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, indeed,

Cam. 'Beseech you,

Arch. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we cannot with such magnificence-in so rareI 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.

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

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

1- our entertainment &c.] Though we cannot give you equal entertainment, yet the consciousness of our good-will shall justify us. Johnson.

of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attornied, 2 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.3 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. Cam. I very well agree with

you in the hopes of him: It is a gallant child; one that, indeed physicks the subject,* makes old hearts fresh: they, that went on crutches ere he was born, desire yet their life, to see him a

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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.

[Exeunt.

2

3

royally attornied,] Nobly supplied by substitution of embassies, &c. Johnson.

shook hands, as over a vast; and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds.] Thus the folio, 1623. The folio, 1632:-over a vast sea. I have since found that Sir T. Hanmer attempted the same correction; though I believe the old reading to be the true one.

Vastum was the ancient term for waste un. cultivated land. Over a vast, therefore, means at a great and vacant distance from each other. Vast, however, may be used for the sea, as in Pericles, Prince of Tyre: “ Thou God of this great vast, rebuke the surges."

Steevens. Shakspeare has, more than once, taken his imagery from the prints, with which the books of his time were ornamented. If my memory do not «!eceive me, he had his eye on a wood cut in Holinshed, while writing the incantation of the weird sisters in Macbeth. There is also an allusion to a print of one of the Hen. ries holding a sword adorned with crowns. In this passage he refers to a device common in the title-pages of old books, of two hands extended from opposite clouds, and joined as in token of friendship over a wide waste of country. Henley.

-physicks the subject,] Affords a cordial to the state; has the power of assuaging the sense of misery. Fohnson. So, in Macbeth:

“The labour we delight in, physicks pain.” Steevens

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SCENE II.

The same.

A Room of State in the Palace.

Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS,

CAMILLO, and Attendants.
Pol. Nine changes of the wat’ry 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!6 Besides, I have stay'd
To tire your royalty.

5

that may blow 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:

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.'

H. White. 6 This is put forth too truly!] 1. e. to make me say, I had too good reason for my fears concerning what might happen in my

Leon.

We are tougher, brother,
Than you can put us to 't.
Pol.

No longer stay.
Leon. One seven-night longer.
Pol.

Very sooth, to-morrow. 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 i' 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 (10 Pol.] I 'll adventure The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia You take my lord, I'll give him my commission, 8

7

8

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

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