The Winter's Tale: Act 2

Hark ye,
The Queen your mother rounds apace.

Hark ye,
The Queen your mother rounds apace.

She is spread of late
Into a goodly bulk. Good time encounter her!

Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accursed
In being so blest!

...but if one present
Th’ abhorred ingredient to his eye, make known
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
With violent hefts.

Praise her but for this her without-door form,
Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight
The shrug, the “hum,” or “ha,” these petty brands
That calumny doth use—O, I am out,
That mercy does, for calumny will sear
Virtue itself—these shrugs, these “hum”s and “ha”s,
When you have said she’s goodly, come between
Ere you can say she’s honest.

Praise her but for this her without-door form,
Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight
The shrug, the “hum,” or “ha,” these petty brands
That calumny doth use—O, I am out,
That mercy does, for calumny will sear
Virtue itself—these shrugs, these “hum”s and “ha”s,
When you have said she’s goodly, come between
Ere you can say she’s honest.

O thou thing,
Which I’ll not call a creature of thy place
Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
Should a like language use to all degrees,
And mannerly distinguishment leave out
Betwixt the prince and beggar.

O thou thing,
Which I’ll not call a creature of thy place
Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
Should a like language use to all degrees,
And mannerly distinguishment leave out
Betwixt the prince and beggar.

More, she’s a traitor, and Camillo is
A federary with her, and one that knows
What she should shame to know herself
But with her most vile principal: that she’s
A bed-swerver, even as bad as those
That vulgars give bold’st titles; ay, and privy
To this their late escape.

Beseech your Highness
My women may be with me, for you see
My plight requires it.

Why, what need we
Commune with you of this, but rather follow
Our forceful instigation?

Our prerogative
Calls not your counsels, but our natural goodness
Imparts this, which if you—or stupefied
Or seeming so in skill—cannot or will not
Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves
We need no more of your advice.

Our prerogative
Calls not your counsels, but our natural goodness
Imparts this, which if you—or stupefied
Or seeming so in skill—cannot or will not
Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves
We need no more of your advice.

And I wish, my liege,
You had only in your silent judgment tried it,
Without more overture.

Either thou art most ignorant by age,
Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo’s flight,
Added to their familiarity—
Which was as gross as ever touched conjecture,
That lacked sight only, naught for approbation
But only seeing, all other circumstances
Made up to th’ deed—doth push on this
proceeding.

Yet, for a greater confirmation—
For in an act of this importance ’twere
Most piteous to be wild—I have dispatched in post
To sacred Delphos, to Apollo’s temple,
Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know
Of stuffed sufficiency.

Though I am satisfied and need no more
Than what I know, yet shall the oracle
Give rest to th’ minds of others, such as he
Whose ignorant credulity will not
Come up to th’ truth.

Here’s ado, to lock up honesty and honor from
Th’ access of gentle visitors.

Dear gentlewoman,
How fares our gracious lady?

As well as one so great and so forlorn
May hold together.

Madam, if ’t please the Queen to send the babe,
I know not what I shall incur to pass it,
Having no warrant.

This child was prisoner to the womb, and is
By law and process of great nature thence
Freed and enfranchised, not a party to
The anger of the King, nor guilty of,
If any be, the trespass of the Queen.

Say that she were gone,
Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest
Might come to me again.

To see his nobleness,
Conceiving the dishonor of his mother.
He straight declined, drooped, took it deeply,
Fastened and fixed the shame on ’t in himself,
Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,
And downright languished.

I
Do come with words as medicinal as true,
Honest as either, to purge him of that humor
That presses him from sleep.

Away with that audacious lady. Antigonus,
I charged thee that she should not come about me.
I knew she would.

Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes
First hand me.

The good queen,
For she is good, hath brought you forth a
daughter—
Here ’tis—commends it to your blessing.

Thou dotard; thou art woman-tired, unroosted
By thy Dame Partlet here.

Take up the bastard,
Take ’t up, I say. Give ’t to thy crone.

Forever
Unvenerable be thy hands if thou
Tak’st up the Princess by that forced baseness
Which he has put upon ’t.

It is yours,
And, might we lay th’ old proverb to your charge,
So like you ’tis the worse.

It is an heretic that makes the fire,
Not she which burns in ’t.

I’ll not call you tyrant;
But this most cruel usage of your queen,
Not able to produce more accusation
Than your own weak-hinged fancy, something savors
Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you,
Yea, scandalous to the world.

I’ll not call you tyrant;
But this most cruel usage of your queen,
Not able to produce more accusation
Than your own weak-hinged fancy, something savors
Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you,
Yea, scandalous to the world.

And on our knees we beg,
As recompense of our dear services
Past and to come, that you do change this purpose,
Which being so horrible, so bloody, must
Lead on to some foul issue.

You, sir, come
you hither,
You that have been so tenderly officious
With Lady Margery, your midwife there,
To save this bastard’s life—for ’tis a bastard,
So sure as this beard’s gray.

We enjoin thee,
As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry
This female bastard hence, and that thou bear it
To some remote and desert place quite out
Of our dominions

Summon a session, that we may arraign
Our most disloyal lady; for, as she hath
Been publicly accused, so shall she have
A just and open trial.