The Winter's Tale: Act 3

I shall report,
For most it caught me, the celestial habits—
Methinks I so should term them—and the reverence
Of the grave wearers.

I shall report,
For most it caught me, the celestial habits—
Methinks I so should term them—and the reverence
Of the grave wearers.

O, the sacrifice,
How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly
It was i’ th’ off’ring!

But of all, the burst
And the ear-deaf’ning voice o’ th’ oracle,
Kin to Jove’s thunder, so surprised my sense
That I was nothing.

Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes, King of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in committing adultery with Polixenes, King of Bohemia, and conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign lord the King, thy royal husband; the pretense whereof being by circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of a true subject, didst counsel and aid them, for their better safety, to fly away by night.

You, my lord, best know,
Whom least will seem to do so, my past life
Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,
As I am now unhappy

For behold me,
A fellow of the royal bed, which owe
A moiety of the throne, a great king’s daughter,
The mother to a hopeful prince, here standing
To prate and talk for life and honor fore
Who please to come and hear.

I ne’er heard yet
That any of these bolder vices wanted
Less impudence to gainsay what they did
Than to perform it first.

I ne’er heard yet
That any of these bolder vices wanted
Less impudence to gainsay what they did
Than to perform it first.

As you were past all shame—
Those of your fact are so—so past all truth,
Which to deny concerns more than avails

But yet hear this (mistake me not: no life,
I prize it not a straw, but for mine honor,
Which I would free), if I shall be condemned
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you
’Tis rigor, and not law.

Apollo, pardon
My great profaneness ’gainst thine oracle.

I’ll reconcile me to Polixenes,
New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo,
Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy

How he glisters
Through my rust, and how his piety
Does my deeds make the blacker!

What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?
What wheels, racks, fires? What flaying? Boiling
In leads or oils?

Nor is ’t directly laid to thee the death
Of the young prince, whose honorable thoughts,
Thoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart
That could conceive a gross and foolish sire
Blemished his gracious dam.

Nor is ’t directly laid to thee the death
Of the young prince, whose honorable thoughts,
Thoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart
That could conceive a gross and foolish sire
Blemished his gracious dam.

Alas, I have showed too much
The rashness of a woman.

What’s gone and what’s past help
Should be past grief. Do not receive affliction
At my petition.

Enter Antigonus carrying the babe, and a Mariner.

The skies look grimly
And threaten present blusters.

The fury spent, anon
Did this break from her: “Good Antigonus,
Since fate, against thy better disposition,
Hath made thy person for the thrower-out
Of my poor babe, according to thine oath,
Places remote enough are in Bohemia..."

I never saw
The heavens so dim by day.
Thunder, and sounds of hunting.
A savage clamor!

I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest, for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting—Hark you now.

Yet I’ll tarry till my son come.

I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land—but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the firmament and it, you cannot thrust a bodkin’s point.

I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land—but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the firmament and it, you cannot thrust a bodkin’s point.

I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up the shore.

Open ’t. So, let’s see. It was told me I should be rich by the fairies. This is some changeling. Open ’t. What’s within, boy?

If thou mayest discern by that which is left of him what he is, fetch me to th’ sight of him.