To bless the bed of majesty again

With a sweet fellow to't?

Paul.

Respecting her that's gone.

There is none worthy,

Besides, the gods
Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes:
For has not the divine Apollo said,
Is't not the tenour of his oracle,

That king Leontes shall not have an heir,
Till his lost child be found? which, that it shall,
Is all as monstrous to our human reason,
As my Antigonus to break his grave,
And come again to me; who, on my life,
Did perish with the infant. "Tis your counsel,
My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
Oppose against their wills.—Care not for issue:
[TO LEONTES.
The crown will find an heir: Great Alexander
Left his to the worthiest; so his successor
Was like to be the best.

Leon.

Good Paulina,-

Who hast the memory of Hermione,

I know, in honour, -O, that ever I

Had squar'd me to thy counsel!-then, even now, I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes; Have taken treasure from her lips,

Paul.

More rich, for what they yielded.

Leon.

And left them

Thou speak'st truth.

No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse,
And better us'd, would make her sainted spirit
Again possess her corps; and, on this stage
(Where we offenders now appear), soul-vex'd,
Begin, And why to me??

2 The old copy reads, And begin, why to me.' The transposition of and was made by Steevens.

Paul.

She had just cause.
Leon.

Had she such power,

She had; and would incense 3 me

To murder her I married.

I should so:

Paul. Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid you mark Her eye; and tell me, for what dull part in't You chose her: then I'd shriek, that even your ears Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd Should be, Remember mine.

Will you swear

Never to marry, but by my free leave?

Leon. Never, Paulina; so be bless'd my spirit! Paul. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his

oath.

Cleo. You tempt him over-much.

Paul.

As like Hermione as is her picture,
Affront5 his eye.

Unless another,

3 Incense, to instigate or stimulate, was the ancient sense of this word; it is rendered in the Latin dictionaries by dare stimulo. So in King Richard III.

'Think you, my lord, this little prating York

Was not incensed by his subtle mother?'

4 i. e. split.

5 i. e. meet his eye, or encounter it. Affrontare, Ital. Shakspeare uses this word with the same meaning again in Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 1:

'That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia.'

And in Cymbeline: Your preparation can affront no less than what you hear of.' The word is used in the same sense by Ben Jonson, and even by Dryden. Lodge, in the Preface to his Translation of Seneca, says, 'No soldier is counted valiant that affronteth not his enemie.'

Cleo. Paul.

Good madam,

I have done.

Yet, if my lord will marry,—if you will, sir,
No remedy, but you will: give me the office
To choose you a queen: She shall not be so young
As was your former; but she shall be such,

As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy
To see her in your arms.

Leon.

My true Paulina, We shall not marry, till thou bidd'st us.

Paul.

That

Shall be, when your first queen's again in breath; Never till then.

Enter a Gentleman.

Gent. One that gives out himself prince Florizel, Son of Polixenes, with his princess (she

The fairest I have yet beheld), desires access

To your high presence.

Leon.
Like to his father's greatness: his approach,
So out of circumstance, and sudden, tells us,
"Tis not a visitation fram'd, but forc'd
By need, and accident. What train?

What with him? he comes not

Gent.

And those but mean.

But few,

His princess, say you, with him?

Leon. Gent. Ay; the most peerless piece of earth, I think, That e'er the sun shone bright on.

Paul.

O Hermione,

As every present time doth boast itself

6

Above a better, gone; so must thy grave
Give way to what's seen now. Sir, you yourself

6 i. e. thy beauties which are buried in the grave.

Have said, and writ so7 (but your writing now
Is colder than that theme), She had not been
Nor was not to be equall'd;—thus your verse
Flow'd with her beauty once; 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,
To say, you have seen a better.

Gent.

Pardon, madam : The one I have almost forgot (your pardon); The other, when she has obtain❜d your eye, Will have your tongue too. This is a creature, Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal Of all professors else: make proselytes

Of who she but bid follow.

Paul.

How? not women

?

Gent. Women will love her, that she is a woman More worth than any man; men, that she is The rarest of all women.

Leon.

Go, Cleomenes;

Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,

Bring them to our embracement.-Still 'tis strange, [Exeunt CLEOMENES, Lords, and Gentlemen.

He thus should steal upon us.

Paul.
Had our prince
(Jewel of children) seen this hour, he had pair'd
Well with this lord; there was not full a month
Between their births.

Leon.
Pr'ythee, no more; thou know'st 9,
He dies to me again, when talk'd of: sure,
When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
Will bring me to consider that, which may
Unfurnish me of reason.-They are come.-

7 So relates not to what precedes, but to what follows; that she had not been equall'd.

8 i. e. than the corse of Hermione, the subject of your writing. 9 The old copy reads, 'Pr'ythee, no more; cease; thou know'st,' &c. Steevens made the omission of the redundant word, which he considers a mere marginal gloss or explanation of no more.

Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA,

and Attendants.

Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince;
For she did print your royal father off,
Conceiving you: Were I but twenty-one,
Your father's image is so hit in you,

His very air, that I should call you brother,
As I did him and speak of something, wildly
By us perform❜d before. Most dearly welcome!
And your fair princess, goddess!-O, alas!
I lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth
Might thus have stood, begetting wonder, as
You, gracious couple, do! and then I lost
(All mine own folly) the society,
Amity too, of your brave father; whom,
Though bearing misery, I desire my life
Once more to look on him 10.

Flo.

Have I here touch'd Sicilia:

By his command

and from him

Give you all greetings, that a king, at friend 11,
Can send his brother: and, but infirmity

(Which waits upon worn times) hath something seiz'd His wish'd ability, he had himself

The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
Measur'd, to look upon you; whom he loves
(He bade me say so) more than all the sceptres,
And those that bear them, living.

Leon. O, my brother, (Good gentleman!) the wrongs, I have done thee, stir 10 Steevens altered this to look upon, but there are many instances of similar construction in Shakspeare, incorrect as they may now appear.

11 i. e. at amity, as we now say. custom, would here desert the old

Malone, contrary to his usual reading; and says he has met

with no example of similar phraseology! He surely must have read very inattentively.