Leo. I think fo. Kill'd?

Kill'd? she I kill'd? I did fo, but thou strik'st me

Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter

Upon thy tongue, as in my thought. Now, good now, Say fo but feldom.

Gle. Not at all, good Lady;

You might have spoke a thousand things that would
Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd
Your kindness better.

Paul. You are one of those

Would have him wed again.

Dion. If you would not fo,
You pity not the state, nor the remembrance
Of his moft fovereign name; consider little,
What dangers by his Highness' fail of issue
May drop upon his kingdom, and devour
Incertain lookers on. What were more holy,
Than to rejoice the former Queen? This will.
What holier, than for royalty's repair,
For present comfort, and for future good,
To bless the bed of Majesty again
With a fweet fellow to 't?

Paul. There is none worthy,
Refpecting her that's gone. Befides, the gods
Will have fulfill'd their fecret purposes:
For has not the divine Apollo faid,
Is 't not the tenor of his oracle,

That King Leontes shall not have an heir,
Till his loft child be found

which, that it shall,

Is all as monftrous to our human reafon,
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 heav'ns be contrary,

Oppofe against their wills.

Care not for issue;

[To the King.

The crown will find an heir.

Great Alexander

Left his to th' worthiest'; fo his fucceffor

Was like to be the best.

Leo. Good Paulina,

Who haft 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. And left them

More rich, for what they yielded.

Leo. Thou speak'st truth :

No more fuch wives, therefore no wife; one worse,

And better us'd, would make her fainted spirit
Again possess her corpse; and on this stage
(Where we offend her now) appear foul-vex'd,
And begin, Why to me?

Paul. Had she such power,

She had just caufe.

Leo. She had, and would incense me

To murder her I married.
Paul. I should fo.

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
Shou'd rift to hear me, and the words that follow'd
Should be, Remember mine..

Leo. Stars, stars,

And all eyes else, dead coals: fear thou no wife.
I'll have no wife, Paulina.

Paul. Will you fwear

Never to marry, but by my free leave ?

Leo. 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. Unless another,

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

Cleo. Good Madam, pray, have done.

Paul. Yet, if my Lord will marry; if you will, Sir;

No remedy, but you will; give me the office

To chuse you a Queen; she shall not be fo young

As was your former; but she shall be fuch

As, walk'd your first Queen's ghost, it should take joy

To fee her in your arms.

Leo. My true Paulina,

We shall not marry till thou bidd'st us.
VOL. III.

Aa

Paul. That
Shall be when your first Queen's again in breath :
Never till then.

SCENE II. Enter a Gentleman.

Gent. One that gives out himself Prince Florizel, Son of Polixenes, with his Princess (she The fairest I have yet beheld), defires access To your high prefence.

Leo. What with him? he comes not Like to his father's greatness; his approach, So out of circumstance and fudden, tells us, 'Tis not a visitation fram'd, but forc'd

By need and accident. What train ?

Gent. But few,

And those but mean.

Leo. His Princess, say you, with him ?

Gent. Yes; the most peerless piece of earth, I think,

That e'er the fun shone bright on.

Paul. Oh Hermione,

As every present time doth boaft itself
Above a better gone, so must thy grave *
Give way to what's seen now. Sir, you yourself
Have faid, and writ so: but your writing now
Is colder than that theme: she had not been,
Nor was she to be equall'd; thus your verse
Flow'd with her beauty once; 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,
To fay you've 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 fect, might quench the zeal
Of all profeffors elfe, make profelytes
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 the is
The rareft of all women.

Leo. Go, Clomenes;

Yourself (assisted with your honour'd friends)

He thus should fteal upon us.

[Exit. Cleo.

Bring them to our embracement. Still 'tis strange

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.

Leo. Pr'ythee, no more; ceafe; thou know'st, He dies to me again, when talk'd of: fure, When I shall fee this gentleman, thy speeches Will bring me to confider that which may Unfurnish me of reason. They are come.

Enter Florizel, Perdita, Cleomenes, and others.

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 fomething wildly
By us perform'd before. Moft dearly welcome,
As your fair Princess, goddess!-Oh! alas!
I lost a couple, that 'twixt heav'n and earth
Might thus have ftood begetting wonder, as
You gracious couple do; and then I loft
(All mine own folly !) the society,
Amity too of your brave father, whom
(Tho' bearing mifery) I defire my life
Once more to look on.

Flo. Sir, by his command
Have I here touch'd Sicilia, and from him
Give you all greetings that a King (at friend)
Can fend his brother; and but infirmity,

Which waits upon worn times, hath something feiz'd
His wish'd ability, he had himfelf

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 fceptres,
And those that bear them living.

Leo. Oh, my brother!

Good gentleman, the wrongs I have done thee ftir

Afresh within me; and these thy offices,
So rarely kind, are as interpreters

Of my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither,
As is th' spring to th' earth. And hath he too
Expos'd this paragon to th' fearful ufage

(At least, ungentle) of the dreadful Neptune,
To greet a man not worth her pains, much less
Th' adventure of her perfon ?

Flo. Good my Lord,

She came from Libya.

Leo. Where the warlike Smalus,

That noble honour'd Lord, is fear'd and lov'd?

Flo. Moft royal Sir,

From thence; from him, whose daughter
His tears proclaim'd his parting with her; thence
(A profperous fouth-wind friendly) we have cross'd,
To execute the charge my father gave me,
For visiting your Highness; my best train
I have from your Sicilian shore dismiss'd,
Who for Bithynia bend, to signify
Not only my fuccess in Libya, Sir,
But my arrival, and my wife's, in fafety
Here where we are.

Leo. The blessed gods
Purge all infection from our air, whilft you
Do climate here! You have a holy father,
A graceful gentleman, against whose person,
So facred as it is, I have done fin;
For which the heavens, taking angry note,
Have left me issueless; and your father's bless'd,
As he from heaven merits it, with you,
Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,
Might I a fon and daughter now have look'd on,
Such goodly things as you !

SCENE IV.

Lord. Most Noble Sir,

Enter a Lord.

That which I shall report, will bear no credit,
Were not the proof so high. Please you, great Sir,
Bithynia greets you from himself, by me;
Defires you to attach his fon, who has
His dignity and duty both caft off,