The Winter's Tale. William Shakespeare
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William Shakespeare
The Winter's Tale
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664092977
Table of Contents
Dramatis Personae
LEONTES, King of Sicilia
MAMILLIUS, his son
CAMILLO, Sicilian Lord
ANTIGONUS, Sicilian Lord
CLEOMENES, Sicilian Lord
DION, Sicilian Lord
POLIXENES, King of Bohemia
FLORIZEL, his son
ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian Lord
An Old Shepherd, reputed father of Perdita
CLOWN, his son
AUTOLYCUS, a rogue
A Mariner
Gaoler
Servant to the Old Shepherd
Other Sicilian Lords
Sicilian Gentlemen
Officers of a Court of Judicature
HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes
PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Hermione
PAULINA, wife to Antigonus
EMILIA, a lady attending on the Queen
MOPSA, shepherdess
DORCAS, shepherdess
Other Ladies, attending on the Queen
Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Satyrs
for a Dance; Shepherds,
Shepherdesses, Guards, &c.
TIME, as Chorus
Scene:
Sometimes in Sicilia; sometimes in Bohemia.
ACT I.
SCENE I. Sicilia. An Antechamber in LEONTES' Palace.
[Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS]
ARCHIDAMUS
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.
CAMILLO
I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.
ARCHIDAMUS
Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be justified in our loves; for indeed—
CAMILLO
Beseech you—
ARCHIDAMUS
Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we cannot with such magnificence—in so rare—I 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.
CAMILLO
You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.
ARCHIDAMUS
Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.
CAMILLO
Sicilia cannot show himself overkind 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 of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed 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. The heavens continue their loves!
ARCHIDAMUS
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.
CAMILLO
I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a gallant child; one that indeed physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man.
ARCHIDAMUS
Would they else be content to die?
CAMILLO
Yes, if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.
ARCHIDAMUS
If the king had no son, they would desire to live on crutches till he had one.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. The same. A Room of State in the Palace.
[Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and Attendants.]
POLIXENES
Nine changes of the watery star hath 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