Tales from Shakespeare. Charles Lamb
“Mark your divorce, young sir,” said the king, discovering himself. Polixenes then reproached his son for daring to contract himself to this low-born maiden, calling Perdita “shepherd’s brat, sheep-hook,” and other disrespectful names, and threatening if ever she suffered his son to see her again, he would put her, and the old shepherd her father, to a cruel death.
The king then left them in great wrath, and ordered Camillo to follow him with Prince Florizel.
When the king had departed, Perdita, whose royal nature was roused by Polixenes’s reproaches, said, “Though we are all undone, I was not much afraid; and once or twice I was about to speak and tell him plainly that the selfsame sun which shines upon his palace hides not his face from our cottage, but looks on both alike.” Then sorrowfully she said, “But now I am awakened from this dream, I will queen it no further. Leave me, sir. I will go milk my ewes and weep.”
The kind-hearted Camillo was charmed with the spirit and propriety of Perdita’s behavior; and, perceiving that the young prince was too deeply in love to give up his mistress at the command of his royal father, he thought of a way to befriend the lovers and at the same time to execute a favorite scheme he had in his mind.
Camillo had long known that Leontes, the King of Sicily, was become a true penitent; and though Camillo was now the favored friend of King Polixenes, he could not help wishing once more to see his late royal master and his native home. He therefore proposed to Florizel and Perdita that they should accompany him to the Sicilian court, where he would engage Leontes should protect them till, through his mediation, they could obtain pardon from Polixenes and his consent to their marriage.
To this proposal they joyfully agreed; and Camillo, who conducted everything relative to their flight, allowed the old shepherd to go along with them.
The shepherd took with him the remainder of Perdita’s jewels, her baby clothes, and the paper which he had found pinned to her mantle.
After a prosperous voyage, Florizel and Perdita, Camillo and the old shepherd, arrived in safety at the court of Leontes. Leontes, who still mourned his dead Hermione and his lost child, received Camillo with great kindness and gave a cordial welcome to Prince Florizel. But Perdita, whom Florizel introduced as his princess, seemed to engross all Leontes’s attention. Perceiving a resemblance between her and his dead queen Hermione, his grief broke out afresh, and he said such a lovely creature might his own daughter have been if he had not so cruelly destroyed her.
“And then, too,” said he to Florizel, “I lost the society and friendship of your brave father, whom I now desire more than my life once again to look upon.”
When the old shepherd heard how much notice the king had taken of Perdita, and that he had lost a daughter who was exposed in infancy, he fell to comparing the time when he found the little Perdita with the manner of its exposure, the jewels and other tokens of its high birth; from all which it was impossible for him not to conclude that Perdita and the king’s lost daughter were the same.
Florizel and Perdita, Camillo and the faithful Paulina, were present when the old shepherd related to the king the manner in which he had found the child, and also the circumstance of Antigonus’s death, he having seen the bear seize upon him. He showed the rich mantle in which Paulina remembered Hermione had wrapped the child; and he produced a jewel which she remembered Hermione had tied about Perdita’s neck; and he gave up the paper which Paulina knew to be the writing of her husband. It could not be doubted that Perdita was Leontes’s own daughter. But, oh, the noble struggles of Paulina, between sorrow for her husband’s death and joy that the oracle was fulfilled, in the king’s heir, his long-lost daughter being found! When Leontes heard that Perdita was his daughter, the great sorrow that he felt that Hermione was not living to behold her child made him that he could say nothing for a long time but “Oh, thy mother, thy mother!”
Paulina interrupted this joyful yet distressful scene with saying to Leontes that she had a statue newly finished by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano, which was such a perfect resemblance of the queen that would his Majesty be pleased to go to her house and look upon it, be would be almost ready to think it was Hermione herself. Thither then they all went; the king, anxious to see the semblance of his Hermione, and Perdita longing to behold what the mother she never saw did look like.
When Paulina drew back the curtain which concealed this famous statue, so perfectly did it resemble Hermione that all the king’s sorrow was renewed at the sight; for a long time he had no power to speak or move.
“I like your silence, my liege,” said Paulina; “it the more shows your wonder. Is not this statue very like your queen?”
At length the king said: “Oh, thus she stood, even with such majesty, when I first wooed her. But yet, Paulina, Hermione was not so aged as this statue looks.”
Paulina replied: “So much the more the carver’s excellence, who has made the statue as Hermione would have looked had she been living now. But let me draw the curtain, sire, lest presently you think it moves.”
The king then said: “Do not draw the curtain. Would I were dead! See, Carmillo, would you not think it breathed? Her eye seems to have motion in it.”
“I must draw the curtain, my liege,” said Paulina. “You are so transported, you will persuade yourself the statue lives.”
“Oh, sweet Pauline,” said Leontes, “make me think so twenty years together! Still methinks there is an air comes from her. What fine chisel could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me, for I will kiss her.”
“Good my lord, forbear!” said Paulina. “The ruddiness upon her lip is wet; you will stain your own with oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?”
“No, not these twenty years,” said Leontes.
Perdita, who all this time bad been kneeling and beholding in silent admiration the statue of her matchless mother, said now, “And so long could I stay here, looking upon my dear mother.”
“Either forbear this transport,” said Paulina to Leontes, “and let me draw the curtain or prepare yourself for more amazement. I can make the statue move indeed; aye, and descend from off the pedestal and take you by the hand. But then you will think, which I protest I am not, that I am assisted by some wicked powers.”
“What you can make her do,” said the astonished king, “I am content to look upon. What you can make her speak I am content to hear; for it is as easy to make her speak as move.”
Paulina then ordered some slow and solemn music, which she had prepared for the purpose, to strike up; and, to the amazement of all the beholders, the statue came down from off the pedestal and threw its arms around Leontes’s neck. The statue then began to speak, praying for blessings on her husband and on her child, the newly found Perdita.
No wonder that the statue hung upon Leontes’s neck and blessed her husband and her child. No wonder; for the statue was indeed Hermione herself, the real, the living queen.
Paulina had falsely reported to the king the death of Hermione’ thinking that the only means to preserve her royal mistress’s life; and with the good Paulina Hermione had lived ever since, never choosing Leontes should know she was living till she heard Perdita was found; for though she had long forgiven the injuries which Leontes had done to herself, she could not pardon his cruelty to his infant daughter.
His dead queen thus restored to life, his lost daughter found, the long-sorrowing Leontes could scarcely support the excess of his own happiness.
Nothing but congratulations and affectionate speeches were heard on all sides. Now the delighted parents thanked Prince Florizel for loving their lowly seeming daughter; and now they blessed the good old shepherd for preserving their child. Greatly did Camillo and Paulina rejoice that they had lived to see so good an end of all their faithful services.
And as if nothing should be wanting to complete this strange and unlooked-for joy, King Polixenes himself now entered the palace.
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