| Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech’d, | 155 |
In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzl’d,
Lest it should bite its master and so prove,
As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.
How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,
| This squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend, | 160 |
Will you take eggs for money?
Mamillius
No, my lord, I’ll fight.
Leontes
You will? Why, happy man be’s dole! My brother,
Are you so fond of your young prince as we
Do seem to be of ours?
Polixenes
| If at home, sir, | 165 |
He’s all my exercise, my mirth, my matter;
Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.
He makes a July’s day short as December,
| And with his varying childness cures in me | 170 |
Thoughts that would thick my blood.
Leontes
So stands this squire
Offic’d with me. We two will walk, my lord,
And leave you to your graver steps. Hermione,
How thou lov’st us show in our brother’s welcome;
| Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap; | 175 |
Next to thyself and my young rover, he’s
Apparent to my heart.
Hermione
If you would seek us,
We are yours i’ th’ garden. Shall’s attend you there?
Leontes
To your own bents dispose you; you’ll be found,
| Be you beneath the sky. [Aside] I am angling now, | 180 |
Though you perceive me not how I give line.
Go to, go to!
How she holds up the neb, the bill to him!
And arms her with the boldness of a wife
To her allowing husband!
[Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and Attendants.]
| Gone already! | 185 |
Inch-thick, knee-deep, o’er head and ears a fork’d one!
Go, play, boy, play; thy mother plays, and I
Play too; but so disgrac’d a part, whose issue
Will hiss me to my grave. Contempt and clamour
| Will be my knell. Go, play, boy, play. There have been, | 190 |
Or I am much deceiv’d, cuckolds ere now;
And many a man there is, even at this present,
Now while I speak this, holds his wife by th’ arm
That little thinks she has been sluic’d in’s absence,
| And his pond fish’d by his next neighbour, by | 195 |
Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there’s comfort in’t,
Whiles other men have gates and those gates open’d,
As mine, against their will. Should all despair
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
| Would hang themselves. Physic for’t there’s none; | 200 |
It is a bawdy planet, that will strike
Where ’tis predominant; and ’tis pow’rful, think it,
From east, west, north, and south. Be it concluded,
No barricado for a belly. Know’t,
| It will let in and out the enemy | 205 |
With bag and baggage. Many thousand on’s
Have the disease, and feel’t not. How now, boy!
Mamillius
I am like you, they say.
Leontes
Why, that’s some comfort.
What! Camillo there?
Camillo
| Ay, my good lord. | 210 |
Leontes
Go play, Mamillius; thou’rt an honest man.
[Exit MAMILLIUS.]
Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.
Camillo
You had much ado to make his anchor hold;
When you cast out, it still came home.
Leontes
Didst note it?
Camillo
| He would not stay at your petitions; made | 215 |
His business more material.
Leontes
Didst perceive it?
[Aside] They’re here with me already; whisp’ring, rounding,
‘Sicilia is a so-forth’. ’Tis far gone
When I shall gust it last. – How came’t, Camillo,
That he did stay?
Camillo
| At the good Queen’s entreaty. | 220 |
Leontes
‘At the Queen’s’ be’t. ‘Good’ should be pertinent;
But so it is, it is not. Was this taken
By any understanding pate but thine?
For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in
| More than the common blocks. Not noted, is’t, | 225 |
But of the finer natures, by some severals
Of head-piece extraordinary? Lower messes
Perchance are to this business purblind? Say.
Camillo
Business,