HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes. PERDITA, Daughter to Leontes and Hermione. PAULINA, Wife to Antigonus. EMILIA, a Lady attending the Queen. MOPSA, } Shepherdesses. DORCAS, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Satyrs, Shepherds, Shepherdesses, Guards, &c. SCENE, sometimes in Sicilia, sometimes in Bohemia. 1 An incomplete list of characters is appended to the play in the old copies, under the title of "The Names of the Actors." THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT I. SCENE I. Sicilia. An Antechamber in LEONTES' Palace. Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS. Arch. 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. Cam. I think, this coming summer, the king of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him. Arch. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us, we will be justified in our loves: for, indeed,— Cam. Beseech you, Arch. 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. 1 - unintelligent of our INSUFFICIENCE,] Here we have an authority, if any were wanted, for sufficience, instead of "sufficiency," in "Measure for Measure," Vol. ii. p. 7, for the purpose of curing the defective metre. Were we warranted in taking any such liberty with the text, we might there read, with improvement both to the sense and verse, "then, no more remains, But your sufficience, as your worth is able, Cam. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. Arch. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance. Cam. Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind 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 attorney'd, 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! Arch. 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. Cam. 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. Arch. Would they else be content to die? 2 shook hands, as over a VAST,] This is the reading of the first folio: the second has it, "shook hands, as over a vast sea," which, being an unnecessary addition, is here rejected. "Vast" is used substantively, and, as Steevens observed, Shakespeare uses it for the sea in the following line from "Pericles," "Thou God of this great cast, rebuke these surges." In "The Tempest" also we have the expression of the "rast of night." This opportunity may be taken to mention, that the line in "Hamlet," A. i. sc. 2, which is printed in the folio, 1623, "In the dead waste and middle of the night," is given in the earliest 4to, of 1603, in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, "In the dead cast and middle of the night." 3 one that, indeed, PHYSICS the SUBJECT,] Here, as in "Measure for Measure," A. iii. sc. 2, (and perhaps A. ii. sc. 4,) the word "subject" is used in a plural sense for "subjects." The expression "physics the subject" means, gives the subjects of the king, or the state generally, health and vigour. Cam. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live. Arch. 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, Pol. Nine changes of the watery star have been Go hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher, With one we-thank-you many thousands more Leon. Stay your thanks awhile, And pay them when you part. Pol. Sir, that's to-morrow. I am question'd by my fears, of what may chance, No sneaping winds at home, to make us say, "This is put forth too truly1." Besides, I have stay'd that may blow NO SNEAPING winds at home, to make us say, "This is put forth too truly."] Sneaping "is snipping or nipping, as in "Love's Labour's Lost," Vol. ii. p. 286. The meaning seems to be, that Polixenes hopes that no sharp winds may blow at home, to induce him to say that he too truly prognosticated the consequences of his absence. Farmer would take" that may blow," &c. as an exclamation, “ O, that may blow;" &c. and he is correct in saying that that is not unfrequently put for " O, that," but this construction of the passage adds little to its intelligibility. Warburton calls it nonsense," and some corruption is pretty evident. Leon. We'll part the time between's then; and in that I'll no gain-saying. Pol. Press me not, beseech you, so. There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world, So soon as yours, could win me: so it should now, Do even drag me homeward; which to hinder, Leon. Tongue-tied, our queen? speak you. Her. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace, until You had drawn oaths from him, not to stay. You, sir, Charge him too coldly: tell him, you are sure All in Bohemia's well: this satisfaction The by-gone day proclaim'd. He's beat from his best ward. Leon. Say this to him, Well said, Hermione. Her. To tell he longs to see his son were strong: But let him say so then, and let him go; But let him swear so, and he shall not stay, We'll thwack him hence with distaffs. Yet of your royal presence [TO POLIXENES.] I'll ad venture The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia You take my lord, I'll give him my commission, To let him there a month behind the gest |