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The Winter’s Tale: Act V, Scene 1

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The Winter’s Tale
Act V, Scene 1

Scene 1

Sicilia. A room in the palace of Leontes.

  1. Enter Leontes, Cleomines, Dion, Paulina, Servants.

Cleomines

1 - 6
  1. Sir, you have done enough, and have perform’d
  2. A saint-like sorrow. No fault could you make
  3. Which you have not redeem’d; indeed paid down
  4. More penitence than done trespass. At the last
  5. Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil,
  6. With them, forgive yourself.

Leontes

7 - 13
  1.                              Whilest I remember
  2. Her and her virtues, I cannot forget
  3. My blemishes in them, and so still think of
  4. The wrong I did myself; which was so much
  5. That heirless it hath made my kingdom, and
  6. Destroy’d the sweet’st companion that e’er man
  7. Bred his hopes out of.

Paulina

14 - 18
  1.                        True, too true, my lord.
  2. If, one by one, you wedded all the world,
  3. Or, from the all that are, took something good
  4. To make a perfect woman, she you kill’d
  5. Would be unparallel’d.

Leontes

19 - 23
  1.                        I think so. Kill’d?
  2. She I kill’d? I did so; but thou strik’st me
  3. Sorely, to say I did. It is as bitter
  4. Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,
  5. Say so but seldom.

Cleomines

24 - 27
  1.                    Not at all, good lady.
  2. You might have spoken a thousand things that would
  3. Have done the time more benefit, and grac’d
  4. Your kindness better.

Paulina

28 - 29
  1.                       You are one of those
  2. Would have him wed again.

Dion

30 - 40
  1.                           If you would not so,
  2. You pity not the state, nor the remembrance
  3. Of his most sovereign name; consider little
  4. What dangers, by his Highness’ fail of issue,
  5. May drop upon his kingdom, and devour
  6. Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy
  7. Than to rejoice the former queen is well?
  8. What holier than, for royalty’s repair,
  9. For present comfort, and for future good,
  10. To bless the bed of majesty again
  11. With a sweet fellow to’t?

Paulina

41 - 57
  1.                           There is none worthy,
  2. Respecting her that’s gone. Besides, the gods
  3. Will have fulfill’d their secret purposes;
  4. For has not the divine Apollo said,
  5. Is’t not the tenor of his oracle,
  6. That King Leontes shall not have an heir
  7. Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall,
  8. Is all as monstrous to our human reason
  9. As my Antigonus to break his grave,
  10. And come again to me; who, on my life,
  11. Did perish with the infant. ’Tis your counsel
  12. My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
  13. Oppose against their wills.
  14. To Leontes.
  15.                             Care not for issue,
  16. The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander
  17. Left his to th’ worthiest; so his successor
  18. Was like to be the best.

Leontes

58 - 63
  1.                          Good Paulina,
  2. Who hast the memory of Hermione,
  3. I know, in honor, O, that ever I
  4. Had squar’d me to thy counsel! Then, even now,
  5. I might have look’d upon my queen’s full eyes,
  6. Have taken treasure from her lips—

Paulina

64 - 65
  1.                                    And left them
  2. More rich for what they yielded.

Leontes

66 - 71
  1.                                  Thou speak’st truth:
  2. No more such wives, therefore no wife. One worse,
  3. And better us’d, would make her sainted spirit
  4. Again possess her corpse, and on this stage
  5. (Where we offenders now) appear soul-vex’d,
  6. And begin, “Why to me—?”

Paulina

72 - 73
  1.                          Had she such power,
  2. She had just cause.
Mary Anderson as Perdita

Mary Anderson as Perdita

Mora, circa 1883

Leontes

74 - 75
  1.                     She had, and would incense me
  2. To murder her I married.

Paulina

76 - 81
  1.                          I should so:
  2. Were I the ghost that walk’d, I’ld bid you mark
  3. Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in’t
  4. You chose her; then I’ld shriek, that even your ears
  5. Should rift to hear me, and the words that follow’d
  6. Should be “Remember mine.”

Leontes

82 - 84
  1.                            Stars, stars,
  2. And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;
  3. I’ll have no wife, Paulina.

Paulina

85 - 86
  1.                             Will you swear
  2. Never to marry but by my free leave?

Leontes

87
  1. Never, Paulina, so be bless’d my spirit!

Paulina

88
  1. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.

Cleomines

89
  1. You tempt him overmuch.

Paulina

90 - 92
  1.                         Unless another,
  2. As like Hermione as is her picture,
  3. Affront his eye.

Cleomines

93
  1.                  Good madam—

Paulina

94 - 100
  1.             I have done.
  2. Yet if my lord will marry—if you will, sir,
  3. No remedy but you will—give me the office
  4. To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young
  5. As was your former, but she shall be such
  6. As (walk’d your first queen’s ghost) it should take joy
  7. To see her in your arms.

Leontes

101 - 102
  1.                          My true Paulina,
  2. We shall not marry till thou bid’st us.

Paulina

103 - 105
  1.                                         That
  2. Shall be when your first queen’s again in breath;
  3. Never till then.
  1. Enter First Servant.

First Servant

106 - 109
  1. One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,
  2. Son of Polixenes, with his princess (she
  3. The fairest I have yet beheld), desires access
  4. To your high presence.

Leontes

110 - 114
  1.                        What with him? He comes not
  2. Like to his father’s greatness. His approach,
  3. So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us
  4. ’Tis not a visitation fram’d, but forc’d
  5. By need and accident. What train?

First Servant

115 - 116
  1.                                   But few,
  2. And those but mean.

Leontes

117
  1.                     His princess, say you, with him?

First Servant

118 - 119
  1. Ay; the most peerless piece of earth, I think,
  2. That e’er the sun shone bright on.

Paulina

120 - 128
  1.                                    O Hermione,
  2. As every present time doth boast itself
  3. Above a better gone, so must thy grave
  4. Give way to what’s seen now! Sir, you yourself
  5. Have said and writ so, but your writing now
  6. Is colder than that theme, “She had not been,
  7. Nor was not to be equall’d”—thus your verse
  8. Flow’d with her beauty once. ’Tis shrewdly ebb’d,
  9. To say you have seen a better.

First Servant

129 - 135
  1.                                Pardon, madam:
  2. The one I have almost forgot—your pardon—
  3. The other, when she has obtain’d your eye,
  4. Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,
  5. Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
  6. Of all professors else, make proselytes
  7. Of who she but bid follow.

Paulina

136
  1.                            How? Not women?

First Servant

137 - 139
  1. Women will love her, that she is a woman
  2. More worth than any man; men, that she is
  3. The rarest of all women.

Leontes

140 - 144
  1.                          Go, Cleomines;
  2. Yourself, assisted with your honor’d friends,
  3. Bring them to our embracement.
  4. Exeunt Cleomines and others.
  5.                                Still, ’tis strange
  6. He thus should steal upon us.
Florizel

Florizel

From costume designs for the Viola Allen production of Winter's Tale

Tom Heslewood, 1904

Paulina

145 - 148
  1.                               Had our prince,
  2. Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair’d
  3. Well with this lord; there was not full a month
  4. Between their births.

Leontes

149 - 168
  1. Prithee no more; cease. Thou know’st
  2. He dies to me again when talk’d of. Sure
  3. When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
  4. Will bring me to consider that which may
  5. Unfurnish me of reason. They are come.
  6. Enter Florizel, Perdita, Cleomines, and others.
  7. Your mother was most true to wedlock, Prince,
  8. For she did print your royal father off,
  9. Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,
  10. Your father’s image is so hit in you
  11. (His very air) that I should call you brother,
  12. As I did him, and speak of something wildly
  13. By us perform’d before. Most dearly welcome!
  14. And your fair princess—goddess! O! Alas,
  15. I lost a couple, that ’twixt heaven and earth
  16. Might thus have stood, begetting wonder, as
  17. You, gracious couple, do; and then I lost
  18. (All mine own folly) the society,
  19. Amity too, of your brave father, whom
  20. (Though bearing misery) I desire my life
  21. Once more to look on him.

Florizel

169 - 178
  1.                           By his command
  2. Have I here touch’d Sicilia, and from him
  3. Give you all greetings that a king (at friend)
  4. Can send his brother; and but infirmity
  5. (Which waits upon worn times) hath something seiz’d
  6. His wish’d ability, he had himself
  7. The lands and waters ’twixt your throne and his
  8. Measur’d to look upon you; whom he loves
  9. (He bade me say so) more than all the sceptres,
  10. And those that bear them, living.

Leontes

179 - 188
  1.                                   O my brother,
  2. Good gentleman! The wrongs I have done thee stir
  3. Afresh within me, and these thy offices,
  4. So rarely kind, are as interpreters
  5. Of my behind-hand slackness.—Welcome hither,
  6. As is the spring to th’ earth. And hath he too
  7. Expos’d this paragon to th’ fearful usage
  8. (At least ungentle) of the dreadful Neptune,
  9. To greet a man not worth her pains, much less
  10. Th’ adventure of her person?

Florizel

189 - 190
  1.                              Good my lord,
  2. She came from Libya.

Leontes

191 - 192
  1.                      Where the warlike Smalus,
  2. That noble honor’d lord, is fear’d and lov’d?

Florizel

193 - 202
  1. Most royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter
  2. His tears proclaim’d his, parting with her; thence
  3. (A prosperous south-wind friendly) we have cross’d,
  4. To execute the charge my father gave me
  5. For visiting your Highness. My best train
  6. I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss’d;
  7. Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
  8. Not only my success in Libya, sir,
  9. But my arrival, and my wife’s, in safety
  10. Here, where we are.

Leontes

203 - 213
  1.                     The blessed gods
  2. Purge all infection from our air whilest you
  3. Do climate here! You have a holy father,
  4. A graceful gentleman, against whose person
  5. (So sacred as it is) I have done sin,
  6. For which the heavens, taking angry note,
  7. Have left me issueless; and your father’s bless’d
  8. (As he from heaven merits it) with you,
  9. Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,
  10. Might I a son and daughter now have look’d on,
  11. Such goodly things as you?
  1. Enter a Lord.

First Lord

214 - 221
  1.                            Most noble sir,
  2. That which I shall report will bear no credit,
  3. Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,
  4. Bohemia greets you from himself by me;
  5. Desires you to attach his son, who has
  6. (His dignity and duty both cast off)
  7. Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with
  8. A shepherd’s daughter.
Scene design for Winter's Tale

Scene design for Winter's Tale

From Charles Kean's scrapbook

19th century

Leontes

222
  1.                        Where’s Bohemia? Speak.

First Lord

223 - 230
  1. Here, in your city; I now came from him.
  2. I speak amazedly, and it becomes
  3. My marvel and my message. To your court
  4. Whiles he was hast’ning (in the chase, it seems,
  5. Of this fair couple), meets he on the way
  6. The father of this seeming lady, and
  7. Her brother, having both their country quitted
  8. With this young prince.

Florizel

231 - 233
  1.                         Camillo has betray’d me;
  2. Whose honor and whose honesty till now
  3. Endur’d all weathers.

First Lord

234 - 235
  1.                       Lay’t so to his charge:
  2. He’s with the King your father.

Leontes

236
  1.                                 Who? Camillo?

First Lord

237 - 242
  1. Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now
  2. Has these poor men in question. Never saw I
  3. Wretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth;
  4. Forswear themselves as often as they speak.
  5. Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them
  6. With divers deaths in death.

Perdita

243 - 245
  1.                              O my poor father!
  2. The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have
  3. Our contract celebrated.

Leontes

246
  1.                          You are married?

Florizel

247 - 249
  1. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be.
  2. The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first;
  3. The odds for high and low’s alike.

Leontes

250 - 251
  1.                                    My lord,
  2. Is this the daughter of a king?

Florizel

252 - 253
  1.                                 She is,
  2. When once she is my wife.

Leontes

254 - 259
  1. That “once,” I see, by your good father’s speed,
  2. Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,
  3. Most sorry, you have broken from his liking,
  4. Where you were tied in duty; and as sorry
  5. Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,
  6. That you might well enjoy her.

Florizel

260 - 267
  1.                                Dear, look up.
  2. Though Fortune, visible an enemy,
  3. Should chase us with my father, pow’r no jot
  4. Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,
  5. Remember since you ow’d no more to time
  6. Than I do now. With thought of such affections,
  7. Step forth mine advocate. At your request
  8. My father will grant precious things as trifles.

Leontes

268 - 269
  1. Would he do so, I’ld beg your precious mistress,
  2. Which he counts but a trifle.

Paulina

270 - 273
  1.                               Sir, my liege,
  2. Your eye hath too much youth in’t. Not a month
  3. ’Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes
  4. Than what you look on now.

Leontes

274 - 281
  1.                            I thought of her,
  2. Even in these looks I made.
  3. To Florizel.
  4.                             But your petition
  5. Is yet unanswer’d. I will to your father.
  6. Your honor not o’erthrown by your desires,
  7. I am friend to them and you. Upon which errand
  8. I now go toward him; therefore follow me,
  9. And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord.
  1. Exeunt.
Tales From Shakespeare

From: Tales From Shakespeare

Arthur Rackham, 1909

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