Where chance may nurse or end it.

Take it up.

Ant. I swear to do this, though a present death Had been more merciful. Come on, poor babe :

Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens
To be thy nurses ! Wolves and bears, they say,
Casting their savageness aside, have done

Like offices of pity. — Sir, be prosperous

In more than this deed does require !— and blessing,
Against this cruelty, fight on thy side,

Poor thing, condemn'd to loss !

Leon.

Another's issue.

2 Atten.

[Exit with the Child.

No, I'll not rear

Please your Highness, posts

From those you sent to th' oracle are come

An hour since: Cleomenes and Dion,

Being well arrived from Delphos, are both landed,
Hasting to th' Court.

I Lord.

So please you, sir, their speed

Twenty-three days

Hath been beyond account.

Leon.

They have been absent: 'tis good speed; foretells

The great Apollo suddenly will have

The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords;
Summon a session, that we may arraign
Our most disloyal lady; for, as she hath
Been publicly accused, so shall she have
A just and open trial. While she lives,
My heart will be a burden to me.
And think upon my bidding.

Leave me ;

[Exeunt.

ACT III.

SCENE I. Sicilia. A Street in some Town.

Enter CLEOMENES, DION, and an Attendant.

Cleo. The climate's delicate; the air most sweet;
Fertle the isle ;1 the temple much surpassing
The common praise it bears.

Dion.

I shall report,

For most it caught me, the celestial habits

Methinks I so should term them - and the reverence

Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice!

How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly
It was i' the offering!

Cleo.

But, of all, the burst

And the ear-deafening voice o' the oracle,

Kin to Jove's thunder, so surprised my sense,
That I was nothing.

If th' event o' the journey

Dion.
Prove as successful to the Queen, O, be't so!
As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy,

The time is worth the use on't.2

Cleo.

Great Apollo

Turn all to th' best! These proclamations,

So forcing faults upon Hermione,

I little like.

1 So in Greene's novel: "That it would please his majestie to send sixe of his noblemen whome he best trusted to the Isle of Delphos, there to enquire of the oracle of Apollo." The Poet probably knew that Delphi was a town, and not an island.

2 "The event of our journey will recompense us for the time we spent in it." So in Florio's Montaigne, 1603: "The common saying is, the time we live is worth the money we pay for it."

Will clear or end the business: when the oracle

Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up
Shall the contents discover, something rare
Even then will rush to knowledge.

fresh horses:

And gracious be the issue!

[To Attendant.] Go,

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. The Same. A Court of Justice.

LEONTES, Lords, and Officers, discovered.

Leon. This session to our great grief, we pronounce

Even pushes 'gainst our heart: the party tried,

The daughter of a king, our wife, and one

Of us too much beloved. Let us be clear'd
Of being tyrannous, since we so openly
Proceed in justice; which shall have due course,
Even to th' guilt or the purgation. -

Produce the prisoner.

1 Offi. It is his Highness' pleasure that the Queen Appear in person here in court.

Crier. Silence !

HERMIONE is brought in guarded; PAULINA and Ladies attending.

Leon. Read the indictment.

1 Offi. [Reads.] Hermione, Queen to the worthy Leontes, King of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in committing adultery with Polixenes, King of Bohemia, and conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign lord the King, thy royal husband: the pre

1 Even in the sense of equally or indifferently.

tence whereof being by circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of a true subject, didst counsel and aid them, for their better safety, to fly away by night.

Herm. Since what I am to say must be but that Which contradicts my accusation, and

The testimony on my part no other

But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me
To say, Not guilty: mine integrity

Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,
Be so received. But thus: If Powers divine
Behold our human actions, as they do,

I doubt not, then, but innocence shall make
False accusation blush, and tyranny

Tremble at patience. — You, my lord, best know –
Who least will seem to do so

my past life
Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,
As I am now unhappy; which is more
Than history can pattern, though devised
And play'd to take spectators: for, behold me,
A fellow of the royal bed, which owe 3

A moiety of the throne, a great king's daughter,
The mother to a hopeful prince, - here standing
To prate and talk for life and honour 'fore

Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it
As I weigh grief, which I would spare: 4 for honour,
'Tis a derivative from me to mine;

And only that I stand for. I appeal

To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes

2 Shakespeare often uses pretence for design or intention. The usage was common. See vol. i. page 202, note 4.

8 Owe and own are but different forms of the same word.

4 " I prize my life no more than I value grief, which I would willingly be rid of, or free from."

Came to your Court, how I was in your grace,
How merited to be so; since he came,

With what encounter so uncurrent I

Have strain'd,5 t' appear thus: if one jot beyond

The bound of honour, or in act or will
That way inclining, harden'd be the hearts
Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin
Cry Fie upon my grave!

Leon.

I ne'er heard yet

That any of these bolder vices wanted

Less impudence to gainsay what they did
Than to perform it first.6

Herm.

That's true enough ;

Though 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.

Leon. You will not own it.

Herm.

More than mistress of

Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not

At all acknowledge. For Polixenes,

With whom I am accused, I do confess

5 Encounter was formerly used for any sort of meeting or intercourse; and uncurrent must here be taken in the sense of unlawful or unallowable; that which has not the stamp of moral currency. - Strain'd, if it be the right word, is no doubt used here in the same sense as the substantive strain in The Merry Wives, ii. 1: "Unless he know some strain in me, that I know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury." Also in iii. 3: "I would all of the same strain were in the same distress." Here strain evidently means some native streak, vicious trait, or inborn aptness to evil. So that the meaning in the text apparently is, "I appeal to your own conscience to specify by what improper act of intimacy, since he came, I have so far evinced an innate streak of evil, as to seem guilty of the sin you charge me with."- For this explanation I am mainly indebted to Mr. Joseph Crosby. See Critical Notes.

6 The sense is somewhat entangled here; the construction being such as to leave it uncertain whether less is an adverb qualifying wanted or an adjective qualifying impudence. But less is doubtless to be taken in the latter way; so that the meaning comes thus: "I never heard that those who had impudence enough to be guilty of these bolder vices wanted the less impudence necessary for denying them."