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 wherein 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.

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 shew himself over kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhood; 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 attornied, 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? 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.

So soon as yours, could win me: so it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
'T were needful I denied it. My affairs
Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder
Were, in your love, a whip to me; my stay
To you a charge and trouble: to save both,
Farewell, our brother.

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 proclaimed: say this to him,
He's beat from his best ward.

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
adventure

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
Prefixed for's parting: yet, good deed, Leontes,
I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind
What lady she her lord.-You'll stay?
Pol. No, madam.

Her. Nay, but you will?

Pol. I may not, verily.

Her. Verily!

You put me off with limber vows: but 1,

Though you would seek to unsphere the stars with

oaths

two?

Pol. We were as twinned lambs, that did frisk i' the sun,

And bleat the one at the other: what we changed,
Was innocence for innocence; we knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, no, nor dreamed
That any did. Had we pursued that life,
And our weak spirits ne'er been higher reared
With stronger blood, we should have answered
heaven

Boldly, "Not guilty;"—the imposition cleared,
Hereditary ours.

Her. By this, we gather
You have tripped since.
Pol.

O my most sacred lady, Temptations have since then been born to us: for In those unfledged days was my wife a girl Your precious self had not then crossed the eyes Of my young playfellow.

Her.

Grace to boot!