Original Text |
Translated Text |
| Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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Enter Leontes, Cleomenes, Dion, Paulina, and
Servants. CLEOMENES
Sir, you have done enough, and have performed
A saintlike sorrow. No fault could you make
Which you have not redeemed—indeed, paid down
More penitence than done trespass. At the last,
Do as the heavens have done: forget your evil; 5
With them forgive yourself. LEONTES Whilst I remember
Her and her virtues, I cannot forget
My blemishes in them, and so still think of
The wrong I did myself, which was so much 10
That heirless it hath made my kingdom and
Destroyed the sweet’st companion that e’er man
Bred his hopes out of. | At Leontes's palace in Sicily, Cleomenes begs Leontes to stop punishing himself for his past sins and to forgive himself. (Apparently, Leontes has been quite penitent for the past sixteen years.) Leontes replies that he can’t forgive himself for what he did to Hermione and the kingdom – it’s all his fault that his wife is dead and Sicily no longer has an heir to the throne (Mamillius is dead and Leontes basically threw away his baby daughter). |
PAULINA True, too true, my lord.
If one by one you wedded all the world, 15
Or from the all that are took something good
To make a perfect woman, she you killed
Would be unparalleled. LEONTES I think so. Killed?
She I killed? I did so, but thou strik’st me 20
Sorely to say I did. It is as bitter
Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,
Say so but seldom. CLEOMENES Not at all, good lady.
You might have spoken a thousand things that 25
would
Have done the time more benefit and graced
Your kindness better. | Paulina steps up and sweetly reminds Leontes that he’s responsible for killing the perfect woman and warns him that he shouldn’t bother trying to find a new wife, since no woman can ever be as great as Hermione. Leontes sincerely thanks Paulina for reminding him that he basically “killed” Hermione by putting her on trial for adultery. Cleomenes grumbles that Paulina is being cruel and he sort of has a point, wouldn’t you say? |
PAULINA You are one of those
Would have him wed again. 30 DION If you would not so,
You pity not the state nor the remembrance
Of his most sovereign name, consider little
What dangers by his Highness’ fail of issue
May drop upon his kingdom and devour 35
Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy
Than to rejoice the former queen is well?
What holier than, for royalty’s repair,
For present comfort, and for future good,
To bless the bed of majesty again 40
With a sweet fellow to ’t? | Paulina bickers with Dion about whether or not Leontes should remarry –
Dion points out that Sicily is without an heir and the fate of the
kingdom is in jeopardy. |
PAULINA There is none worthy,
Respecting her that’s gone. Besides, the gods
Will have fulfilled their secret purposes.
For has not the divine Apollo said, 45
Is ’t not the tenor of his oracle,
That King Leontes shall not have an heir
Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall
Is all as monstrous to our human reason
As my Antigonus to break his grave 50
And come again to me—who, on my life,
Did perish with the infant. ’Tis your counsel
My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
Oppose against their wills. Care not for issue.
The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander 55
Left his to th’ worthiest; so his successor
Was like to be the best. | Then Paulina plays the Apollo card, pointing out that Apollo’s Oracle
said that Leontes wouldn’t have an heir until his lost child (Perdita)
was found. |
LEONTES Good Paulina,
Who hast the memory of Hermione,
I know, in honor, O, that ever I 60
Had squared me to thy counsel! Then even now
I might have looked upon my queen’s full eyes,
Have taken treasure from her lips— PAULINA And left them
More rich for what they yielded. 65 LEONTES Thou speak’st truth.
No more such wives, therefore no wife. One worse,
And better used, would make her sainted spirit
Again possess her corpse, and on this stage,
Where we offenders now appear, soul-vexed, 70
And begin “Why to me?” PAULINA Had she such power,
She had just cause. LEONTES She had, and would incense me
To murder her I married. 75 | Leontes laments that he didn’t listen to Paulina’s wise counsel back when she warned him not to try Hermione for adultery and treason. Leontes resolves not to remarry and says that if he got a new wife and treated her well, Hermione’s corpse would come back to life and ask why Leontes treated her like dirt. Plus, Hermione’s reanimated corpse would probably order him to murder his new wife, so remarriage doesn’t seem like such a great idea. |
PAULINA I should so.
Were I the ghost that walked, I’d bid you mark
Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in ’t
You chose her. Then I’d shriek, that even your ears
Should rift to hear me, and the words that followed 80
Should be “Remember mine.” LEONTES Stars, stars,
And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;
I’ll have no wife, Paulina. PAULINA Will you swear 85
Never to marry but by my free leave? LEONTES
Never, Paulina, so be blest my spirit. PAULINA
Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath. CLEOMENES
You tempt him over-much. PAULINA Unless another 90
As like Hermione as is her picture
Affront his eye. CLEOMENES Good madam— PAULINA I have done.
Yet if my lord will marry—if you will, sir, 95
No remedy but you will—give me the office
To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young
As was your former, but she shall be such
As, walked your first queen’s ghost, it should take
joy 100
To see her in your arms. LEONTES My true Paulina,
We shall not marry till thou bid’st us. PAULINA That
Shall be when your first queen’s again in breath, 105
Never till then. | Paulina agrees and says that if she were Hermione, she would totally come back from the dead and haunt Leontes. Paulina makes Leontes swear that if he does remarry, his bride must look like Hermione and Paulina gets to choose her. But, she says, that won’t happen unless Hermione somehow manages to live again. |
Enter a Servant. SERVANT
One that gives out himself Prince Florizell,
Son of Polixenes, with his princess—she
The fairest I have yet beheld—desires access
To your high presence. 110 LEONTES What with him? He comes not
Like to his father’s greatness. His approach,
So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us
’Tis not a visitation framed, but forced
By need and accident. What train? 115 SERVANT But few,
And those but mean. | A servant enters and announces Prince Florizel’s arrival at the Sicilian court with his “princess” (that would be Perdita) in tow. Leontes is baffled and wonders why Florizel has shown up on his doorstep without advance notice. Something must be wrong, otherwise Florizel would have arrived with more pomp and circumstance (and perhaps a letter from his father, Polixenes). |
LEONTES His princess, say you, with him? SERVANT
Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,
That e’er the sun shone bright on. 120 PAULINA O Hermione,
As every present time doth boast itself
Above a better gone, so must thy grave
Give way to what’s seen now. To Servant. Sir, you
yourself 125
Have said and writ so—but your writing now
Is colder than that theme—she had not been
Nor was not to be equalled. Thus your verse
Flowed with her beauty once. ’Tis shrewdly ebbed
To say you have seen a better. 130 SERVANT Pardon, madam.
The one I have almost forgot—your pardon;
The other, when she has obtained your eye,
Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,
Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal 135
Of all professors else, make proselytes
Of who she but bid follow. PAULINA How, not women? SERVANT
Women will love her that she is a woman
More worth than any man; men, that she is 140
The rarest of all women. LEONTES Go, Cleomenes.
Yourself, assisted with your honored friends,
Bring them to our embracement. Cleomenes and others exit. Still, ’tis strange 145
He thus should steal upon us. | When the Servant says that Florizel’s princess is a beauty, Paulina gets
all huffy and says something like “nobody’s as beautiful as Hermione
was.” |
PAULINA Had our prince,
Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had paired
Well with this lord. There was not full a month
Between their births. 150 LEONTES Prithee, no more; cease. Thou
know’st
He dies to me again when talked of. Sure,
When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
Will bring me to consider that which may 155
Unfurnish me of reason. They are come. | Then Paulina points out that, if Mamillius had lived, he probably would have been happy to see Prince Florizel, since the two princes were born about a month apart. Leontes begs Paulina to stop reminding him of Mamillius’s death – every time she mentions it, it feels like Mamillius has died all over again. |
Enter Florizell, Perdita, Cleomenes, and others. Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince,
For she did print your royal father off,
Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,
Your father’s image is so hit in you, 160
His very air, that I should call you brother,
As I did him, and speak of something wildly
By us performed before. Most dearly welcome,
And your fair princess—goddess! O, alas,
I lost a couple that ’twixt heaven and Earth 165
Might thus have stood, begetting wonder, as
You, gracious couple, do. And then I lost—
All mine own folly—the society,
Amity too, of your brave father, whom,
Though bearing misery, I desire my life 170
Once more to look on him. | Florizel and Perdita enter and Leontes comments that Florizel’s mom did a
good job making him, because the prince looks exactly like a “copy” of
his father, Polixenes. Leontes looks at Perdita and proclaims that she’s
a “goddess.” |
FLORIZELL By his command
Have I here touched Sicilia, and from him
Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,
Can send his brother. And but infirmity, 175
Which waits upon worn times, hath something
seized
His wished ability, he had himself
The lands and waters ’twixt your throne and his
Measured to look upon you, whom he loves— 180
He bade me say so—more than all the scepters
And those that bear them living. | Florizel lies and says that his father sends Leontes his best regards and wishes he could see his old friend. |
LEONTES O my brother,
Good gentleman, the wrongs I have done thee stir
Afresh within me, and these thy offices, 185
So rarely kind, are as interpreters
Of my behindhand slackness. Welcome hither,
As is the spring to th’ earth. And hath he too
Exposed this paragon to th’ fearful usage,
At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune, 190
To greet a man not worth her pains, much less
Th’ adventure of her person? FLORIZELL Good my lord,
She came from Libya. LEONTES Where the warlike Smalus, 195
That noble honored lord, is feared and loved? FLORIZELL
Most royal sir, from thence, from him, whose
daughter
His tears proclaimed his, parting with her. Thence,
A prosperous south wind friendly, we have crossed 200
To execute the charge my father gave me
For visiting your Highness. My best train
I have from your Sicilian shores dismissed,
Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
Not only my success in Libya, sir, 205
But my arrival and my wife’s in safety
Here where we are. | Upon hearing this, Leontes beats himself up for being such a lousy friend to Polixenes (i.e., accusing him of sleeping with his wife and plotting to poison him). Florizel lies some more and says he picked up his “bride” in Libya before sailing to Sicily. Ordinarily, he would have brought a huge entourage along with him but he decided to let them sail home to Bohemia to give Polixenes the good news. |
LEONTES The blessèd gods
Purge all infection from our air whilst you
Do climate here! You have a holy father, 210
A graceful gentleman, against whose person,
So sacred as it is, I have done sin,
For which the heavens, taking angry note,
Have left me issueless. And your father’s blest,
As he from heaven merits it, with you, 215
Worthy his goodness. What might I have been
Might I a son and daughter now have looked on,
Such goodly things as you? | Leontes announces that Florizel’s presence in Sicily is like a cure for
sickness and says he wishes he had a son or daughter like Polixenes has.
(Yep, that’s ironic all right, especially since Leontes's daughter
Perdita is standing right in front of him.) |
Enter a Lord. LORD Most noble sir,
That which I shall report will bear no credit, 220
Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,
Bohemia greets you from himself by me,
Desires you to attach his son, who has—
His dignity and duty both cast off—
Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with 225
A shepherd’s daughter. LEONTES Where’s Bohemia? Speak. LORD
Here in your city. I now came from him.
I speak amazedly, and it becomes
My marvel and my message. To your court 230
Whiles he was hast’ning—in the chase, it seems,
Of this fair couple—meets he on the way
The father of this seeming lady and
Her brother, having both their country quitted
With this young prince. 235 | Then a Lord enters and rains on everybody’s parade by announcing that King Polixenes has sent word that Leontes should arrest Prince Florizel for running away from home with a lowly shepherd’s daughter. The Lord also says that Polixenes has just arrived in Sicily to accost his naughty son. Not only that, but on his way to the Sicilian court, he ran into the Old Shepherd and the Clown, who are crying like babies and begging for their lives. |
FLORIZELL Camillo has betrayed me,
Whose honor and whose honesty till now
Endured all weathers. LORD Lay ’t so to his charge.
He’s with the King your father. 240 LEONTES Who? Camillo? LORD
Camillo, sir. I spake with him, who now
Has these poor men in question. Never saw I
Wretches so quake. They kneel, they kiss the earth,
Forswear themselves as often as they speak. 245
Bohemia stops his ears and threatens them
With divers deaths in death. PERDITA O my poor father!
The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have
Our contract celebrated. 250 | Florizel realizes Camillo has betrayed him and he’s not too happy. Perdita cries for the poor Old Shepherd and boo-hoos that her marriage celebration is going to have to wait. |
FLORIZELL
We are not, sir, nor are we like to be.
The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first.
The odds for high and low’s alike. LEONTES My lord, 255
Is this the daughter of a king? FLORIZELL She is
When once she is my wife. LEONTES
That “once,” I see, by your good father’s speed
Will come on very slowly. I am sorry, 260
Most sorry, you have broken from his liking,
Where you were tied in duty, and as sorry
Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,
That you might well enjoy her. FLORIZELL, to Perdita Dear, look up. 265
Though Fortune, visible an enemy,
Should chase us with my father, power no jot
Hath she to change our loves.—Beseech you, sir,
Remember since you owed no more to time
Than I do now. With thought of such affections, 270
Step forth mine advocate. At your request,
My father will grant precious things as trifles. LEONTES
Would he do so, I’d beg your precious mistress,
Which he counts but a trifle. | Florizel begs Leontes to speak to his father on his behalf – he loves Perdita and wants to spend his life with her. |
PAULINA Sir, my liege, 275
Your eye hath too much youth in ’t. Not a month
’Fore your queen died, she was more worth such
gazes
Than what you look on now. LEONTES I thought of her 280
Even in these looks I made. To Florizell. But your
petition
Is yet unanswered. I will to your father.
Your honor not o’erthrown by your desires,
I am friend to them and you. Upon which errand 285
I now go toward him. Therefore follow me,
And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord. They exit. | Paulina takes the opportunity to remind everyone, again, that Perdita isn’t nearly as good-looking as Hermione once was. Leontes admits that looking at Perdita actually reminds him of his late wife. He says he’s happy to talk to Polixenes on behalf of the young couple. |