Most dearest! my collop!'-can thy dam?-May't
be?

Affection! thy intention stabs the centre;2
Thou dost make possible, things not so held;
Communicat'st with dreams;-(How can this be?)
With what's unreal thou coactive art,

And fellow'st nothing. Then, 'tis very credent,3
Thou mayst conjoin with something; and thou dost;
(And that beyond commission, and I find it ;)
And that to the infection of my brains,
And hardening of my brows.

Pol.
What means Sicilia ?
Her. He something seems unsettled.
Pol.

How, my lord?
What cheer? How is't with
How is't with you, best brother?

You look

Her.
As if
you held
held a brow of much distraction.
Are you moved, my lord?

Leon.
No, in good earnest.—
How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines
Of my boy's face, methought I did recoil
Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreeched,
In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzled,
Lest it should bite its master, and so prove,
As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.

4

How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,
This squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend,
Will you take eggs for money?5

Mam. No, my lord, I'll fight.

1 In King Henry VI. Part I. we have

"God knows thou art a collop of my flesh."

[ACT I

3 Credent, credible.

4 i. e. an immature pea-pod.

2 Affection here means imagination. Intention is earnest consideration, eager attention. It is this vehemence of mind which affects Leontes, by making him conjure up unreal causes of disquiet; and thus, in the Poet's language, "stabs him to the centre."

5 "Will you take eggs for money?" A proverbial phrase for "Will you suffer yourself to be cajoled or imposed upon?

>>

Leon. You will? why, happy man be his dole!1-
My brother,

Are you so fond of your young prince, as we
Do seem to be of ours?

2

Apparent to my heart.

Her.

Pol.
If at home, sir,
He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter:
Now, my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all;
He makes a July's day short as December;
And, with his varying childness, cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.

Leon.
So stands this squire
Officed with me. We two will walk, my lord,
And leave you to your graver steps.-Hermione,
How thou lov'st us, show in our brother's welcome;
Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap.

Next to thyself, and my young rover, he's

If you would seek us,

We are yours i'the garden. Shall's attend you there?
Leon. To your own bents dispose you: you'll be
found,

Be you beneath the sky;-I am angling now,
Though you perceive me not how I give line.
Go to, go to!

[Aside. Observing POLIXENES and HERMIONE.
How she holds up the neb,3 the bill to him!
And arms her with the boldness of a wife
To her allowing husband! Gone already!
Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a forked

one.4

1 i. e. may happiness be his portion !

2 Heir apparent, next claimant.
3 i. e. mouth.

[Exeunt PoL., HER., and Attendants.
Go, play, boy, play;―thy mother plays, and I
Play too; but so disgraced a part, whose issue
Will hiss me to my grave; contempt and clamor
Will be my knell.-Go, play, boy, play.-There have

been,

4 i. e. a horned one.

16

Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now;

And many a man there is, even at this present,
Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm,
That little thinks she has been sluiced in his absence,
And his pond fished by his next neighbor, by
Sir Smile, his neighbor. Nay, there's comfort in't,
Whiles other men have gates; and those gates opened,
As mine, against their will. Should all despair,
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hang themselves. Physic for't there is none ;
It is a bawdy planet, that will strike

Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful, think it,
From east, west, north, and south: be it concluded,
No barricado for a belly; know it;

It will let in and out the enemy,

With bag and baggage. Many a thousand of us
Have the disease, and feel't not.-How now, boy?
Mam. I am like you, they say.

Leon.

Why, that's some comfort.—

WINTER'S TALE.

What! Camillo there?

[ACT 1.

Cam. Ay, my good lord.

Leon. Go play, Mamillius: thou'rt an honest man.— [Exit MAMILLIus.

Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.

Cam. You had much ado to make his anchor hold; When you cast out, it still came home.1

1

Leon.

Didst note it?

Cam. He would not stay at your petitions; made His business more material.2

Leon.

Didst perceive it?— They're here with me already:3 whispering, round

ing,1

Sicilia is a so-forth.5 'Tis far gone,

1 "It still came home," a nautical term, meaning, "the anchor would not take hold."

2 The more you requested him to stay, the more urgent he represented that business to be which summoned him away.

3 Not Polixenes and Hermione, but casual observers.

4 To round in the ear was to tell secretly, to whisper.

5 A so-forth, a phrase apparently employed to avoid the utterance of an opprobrious one. So, so, is sometimes used in a similar manner.

When I shall gust1 it last.-How came 't, Camillo,

That he did stay?
Cam.
Leon. At the
tinent;

But so it is, it is not. Was this taken
By any understanding pate but thine?
For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in
More than the common blocks.-Not noted, is't,
But of the finer natures? By some severals,
Of head-piece extraordinary? Lower messes,
Perchance, are to this business purblind: say.

Cam. Business, my lord? I think most understand Bohemia stays here longer.

Leon.

Ha?

At the good queen's entreaty. queen's, be't: good, should be per

Cam.

Stays here longer.

Leon. Ay, but why?

Cam. To satisfy your highness, and the entreaties

Of our most gracious mistress.

Leon.

Satisfy

The entreaties of your mistress?
-Satisfy?—
Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,
With all the nearest things to my heart, as well
My chamber-councils; wherein, priestlike, thou
Hast cleansed my bosom; I from thee departed
Thy penitent reformed; but we have been
Deceived in thy integrity, deceived

In that which seems so.

Cam.

Be it forbid, my lord!

Leon. To bide upon't: Thou art not honest; or, If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward; Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining

3

From course required; or else thou must be counted

A servant, grafted in my serious trust,

And therein negligent; or else a fool,
That seest a game played home, the rich stake drawn
And tak❜st it all for jest.

1 i. e. taste it:-"ille domus sciet ultimus.".........Juv. Sat. x.
2 Messes is here put for degrees, conditions.

3 To hox is to hamstring: the proper word is to hough.

VOL. III.

3

My gracious lord,

Cam.
I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful;
In every one of these no man is free,
But that his negligence, his folly, fear,
Amongst the infinite doings of the world,
Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,
If ever I were wilful-negligent,

It was my folly; if industriously
I played the fool, it was my negligence,
Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful
To do a thing, where I the issue doubted,
Whereof the execution did cry out
Against the non-performance,1 'twas a fear
Which oft affects the wisest. These, my lord,
Are such allowed infirmities, that honesty
Is never free of. But, 'beseech your grace,
Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass
By its own visage. If I then deny it,
"Tis none of mine.

Leon. Have not you seen, Camillo, (But that's past doubt: you have; or your eye-glass Is thicker than a cuckold's horn ;) or heard, (For, to a vision so apparent, rumor Cannot be mute,) or thought,—(for cogitation Resides not in that man, that does not think,)2My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess, (Or else be impudently negative,

To have nor eyes, nor ears, nor thought,) then say,
My wife's a hobby-horse; deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench, that puts to
Before a troth-plight: say it, and justify it.

Cam. I would not be a stander-by to hear
My sovereign mistress clouded so, without
My present vengeance taken. 'Shrew my heart,

1 This is expressed obscurely, but seems to mean "the execution of which (when done) cried out against the non-performance of it before."

2 Leontes means to say, "Have you not thought that my wife is slippery? (for cogitation resides not in the man that does not think my wife is slippery.") The four latter words, though disjoined from the word think by the necessity of a parenthesis, are evidently to be connected in construction with it.