[PAULINA draws a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE standing like a statue]

I like your silence; it the more shows off Your wonder; but yet speak. First, you, my liege.

Comes it not something near?

LEONTES. Her natural posture!

Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she In thy not chiding; for she was as tender As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina, Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing So aged as this seems.

POLIXENES. O, not by much!

PAULINA. So much the more our carver's excellence, Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her As she liv'd now.

LEONTES. As now she might have done, So much to my good comfort as it is Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood, Even with such life of majesty- warm life, As now it coldly stands- when first I woo'd her!

I am asham'd. Does not the stone rebuke me For being more stone than it? O royal piece, There's magic in thy majesty, which has My evils conjur'd to remembrance, and From thy admiring daughter took the spirits, Standing like stone with thee!

PERDITA. And give me leave, And do not say 'tis superst.i.tion that I kneel, and then implore her blessing. Lady, Dear queen, that ended when I but began, Give me that hand of yours to kiss.

PAULINA. O, patience!

The statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's Not dry.

CAMILLO. My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on, Which sixteen winters cannot blow away, So many summers dry. Scarce any joy Did ever so long live; no sorrow But kill'd itself much sooner.

POLIXENES. Dear my brother, Let him that was the cause of this have pow'r To take off so much grief from you as he Will piece up in himself.

PAULINA. Indeed, my lord, If I had thought the sight of my poor image Would thus have wrought you- for the stone is mine- I'd not have show'd it.

LEONTES. Do not draw the curtain.

PAULINA. No longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy May think anon it moves.

LEONTES. Let be, let be.

Would I were dead, but that methinks already- What was he that did make it? See, my lord, Would you not deem it breath'd, and that those veins Did verily bear blood?

POLIXENES. Masterly done!

The very life seems warm upon her lip.

LEONTES. The fixture of her eye has motion in't, As we are mock'd with art.

PAULINA. I'll draw the curtain.

My lord's almost so far transported that He'll think anon it lives.

LEONTES. O sweet Paulina, Make me to think so twenty years together!

No settled senses of the world can match The pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone.

PAULINA. I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you; but I could afflict you farther.

LEONTES. Do, Paulina; For this affliction has a taste as sweet As any cordial comfort. Still, methinks, There is an air comes from her. What fine chisel Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me, For I will kiss her.

PAULINA. Good my lord, forbear.

The ruddiness upon her lip is wet; You'll mar it if you kiss it; stain your own With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?

LEONTES. No, not these twenty years.

PERDITA. So long could I Stand by, a looker-on.

PAULINA. Either forbear, Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you For more amazement. If you can behold it, I'll make the statue move indeed, descend, And take you by the hand, but then you'll think- Which I protest against- I am a.s.sisted By wicked powers.

LEONTES. What you can make her do I am content to look on; what to speak I am content to hear; for 'tis as easy To make her speak as move.

PAULINA. It is requir'd You do awake your faith. Then all stand still; Or those that think it is unlawful business I am about, let them depart.

LEONTES. Proceed.

No foot shall stir.

PAULINA. Music, awake her: strike. [Music]

'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach; Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come; I'll fill your grave up. Stir; nay, come away.

Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him Dear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs.

[HERMIONE comes down from the pedestal]

Start not; her actions shall be holy as You hear my spell is lawful. Do not shun her Until you see her die again; for then You kill her double. Nay, present your hand.

When she was young you woo'd her; now in age Is she become the suitor?

LEONTES. O, she's warm!

If this be magic, let it be an art Lawful as eating.

POLIXENES. She embraces him.

CAMILLO. She hangs about his neck.

If she pertain to life, let her speak too.

POLIXENES. Ay, and make it manifest where she has liv'd, Or how stol'n from the dead.

PAULINA. That she is living, Were it but told you, should be hooted at Like an old tale; but it appears she lives Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.

Please you to interpose, fair madam. Kneel, And pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady; Our Perdita is found.

HERMIONE. You G.o.ds, look down, And from your sacred vials pour your graces Upon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own, Where hast thou been preserv'd? Where liv'd? How found Thy father's court? For thou shalt hear that I, Knowing by Paulina that the oracle Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserv'd Myself to see the issue.

PAULINA. There's time enough for that, Lest they desire upon this push to trouble Your joys with like relation. Go together, You precious winners all; your exultation Partake to every one. I, an old turtle, Will wing me to some wither'd bough, and there My mate, that's never to be found again, Lament till I am lost.

LEONTES. O peace, Paulina!

Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent, As I by thine a wife. This is a match, And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine; But how, is to be question'd; for I saw her, As I thought, dead; and have, in vain, said many A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far- For him, I partly know his mind- to find thee An honourable husband. Come, Camillo, And take her by the hand whose worth and honesty Is richly noted, and here justified By us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place.

What! look upon my brother. Both your pardons, That e'er I put between your holy looks My ill suspicion. This your son-in-law, And son unto the King, whom heavens directing, Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina, Lead us from hence where we may leisurely Each one demand and answer to his part Perform'd in this wide gap of time since first We were dissever'd. Hastily lead away. Exeunt

THE END

>

1609

A LOVER'S COMPLAINT

by William Shakespeare

From off a hill whose concave womb reworded A plaintful story from a sist'ring vale, My spirits t'attend this double voice accorded, And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale, Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale, Tearing of papers, breaking rings atwain, Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.

Upon her head a platted hive of straw, Which fortified her visage from the sun, Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw The carcase of a beauty spent and done.

Time had not scythed all that youth begun, Nor youth all quit, but spite of heaven's fell rage Some beauty peeped through lattice of seared age.

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne, Which on it had conceited characters, Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears, And often reading what contents it bears; As often shrieking undistinguished woe, In clamours of all size, both high and low.

Sometimes her levelled eyes their carriage ride, As they did batt'ry to the spheres intend; Sometime diverted their poor b.a.l.l.s are tied To th' orbed earth; sometimes they do extend Their view right on; anon their gazes lend To every place at once, and nowhere fixed, The mind and sight distractedly commixed.

Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat, Proclaimed in her a careless hand of pride; For some, untucked, descended her sheaved hat, Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside; Some in her threaden fillet still did bide, And, true to bondage, would not break from thence, Though slackly braided in loose negligence.

A thousand favours from a maund she drew Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet, Which one by one she in a river threw, Upon whose weeping margent she was set; Like usury applying wet to wet, Or monarchs' hands that lets not bounty fall Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.

Of folded schedules had she many a one, Which she perused, sighed, tore, and gave the flood; Cracked many a ring of posied gold and bone, Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud; Found yet moe letters sadly penned in blood, With sleided silk feat and affectedly Enswathed and sealed to curious secrecy.

These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes, And often kissed, and often 'gan to tear; Cried, 'O false blood, thou register of lies, What unapproved witness dost thou bear!

Ink would have seemed more black and d.a.m.ned here!

This said, in top of rage the lines she rents, Big discontents so breaking their contents.

A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh, Sometime a bl.u.s.terer that the ruffle knew Of court, of city, and had let go by The swiftest hours observed as they flew, Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew; And, privileged by age, desires to know In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.

So slides he down upon his grained bat, And comely distant sits he by her side; When he again desires her, being sat, Her grievance with his hearing to divide.

If that from him there may be aught applied Which may her suffering ecstasy a.s.suage, 'Tis promised in the charity of age.

'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold The injury of many a blasting hour, Let it not tell your judgement I am old: Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power.