Paul.

What, sovereign sir,

I did not well, I meant well: All my services,

You have paid home: but that you have vouchsaf'd With your crown'd brother, and these your contracted Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,

It is a surplus of your grace, which never

My life may last to answer.

Leon.

O Paulina,

We honour you with trouble: But we came
To see the statue of our queen: your gallery
Have we pass'd through, not without much content
In many singularities; but we saw not

That which my daughter came to look upon,
The statue of her mother.

Paul.

As she liv'd peerless,

So her dead likeness, I do well believe,

Excels whatever yet you look'd upon,

Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it
Lonely, apart:1 But here it is: prepare

To see the life as lively mock'd, as ever

Still sleep mock'd death: behold; and say, 'tis well. [PAUL. undraws a curtain, and discovers 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?

Leon.

Her natural posture!

Chide me, dear stone; that I may say, indeed,
Thou art Hermione: or, rather, thou art she,

1

therefore I keep it

Lonely, apart:] The old copy-lovely. Steevens.

Lovely, i. e. charily, with more than ordinary regard and tenderness. The Oxford editor reads:

"Lonely, apart:”

As if it could be apart without being alone. Warburton.

I am yet inclined to lonely, which in the old angular writing cannot be distinguished from lovely. To say, that I keep it alone, separate from the rest, is a pleonasm which scarcely any nicety declines. Johnson.

The same error is found in many other places in the first folio. In King Richard III, we find this very error:

i

Advantaging their loue with interest

"Often times double."

Here we have loue instead of lone, the old spelling of loan.

Malone.

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.

Pol.

O, not by much.

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

Leon.

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 magick in thy majesty; which has
'My evils conjur❜d to remembrance; and
From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,
Standing like stone with thee!

Per.

And give me leave;

And do not say, 'tis superstition, 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.

Paul.

O, patience;2

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

Cam. 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.

Pol.

Dear my brother,

Let him, that was the cause of this, have power
To take off so much grief from you, as he

Will piece up in himself.

Paul.

Indeed, my lord,

If I had thought, the sight of my poor image

Would thus have wrought3 you, (for the stone is mine)

2 O, patience;] That is, Stay a while, be not so eager. Johnson.

3

66

wrought-] i. e. worked, agitated. So, in Macbeth:

my dull brain was wrought

"With things forgotten." Steevens.

I'd not have show'd it.4

Leon.

Do not draw the curtain.

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

Leon.

Let be, let be.

Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already—3

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?

Pol.

Masterly done:

The very life seems warm upon her lip.

Leon. The fixure of her eye has motion in 't,"

4 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.] I do not know whether we should not read, without a parenthesis:

for the stone i' th' mine

I'd not have shew'd it.

A mine of stone, or marble, would not perhaps at present be esteemed an accurate expression, but it may still have been used by Shakspeare, as it has been used by Holinshed. Descript of Engl. c. ix, p. 235: "Now if you have regard to their ornature, how many mines of sundrie kinds of coarse and fine marble are there to be had in England?"-And a little lower he uses the same word again for a quarry of stone, or plaister: "And such is the mine of it, that the stones thereof lie in flakes," &c. Tyrwhitt. To change an accurate expression for an expression confessedly not accurate, has somewhat of retrogradation. Johnson.

(for the stone is mine)] So afterwards, Paulina says: 66 be stone no more." So also Leontes: "Chide me, dear stone. Malone.

5 Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already-] The sentence completed is:

but that, methinks, already I converse with the dead. But there his passion made him break off. Warburton. The fixure of her eye has motion in 't,] So, in our author's 88th Sonnet:

66 Your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, "Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived." Malone. The meaning is, though her eye be fixed, [as the eye of a statue always is] yet it seems to have motion in it: that tremu. lous motion, which is perceptible in the eye of a living person, how much soever one endeavour to fix it. Edwards.

The word fixure, which Shakspeare has used both in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Troilus and Cressida, is likewise employed by Drayton in the first canto of The Barons' Wars:

"Whose glorious fixure in so clear a sky." Steevens.

I'll draw the curtain;

As we are mock'd with art.7

Paul.

My lord's almost so far transported, that

He'll think anon, it lives.

Leon.
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.

Paul. I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you: but I could affiict you further.

Leon.

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 chizzel

Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,
For I will kiss her.

Paul.

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?
Leon. No, not these twenty years.

Per.

Stand by, a looker on.

Paul.

Either forbear,

So long could I

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 assisted

By wicked powers.

7 As we are mock'd with art.] As is used by our author here, as in some other places, for "as if" Thus, in Cymbeline:

"He spake of her, as Dian had hot dreams,

"And she alone were cold."

Again, in Macbeth:

"As they had seen me with these hangman's hands
List'ning their fear." Malone.

As we are mock'd with art.] Mr. M. Mason and Mr. Malone, very properly observe that as, in this instance is used, as in some other places, for as if. The former of these gentlemen would read were instead of are, but unnecessarily, I think, considering the loose grammar of Shakspeare's age.-With, however, has the force of by. A passage parallel to that before us, occurs in Antony and Cleopatra:—“ And mock our eyes with air." › Steevens

Leon.

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.

Paul.

It is requir'd,

You do awake your faith: Then, all stand still;
Or those, that think it is unlawful business

8

I am about, let them depart.

Leon.

No foot shall stir.

Paul.

Proceed;

Musick; awake her: strike.- [Musick. '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: [HER. 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.

Leon.

O, she's warm! [Embracing her.

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

Pol.

She embraces him.

Cam. She hangs about his neck;

If she pertain to life, let her speak too.

Pol. Ay, and make 't manifest where she has liv'd,

Or, how stol'n from the dead?

Paul.

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.

Her.

[Presenting PER. who kneels to HER. You gods, look down,9

8 Or those,] The old copy reads-On: those, &c. Corrected by Sir T. Hanmer. Malone.