I must be present at your conference.

Paulina. Well, be it so, prithee.
Here's such ado to make no stain a stain
As passes coloring.

[Exit Keeper.

[Re-enter Keeper, with Emilia. Dear gentlewoman, how fares our gracious lady? Emilia. As well as one so great and so forlorn May hold together. On her frights and griefs (Which never tender lady hath borne greater) She is, something before her time, delivered. Paulina. A boy?

Emilia.

Lusty and like to live.

A daughter, and a goodly babe,
The Queen receives

Much comfort in it; says: "My poor prisoner,

I am innocent as you."

Paulina. I dare be sworn.

These dangerous

The office

Insane furies of the King, beshrew them,

He must be told on 't, and he shall.

Becomes a woman best; I'll take 't upon me.
If I prove honey-mouthed, let my tongue blister.
. . Pray you, Emilia,

Commend my best obedience to the Queen.
If she dares trust me with her little babe,

I'll show't the King, and undertake to be

Her advocate to the loudest. We do not know

How he may soften at the sight o' the child.

The silence often of pure innocence

Persuades, when speaking fails. .

Keeper. Madam, if 't please the Queen to send the babe,

I know not what I shall incur to pass it,

Mine honor I will stand 'twixt you and danger.

Scene 3.

With the baby in her arms Paulina forces her way into Leontes' presence, and wakes him from his slumber. Exasperated by her reproaches, he orders the infant to be burned,

and turns upon Antigonus, Paulina's husband. All present join in entreating him to have mercy. The babe lies at his feet, where it has been placed by Paulina.

I Lord.

Beseech your highness,

We have truly served you: on our knees we beg,
As recompense for our dear services

Past and to come, that you do change this purpose,

Which, being so horrible, so bloody, must

Lead on to some foul issue. We all kneel.

Leontes. I am a feather to each wind that blows;
Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel

And call me father?

Than curse it then.

It shall not neither.

[To Antigonus.]

You, sir, come you hither;

You that have been so tenderly officious

With Lady Margery, your midwife there,

To save this bastard's life, — for 'tis a bastard,

So sure as this beard's gray, — what will you adventure
To save this brat's life?

Leontes. Mark and perform it (see'st thou ?); for the fail

Of any point in 't shall not only be

Death to thyself, but to thy loud-tongued wife,

Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,

As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry
This female bastard hence; and that thou bear it
To some remote and desert place, quite out
Of our dominions; and that there thou leave it,
Without more mercy, to its own protection
And favor of the climate. As by strange fortune

It came to us, I do in justice charge thee

On thy soul's peril, and thy body's torture

That thou commend it strangely to some place
Where chance may nurse or end it. Take it up.

Antigonus [lifting the babe]. I swear to do this, though a present death

Had been more merciful.

Come on, poor babe!

Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens
To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say,
Casting their savageness aside, have done

Like offices of pity.

ACT III. Scene 1.

The messengers, returning from Delphos after a prosperous and delightful journey, are shocked to find Hermione's guilt set forth on all the walls by proclamation. How natural it is that, their heads being full of what they have enjoyed and seen, they cannot at once adjust their minds to the things around them.

Scene 2.

This is in a so-called court of justice, but Leontes means to have everything his own way. The court must find against his wife; the oracle must condemn her.

See the queenly dignity of Hermione. She will not break out into reproaches against her king and husband, but one is conscious she is feeling contempt for him; and one sees how a sense of her great wrongs has entered into her soul.

Hermione. Since what I am to say must be but that
Which contradicts my accusation, and

The testimony on my part no other

But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me

To say, Not guilty. Mine integrity,

Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,

Be so received. But thus: If powers divine
Behold our human actions (as they do),

I doubt not then but innocence shall make
False accusation blush, and tyranny

Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know,
Who least will seem to do so, my past life
Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,

As I am now unhappy. . . . Behold me now,
A fellow of the royal bed, which owns

A moiety of the throne, a great king's daughter,
The mother to a hopeful prince, - here standing
To prate and talk for life and honor, 'fore
Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it
As I weigh grief, which I would spare; for honor -
'Tis a derivative from me to mine

And only that I stand for. I appeal

To your own conscience, sir,- before Polixenes
Came to your court, how was I in your grace?
How merited to be so?

Since he came if I have ever stepped beyond
The bound of honor, or, in act, or will

With whom I am accused, I do confess

I loved him as in honor he required,
With such a kind of love as might become

A lady like me, with a love even such,
So and no other, as yourself commanded.
Which not to have done I think had been in me

Both disobedience and ingratitude,

To you, and toward your friend, whose love had spoke, E'en since it could speak, from an infant, freely,

That it was yours. Now, for conspiracy,

All that I know of it

Is that Camillo was an honest man;

And why he left your court, the gods themselves,
Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.

Leontes. You knew of his departure.

You are past all shame; those of your sort are so.

Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself

No father owning it (which is indeed

More criminal in thee than it): so thou

Shalt feel our justice, — in whose easiest passage
Look for no less than death.

Hermione.

Sir, spare your threats;

The bug which you would fright me with I seek.

To me can life be no commodity;

The crown and comfort of my life, your favor,

I do give lost, for I do feel it gone,

But know not how it went; my second joy
And first-fruits of my body, from his presence
I am barred like one infectious; my third comfort,
Starred most unluckily, is from my breast-
The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth
Haled out to murder. Myself on every post
Proclaimed a strumpet; with immodest hatred
The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs
To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried
Here to this place i' the open air, before

I have regained my strength. Now, good my liege,
Tell me what blessings I have here alive

-

That I should fear to die! Therefore proceed;
But yet hear this, - mistake me not; no! life,
I prize it not a straw, but for mine honor
Which I would free, if I shall be condemned
Upon surmises - all proofs sleeping else
But what your jealousies awake — I tell you
'Tis rigor, and not law ! Your honors all,

1 The Elizabethan word for terror. The verse in King James' Bible which reads: "Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night"stands in an earlier version: "Thou shalt not be afraid for any bug by night," etc.