Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me:
Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,
Than the queen’s life? a gracious innocent soul,
More free than he is jealous.
ANTIGONUS
That’s enough.
SECOND ATTENDANT
Madam, he hath not slept tonight; commanded
None should come at him.
PAULINA
Not so hot, good sir;
I come to bring him sleep. ‘Tis such as you,—
That creep like shadows by him, and do sigh
At each his needless heavings,—such as you
Nourish the cause of his awaking: I
Do come, with words as med’cinal as true,
Honest as either, to purge him of that humour
That presses him from sleep.
LEONTES
What noise there, ho?
PAULINA
No noise, my lord; but needful conference
About some gossips for your highness.
LEONTES
How!—
Away with that audacious lady!—Antigonus,
I charg’d thee that she should not come about me:
I knew she would.
ANTIGONUS
I told her so, my lord,
On your displeasure’s peril, and on mine,
She should not visit you.
LEONTES
What, canst not rule her?
PAULINA
From all dishonesty he can: in this,—
Unless he take the course that you have done,
Commit me for committing honour,—trust it,
He shall not rule me.
ANTIGONUS
La you now, you hear
When she will take the rein, I let her run;
But she’ll not stumble.
PAULINA
Good my liege, I come,—
And, I beseech you, hear me, who professes
Myself your loyal servant, your physician,
Your most obedient counsellor: yet that dares
Less appear so, in comforting your evils,
Than such as most seem yours:—I say I come
From your good queen.
LEONTES
Good queen!
PAULINA
Good queen, my lord,
Good queen: I say, good queen;
And would by combat make her good, so were I
A man, the worst about you.
LEONTES
Force her hence!
PAULINA
Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes
First hand me: on mine own accord I’ll off;
But first I’ll do my errand—The good queen,
For she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter;
Here ‘tis; commends it to your blessing.
[Laying down the child.]
LEONTES
Out!
A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o’ door:
A most intelligencing bawd!
PAULINA
Not so:
I am as ignorant in that as you
In so entitling me; and no less honest
Than you are mad; which is enough, I’ll warrant,
As this world goes, to pass for honest.
LEONTES
Traitors!
Will you not push her out? Give her the bastard:—
Thou dotard! [To ANTIGONUS] Thou art woman-tir’d, unroosted
By thy Dame Partlet here:—take up the bastard;
Take’t up, I say; give’t to thy crone.
PAULINA
For ever
Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou
Tak’st up the princess by that forced baseness
Which he has put upon’t!
LEONTES
He dreads his wife.
PAULINA
So I would you did; then ‘twere past all doubt
You’d call your children yours.
LEONTES
A nest of traitors?
ANTIGONUS
I am none, by this good light.
PAULINA
Nor I; nor any,
But one that’s here; and that’s himself: for he
The sacred honour of himself, his queen’s,
His hopeful son’s, his babe’s, betrays to slander,
Whose sting is sharper than the sword’s; and will not,—
For, as the case now stands, it is a curse
He cannot be compell’d to’t,—once remove
The root of his opinion, which is rotten
As ever oak or stone was sound.
LEONTES
A callat
Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband,
And now baits me!—This brat is none of mine;
It is the issue of Polixenes:
Hence with it! and together with the dam,
Commit them to the fire.
PAULINA
It is yours!
And, might we lay the old proverb to your charge,
So like you ‘tis the worse.—Behold, my lords,
Although the print be little, the whole matter
And copy of the father,—eye, nose, lip,
The trick of his frown, his forehead; nay, the valley,
The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles;
The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger:—
And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it
So like to him that got it, if thou hast
The ordering of the mind too, ‘mongst all colours
No yellow in’t, lest she suspect, as he does,
Her children not her husband’s!