THE WINTER'S TALE. Sidney Lee

PAULINA

       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!