THE WINTER'S TALE. Sidney Lee

The purity and whiteness of my sheets,—

       Which to preserve is sleep; which being spotted

       Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps;

       Give scandal to the blood o’ the prince, my son,—

       Who I do think is mine, and love as mine,—

       Without ripe moving to’t?—Would I do this?

       Could man so blench?

       CAMILLO

       I must believe you, sir:

       I do; and will fetch off Bohemia for’t;

       Provided that, when he’s remov’d, your highness

       Will take again your queen as yours at first,

       Even for your son’s sake; and thereby for sealing

       The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms

       Known and allied to yours.

       LEONTES

       Thou dost advise me

       Even so as I mine own course have set down:

       I’ll give no blemish to her honour, none.

       CAMILLO

       My lord,

       Go then; and with a countenance as clear

       As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia

       And with your queen: I am his cupbearer.

       If from me he have wholesome beverage,

       Account me not your servant.

       LEONTES

       This is all:

       Do’t, and thou hast the one-half of my heart;

       Do’t not, thou splitt’st thine own.

       CAMILLO

       I’ll do’t, my lord.

       LEONTES

       I will seem friendly, as thou hast advis’d me.

       [Exit.]

       CAMILLO

       O miserable lady!—But, for me,

       What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner

       Of good Polixenes: and my ground to do’t

       Is the obedience to a master; one

       Who, in rebellion with himself, will have

       All that are his so too.—To do this deed,

       Promotion follows: if I could find example

       Of thousands that had struck anointed kings

       And flourish’d after, I’d not do’t; but since

       Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,

       Let villainy itself forswear’t. I must

       Forsake the court: to do’t, or no, is certain

       To me a break-neck. Happy star reign now!

       Here comes Bohemia.

       [Enter POLIXENES.]

       POLIXENES

       This is strange! methinks

       My favour here begins to warp. Not speak?—

       Good-day, Camillo.

       CAMILLO

       Hail, most royal sir!

       POLIXENES

       What is the news i’ the court?

       CAMILLO

       None rare, my lord.

       POLIXENES

       The king hath on him such a countenance

       As he had lost some province, and a region

       Lov’d as he loves himself; even now I met him

       With customary compliment; when he,

       Wafting his eyes to the contrary, and falling

       A lip of much contempt, speeds from me;

       So leaves me to consider what is breeding

       That changes thus his manners.

       CAMILLO

       I dare not know, my lord.

       POLIXENES

       How! dare not! do not. Do you know, and dare not

       Be intelligent to me? ‘Tis thereabouts;

       For, to yourself, what you do know, you must,

       And cannot say, you dare not. Good Camillo,

       Your chang’d complexions are to me a mirror

       Which shows me mine chang’d too; for I must be

       A party in this alteration, finding

       Myself thus alter’d with’t.

       CAMILLO

       There is a sickness

       Which puts some of us in distemper; but

       I cannot name the disease; and it is caught

       Of you that yet are well.

       POLIXENES

       How! caught of me!

       Make me not sighted like the basilisk:

       I have look’d on thousands who have sped the better

       By my regard, but kill’d none so. Camillo,—

       As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto

       Clerk-like, experienc’d, which no less adorns

       Our gentry than our parents’ noble names,

       In whose success we are gentle,—I beseech you,

       If you know aught which does behove my knowledge

       Thereof to be inform’d, imprison’t not

       In ignorant concealment.

       CAMILLO

       I may not answer.

       POLIXENES

       A sickness caught of me, and yet I well!

       I must be answer’d.—Dost thou hear, Camillo,

       I conjure thee, by all the parts of man

       Which honour does acknowledge,—whereof the least

       Is not this suit of mine,—that thou declare

       What incidency thou dost guess of harm

       Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near;

       Which way to be prevented, if to be;

       If not, how best to bear it.

       CAMILLO

       Sir, I will tell you;

       Since I am charg’d in honour, and by him

       That I think honourable: therefore mark my counsel,

       Which must be ev’n as swiftly follow’d as

       I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me

       Cry lost, and so goodnight!

       POLIXENES

       On, good Camillo.

       CAMILLO

       I am appointed him to murder you.

       POLIXENES

       By whom, Camillo?

       CAMILLO

       By the king.

       POLIXENES

       For what?

       CAMILLO