Hermione, Queen to Leontes. Perdita, Daughter to Leontes and Hermione. Emilia, a Lady, Two other Ladies, attending the Queen. Mopfa, Dorcas, Shepherdeffes. Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Satyrs for a Dance; Shepherds, Shepherdeffes, Guards, &c. SCENE, fometimes in Sicilia, sometimes in Bohemia. WINTER'S TALE. ACT I. SCENE I. Sicilia. An Antechamber in Leontes' Palace. Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS. ARCH. If you fhall chance, Camillo, to vifit Bohemia, on the like occafion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall fee, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia, and your Sicilia. CAM. I think, this coming fummer, the king of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the vifitation which he justly owes him. ARCH. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us,' we will be justified in our loves: for, indeed,— CAM. 'Beseech you, ARCH. Verily, I fpeak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we cannot with fuch magnificencein fo rare-I know not what to fay.We will give you fleepy drinks; that your fenfes, unintelligent of our infufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accufe us. I our entertainment &c.] Though we cannot give you equal entertainment, yet the consciousness of our good-will shall juftify us. JOHNSON. CAM. You pay a great deal too dear, for what's given freely. ARCH. Believe me, I fpeak as my understanding inftructs me, and as mine honefty puts it to utter ance. CAM. Sicilia cannot fhow himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt them then fuch an affection, which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities, and royal neceffities, made feparation of their fociety, their encounters, though not perfonal, have been royally attornied, with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embaffies; that they have seemed to be together, though abfent; fhook hands, as over a vast ; and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds.3 The heavens continue their loves! 2 royally attornied,] Nobly fupplied by fubftitution of embaffies, &c. JOHNSON. 3 -Shook hands, as over a vaft; and embraced, as it were, from the ends of oppofed winds.] Thus the folio, 1623. The folio, 1632:-over a vast sea. I have fince found that Sir T. Hanmer attempted the fame correction; though I believe the old reading to be the true one. Vaftum was the ancient term for wafte uncultivated land. Over a vaft, therefore, means at a great and vacant distance from each other. Vaft, however, may be used for the fea, as in Pericles, Prince of Tyre: "Thou God of this great vaft, rebuke the furges." STEEVENS. Shakspeare has, more than once, taken his imagery from the prints, with which the books of his time were ornamented. If my memory do not deceive me, he had his eye on a wood cut in Holinfhed, while writing the incantation of the weird fifters in Macbeth. There is alfo an allufion to a print of one of the Henries holding a fword adorned with crowns. In this paffage he refers to a device common in the title-page of old books, of two hands extended from oppofite clouds, and joined as in token of friendship over a wide waste of country. HENLEY. ARCH. I think, there is not in the world either malice, or matter, to alter it. You have an unfpeakable comfort of your young prince Mamillius; it is a gentleman of the greatest promise, that ever came into my note. CAM. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him: It is a gallant child; one that, indeed, phyficks the fubject,+ makes old hearts fresh: they, that went on crutches ere he was born, defire yet their life, to fee him a man. ARGH. Would they elfe be content to die? CAM. Yes; if there were no other excufe why they should defire to live. ARCH. If the king had no fon, they would defire to live on crutches till he had one. [Exeunt. 4 phyficks the fubject,] Affords a cordial to the state has the power of affuaging the fenfe of mifery. JOHNSON. So, in Macbeth: "The labour we delight in, phyficks pain." STEEVENS. SCENE II. The fame. A Room of State in the Palace. Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and Attendants. POL. Nine changes of the wat'ry star have been The fhepherd's note, fince we have left our throne Without a burden: time as long again Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks And yet we fhould, for perpetuity, Go hence in debt: And therefore, like a cipher, With one we-thank-you, many thousands more LEON. And pay them when you part. POL. Stay your thanks awhile; Sir, that's to-morrow. I am queftion'd by my fears, of what may chance, Or breed upon our abfence: That may blow No fneaping winds 5 at home, to make us fay, No fneaping winds ] Dr. Warburton calls this nonsense; and Dr. Johnfon tells us it is a Gallicifm. It happens, however, to be both fenfe and English. That, for Oh! that is not uncommon. In an old translation of the famous Alcoran of the Francifcans: "St. Francis obferving the holiness of friar Juniper, faid to the priors, That I had a wood of fuch Junipers!" And, in The Two Noble Kinsmen : "That I poor man might eftfoons come between !" And fo in other places. This is the conftruction of the paffage in Romeo and Juliet: "That runaway's eyes may wink!" Which in other refpects Mr. Steevens has rightly interpreted. FARMER. |