William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (511 page)
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Authors: William Shakespeare
Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare
BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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SECOND LORD
Peace, ho! No outrage, peace.
The man is noble, and his fame folds in
This orb o’th’ earth. His last offences to us
Shall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,
And trouble not the peace.
This orb o’th’ earth. His last offences to us
Shall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,
And trouble not the peace.
CORIOLANUS ⌈
drawing his sword
⌉
drawing his sword
⌉
O that I had him with six Aufidiuses,
Or more, his tribe, to use my lawful sword!
Or more, his tribe, to use my lawful sword!
AUFIDIUS ⌈
drawing his sword
⌉
drawing his sword
⌉
Insolent villain!
ALL THE CONSPIRATORS Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!
Two Conspirators draw and kill Martius, who falls. Aufidius
⌈
and Conspirators
⌉
stand on him
LORDS
Hold, hold, hold, hold!
AUFIDIUS
My noble masters, hear me speak.
FIRST LORD
O Tullus!
SECOND LORD (
to Aufidius
)
to Aufidius
)
Thou hast done a deed whereat
Valour will weep.
THIRD LORD ⌈
to Aufidius and the Conspirators
⌉
to Aufidius and the Conspirators
⌉
Tread not upon him, masters.
All be quiet. Put up your swords.
AUFIDIUS My lords,
When you shall know—as in this rage
Provoked by him you cannot—the great danger
Which this man’s life did owe you, you’ll rejoice
That he is thus cut off. Please it your honours
To call me to your senate, I’ll deliver
Myself your loyal servant, or endure
Your heaviest censure.
Provoked by him you cannot—the great danger
Which this man’s life did owe you, you’ll rejoice
That he is thus cut off. Please it your honours
To call me to your senate, I’ll deliver
Myself your loyal servant, or endure
Your heaviest censure.
FIRST LORD Bear from hence his body,
And mourn you for him. Let him be regarded
As the most noble corpse that ever herald
Did follow to his urn.
As the most noble corpse that ever herald
Did follow to his urn.
SECOND LORD His own impatience
Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.
Let’s make the best of it.
Let’s make the best of it.
AUFIDIUS
My rage is gone,
And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.
Help three o’th’ chiefest soldiers; I’ll be one.
Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully.
Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he
Hath widowed and unchilded many a one,
Which to this hour bewail the injury,
Yet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.
Help three o’th’ chiefest soldiers; I’ll be one.
Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully.
Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he
Hath widowed and unchilded many a one,
Which to this hour bewail the injury,
Yet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.
A dead march sounded. Exeunt
bearing the body of Martius
bearing the body of Martius
THE WINTER’S TALE
THE astrologer Simon Forman saw
The Winter’s Tale
at the Globe on 15 May 1611. Just how much earlier the play was written is not certainly known. During the sheep-shearing feast in Act 4, twelve countrymen perform a satyrs’ dance that three of them are said to have already ‘danced before the King’. This is not necessarily a topical reference, but satyrs danced in Ben Jonson’s
Masque of Oberon
, performed before King James on 1 January 1611. It seems likely that this dance was incorporated in
The Winter’s Tale
(just as, later, another masque dance seems to have been transferred to
The Two Noble Kinsmen
). But it occurs in a self-contained passage that may well have been added after Shakespeare wrote the play itself.
The Winter’s Tale
, first printed in the 1623 Folio, is usually thought to have been written after
Cymbeline
, but stylistic evidence places it before that play, perhaps in 1609-10.
The Winter’s Tale
at the Globe on 15 May 1611. Just how much earlier the play was written is not certainly known. During the sheep-shearing feast in Act 4, twelve countrymen perform a satyrs’ dance that three of them are said to have already ‘danced before the King’. This is not necessarily a topical reference, but satyrs danced in Ben Jonson’s
Masque of Oberon
, performed before King James on 1 January 1611. It seems likely that this dance was incorporated in
The Winter’s Tale
(just as, later, another masque dance seems to have been transferred to
The Two Noble Kinsmen
). But it occurs in a self-contained passage that may well have been added after Shakespeare wrote the play itself.
The Winter’s Tale
, first printed in the 1623 Folio, is usually thought to have been written after
Cymbeline
, but stylistic evidence places it before that play, perhaps in 1609-10.
A mid sixteenth-century book classes ‘winter tales’ along with ‘old wives’ tales‘; Shakespeare’s title prepared his audiences for a tale of romantic improbability, one to be wondered at rather than believed; and within the play itself characters compare its events to ‘an old tale’ (5.2.61; 5.3.118). The comparison is just: Shakespeare is dramatizing a story by his old rival Robert Greene, published as
Pandosto: The Triumph of Time
in or before 1588. This gave Shakespeare his plot outline, of a king (Leontes) who believes his wife (Hermione) to have committed adultery with another king (Polixenes), his boyhood friend, and who casts off his new-born daughter (Perdita—the lost one) in the belief that she is his friend’s bastard. In both versions the baby is brought up as a shepherdess, falls in love with her supposed father’s son (Florizel in the play), and returns to her real father’s court where she is at last recognized as his daughter. In both versions, too, the wife’s innocence is demonstrated by the pronouncement of the Delphic oracle, and her husband passes the period of his daughter’s absence in penitence; but Shakespeare alters the ending of his source story, bringing it into line with the conventions of romance. He adopts Greene’s tripartite structure, but greatly develops it, adding for instance Leontes’ steward Antigonus and his redoubtable wife Paulina, along with the comic rogue Autolycus, ‘snapper-up of unconsidered trifles’.
Pandosto: The Triumph of Time
in or before 1588. This gave Shakespeare his plot outline, of a king (Leontes) who believes his wife (Hermione) to have committed adultery with another king (Polixenes), his boyhood friend, and who casts off his new-born daughter (Perdita—the lost one) in the belief that she is his friend’s bastard. In both versions the baby is brought up as a shepherdess, falls in love with her supposed father’s son (Florizel in the play), and returns to her real father’s court where she is at last recognized as his daughter. In both versions, too, the wife’s innocence is demonstrated by the pronouncement of the Delphic oracle, and her husband passes the period of his daughter’s absence in penitence; but Shakespeare alters the ending of his source story, bringing it into line with the conventions of romance. He adopts Greene’s tripartite structure, but greatly develops it, adding for instance Leontes’ steward Antigonus and his redoubtable wife Paulina, along with the comic rogue Autolycus, ‘snapper-up of unconsidered trifles’.
The intensity of poetic suffering with which Leontes expresses his irrational jealousy is matched by the lyrical rapture of the love episodes between Florizel and Perdita. In both verse and prose
The Winter’s Tale
shows Shakespeare’s verbal powers at their greatest, and his theatrical mastery is apparent in, for example, Hermione’s trial (3.1) and the daring final scene in which time brings about its triumph.
The Winter’s Tale
shows Shakespeare’s verbal powers at their greatest, and his theatrical mastery is apparent in, for example, Hermione’s trial (3.1) and the daring final scene in which time brings about its triumph.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAYLEONTES, King of SicilyHERMIONE, his wifeMAMILLIUS, his sonPERDITA, his daughterPAULINA, Antigonus’s wifeEMILIA, a lady attending on HermioneA JAILERA MARINEROther Lords and Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers, and Servants at Leontes’s courtPOLIXENES, King of BohemiaFLORIZEL, his son, in love with Perdita; known as DoriclesARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian lordAUTOLYCUS, a rogue, once in the service of FlorizelOLD SHEPHERDCLOWN, his sonSERVANT of the Old ShepherdOther Shepherds and ShepherdessesTwelve countrymen disguised as satyrsTIME, as chorus
Enter Camillo and Archidamus
ARCHIDAMUS If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.
CAMILLO I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.
ARCHIDAMUS Wherein our entertainment shall shame us, we will be justified in our loves; for indeed—
CAMILLO Beseech you—
ARCHIDAMUS Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge. We cannot with such magnificence—in so rare—I know not what to say.—We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us.
CAMILLO You pay a great deal too dear for what’s given freely.
ARCHIDAMUS Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.
CAMILLO Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods, and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters—though not personal—hath been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies, that they have seemed to be together, though absent; shook hands as over a vast; and embraced as it were from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves.
ARCHIDAMUS I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young prince, Mamillius. It is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.
CAMILLO I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a gallant child; one that, indeed, physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh. They that went on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man.
ARCHIDAMUS Would they else be content to die?
CAMILLO Yes—if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.
ARCHIDAMUS If the King had no son they would desire to live on crutches till he had one. Exeunt
1.2Enter Leontes, Hermione, Mamillius, Polixenes,
and ⌈
Camillo
⌉
POLIXENES
Nine changes of the wat‘ry star hath been
The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne
Without a burden. Time as long again
Would be filled up, my brother, with our thanks,
And yet we should for perpetuity
Go hence in debt. And therefore, like a cipher,
Yet standing in rich place, I multiply
With one ‘We thank you’ many thousands more
That go before it.
The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne
Without a burden. Time as long again
Would be filled up, my brother, with our thanks,
And yet we should for perpetuity
Go hence in debt. And therefore, like a cipher,
Yet standing in rich place, I multiply
With one ‘We thank you’ many thousands more
That go before it.
LEONTES
Stay your thanks a while,
And pay them when you part.
POLIXENES
Sir, that’s tomorrow. I am questioned by my fears of what may chance
Or breed upon our absence, that may blow
No sneaping winds at home to make us say
‘This is put forth too truly.’ Besides, I have stayed
To tire your royalty.
Or breed upon our absence, that may blow
No sneaping winds at home to make us say
‘This is put forth too truly.’ Besides, I have stayed
To tire your royalty.
LEONTES
We are tougher, brother,
Than you can put us to’t.
POLIXENES
No longer stay.
LEONTES
One sennight longer.
POLIXENES
Very sooth, tomorrow.
LEONTES
We’ll part the time between’s, then; and in that
I’ll no gainsaying.
I’ll no gainsaying.
POLIXENES
Press me not, beseech you, so.
There is no tongue that moves, none, none i‘th’ world
So soon as yours, could win me. So it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
’Twere needful I denied it. My affairs
Do even drag me homeward; which to hinder
Were, in your love, a whip to me; my stay
To you a charge and trouble. To save both,
Farewell, our brother.
So soon as yours, could win me. So it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
’Twere needful I denied it. My affairs
Do even drag me homeward; which to hinder
Were, in your love, a whip to me; my stay
To you a charge and trouble. To save both,
Farewell, our brother.
LEONTES
Tongue-tied, our queen? Speak you.
HERMIONE
I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until
You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,
Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure
All in Bohemia’s well. This satisfaction
The bygone day proclaimed. Say this to him,
He’s beat from his best ward.
You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,
Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure
All in Bohemia’s well. This satisfaction
The bygone day proclaimed. Say this to him,
He’s beat from his best ward.
LEONTES
Well said, Hermione!
HERMIONE
To tell he longs to see his son were strong.
But let him say so then, and let him go.
But let him swear so and he shall not stay,
We’ll thwack him hence with distaffs.
(To Polixenes) Yet of your royal presence I’ll adventure
The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
You take my lord, I’ll give him my commission
To let him there a month behind the gest
Prefixed for’s parting.—Yet, good deed, Leontes,
I love thee not a jar o’th’ clock behind
What lady she her lord.—You’ll stay?
But let him say so then, and let him go.
But let him swear so and he shall not stay,
We’ll thwack him hence with distaffs.
(To Polixenes) Yet of your royal presence I’ll adventure
The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
You take my lord, I’ll give him my commission
To let him there a month behind the gest
Prefixed for’s parting.—Yet, good deed, Leontes,
I love thee not a jar o’th’ clock behind
What lady she her lord.—You’ll stay?
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