Shakespeare - First Folio facsimile (1910)/The Winters Tale/Act 1 Scene 1

by William Shakespeare

Layout 2

 

The Winters Tale.

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Actus Primus. Scœna Prima.

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Enter Camillo and Archidamus.

⁠Arch.
F you shall chance (Camillo) to visit Bohemia, on
the like occasion whereon my seruices are now
on-foot, you shall see (as I haue said) great
difference betwixt our Bohemia, and your Sicilia.

Cam.
I thinke, this comming Summer, the King of
Sicilia meanes to pay Bohemia the Visitation, which hee
iustly owes him.

Arch.
Wherein our Entertainment shall shame vs: we
will be iustified in our Loues: for indeed—

Cam.
'Beseech you—

Arch.
Verely I speake it in the freedome of my knowledge:
we cannot with such magnificence—in so rare—
I know not what to say— Wee will giue you sleepie
Drinkes, that your Sences (vn-intelligent of our
insufficience) may, though they cannot prayse vs, as
little accuse vs.

Cam.
You pay a great deale to deare, for what's giuen freely.

Arch.
'Beleeue me, I speake as my vnderstanding instructs
me, and as mine honestie puts it to vtterance.

Cam.
Sicilia cannot shew himselfe ouer-kind to Bohemia:
They were trayn'd together in their Child-hoods;
and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection,
which cannot chuse but braunch now. Since their more
mature Dignities, and Royall Necessities, made seperation
of their Societie, their Encounters (though not Personall)
hath been Royally attornyed with enter-change of
Gifts, Letters, louing Embassies, that they haue seem'd to
be together, though absent: shooke hands, as ouer a Vast;
and embrac'd as it were from the ends of opposed Winds.
The Heauens continue their Loues.

Arch.
I thinke there is not in the World, either Malice
or Matter, to alter it. You haue an vnspeakable comfort
of your young Prince Mamillius: it is a Gentleman of the
greatest Promise, that euer came into my Note.

Cam.
I very well agree with you, in the hopes of him:
it is a gallant Child; one, that (indeed) Physicks the
Subiect, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on Crutches
ere he was borne, desire yet their life, to see him a Man.

Arch.
Would they else be content to die?

Cam.
Yes; if there were no other excuse, why they should
desire to liue.

Arch.
If the King had no Sonne, they would desire to
Exeunt.liue on Crutches till he had one.

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