With bag and baggage: many a thousand of us Have the disease, and feel't not.-How now, boy? Mam. I am like you, they say.

Leon.

What! Camillo there?

Why, that's some comfort.

Cam. Ay, my good lord.

Leon. Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest

man.

[Exit MAMILLIUS.

Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.

Cam. You had much ado to make his anchor hold: When you cast out, it still came home31.

Leon. Didst note it? Cam. He would not stay at your petitions; made His business more material32.

Leon.

Didst perceive it?'They're here with me already33; whispering, rounding 34,

Sicilia is a so-forth: 'Tis far gone,

When I shall gust25 it last.-How came't, Camillo, That he did stay?

Cam.

At the good queen's entreaty. Leon. At the queen's, be't: good, should be pertinent;

But so it is, it is not. Was this taken

By any understanding pate but thine?
For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in
More than the common blocks:-Not noted, is't,
But of the finer natures? by some severals,
Of head-piece extraordinary? lower messes36,
Perchance, are to this business purblind: say.

31 It still came home,' a nautical term, meaning, 'the anchor would not take hold.'

32 The more you requested him to stay, the more urgent he represented that business to be which summoned him away.

33 Not Polixenes and Hermione, but casual observers.
34 To round in the ear was to tell secretly, to whisper.
35 i. e. taste it:-

'Dedecus ille domus sciet ultimus."

Juv. Sat. X.

36 Messes is here put for degrees, conditions. The company at great tables were divided according to their rank into higher and

Cam. Business, my lord? I think, most understand Bohemia stays here longer.

Leon.

Cam.

Leon. Ay, but why?

Ha?

Stays here longer.

Cam. To satisfy your highness, and the entreaties Of our most gracious mistress.

Leon. Satisfy The entreaties of your mistress?--satisfy?— Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo, With all the nearest things to my heart, as well My chamber-councils: wherein, priestlike, thou Hast cleans'd my bosom; I from thee departed Thy penitent reform'd: but we have been Deceiv'd in thy integrity, deceiv'd

In that which seems so.

Cam.

Be it forbid, my lord! Leon. To bide upon't:-Thou art not honest: or, If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward; Which hoxes3 honesty behind, restraining

From course requir'd: Or else thou must be counted
A servant, grafted in my serious trust,
And therein negligent; or else a fool,

That see'st a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn,
And tak'st it all for jest.

Cam.
My gracious lord,
I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful;
In every one of these no man is free,
But that his negligence, his folly, fear,
Amongst the infinite doings of the world,
Sometime puts forth: In your affairs, my lord,
If ever I were wilful-negligent,

It was my folly; if industriously

lower messes. Those of lower condition sitting below the great standing salt in the centre of the table. Sometimes the messes were served at different tables, and seem to have been arranged into fours, whence the word came to express four in vulgar speech-'a messe (vulgairement) le nombre de quatre.'-Sherwood's Dict. 1632.

37 To hox is to hamstring, the proper word is to hough.

I play'd the fool, it was my negligence,
Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful
To do a thing, where I the issue doubted,
Whereof the execution did cry out

Against the non-performance38, 'twas a fear
Which oft affects the wisest: these, my lord,
Are such allow'd infirmities, that honesty
Is never free of. But, 'beseech your grace,
Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass
By its own visage: if I then deny it,

"Tis none of mine.

Leon.

Have not you seen, Camillo, (But that's past doubt: you have; or your eye-glass Is thicker than a cuckold's horn); or heard (For, to a vision so apparent, rumour

Čannot be mute), or thought,-(for cogitation
Resides not in that man, that does not think39)-
My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess
(Or else be impudently negative,

To have nor eyes, nor ears, nor thought), then say,
My wife's a hobby-horse; deserves a name
As rank as any flax - wench, that puts to
Before a troth-plight: say it, and justify it.
Cam. I would not be a stander-by, to hear
My sovereign mistress clouded so, without

38 This is expressed obscurely, but seems to mean 'the execation of which (when done) cried out against the non-performance of it before; or, as Johnson laconically expresses it, was 'a thing necessary to be done, but which Camillo had delayed doing because he doubted the issue.

39 Theobald quoted this passages in defence of the well known line in his Double Falsehood, 'None but himself can be his parallel.' For who does not see at once (says he) that he who does not think has no thought in him.' In the same light the subsequent editors view this passage, and read with Pope, that does not think it.' But the old reading is right, and the absurdity only in the misapprehension of it. Leontes means to say, 'Have you not thought that my wife is slippery (for cogitation resides not in the man that does not think my wife is slippery?) The four latter words, though disjoined from the word think by the necessity of a parenthesis, are evidently to be connected in construction with it. Malone, whose explanation this is, justly remarks that there are more involved and parenthetical passages in this play than in any other of Shakspeare's, except, perhaps, King Henry VIII.

My present vengeance taken: 'Shrew my heart,
You never spoke what did become you less
Than this, which to reiterate, were sin
As deep as that, though true40.
Leon.
Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh? (a note infallible
Of breaking honesty:) horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?
Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes blind
With the pin and web41, but theirs, theirs only,
That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing?
Why, then, the world, and all that's in't, is nothing;
The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;
My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,
If this be nothing.

Cam.
Good my lord, be cur'd
Of this diseas'd opinion, and betimes;

For 'tis most dangerous.

Leon.

Cam. No, no, my lord.
Leon.

Say, it be; 'tis true.

It is: you lie, you lie:

I say, thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee;

Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave;
Or else a hovering temporizer, that

Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,
Inclining to them both: Were my wife's liver

Infected as her life, she would not live

The running of one glass42.

Cam.

Who does infect her?

Leon. Why he, that wears her like his medal13,

hanging

40 To reiterate your accusation of her would be as great a sin as that (if committed) of which you accuse her.

41 The pin and web is the cataract in an early stage. See King Lear, Act iii. Sc. 4.

42 i. e. one hour.

43 The old copy reads 'her medal.' The allusion is to the custom of wearing a medallion or jewel appended to a ribbon about the neck. Thus in Gervase Markham's Honour in Perfection, 1624, he hath hung about the neck of his kinsman, Sir Horace Vere, like a rich jewel.

About his neck, Bohemia: Who-if I

Had servants true about me: that bare eyes
To see alike mine honour as their profits,

Their own particular thrifts,-they would do that
Which should undo more doing: Ay, and thou,
His cup-bearer,-whom I from meaner form
Have bench'd, and rear'd to worship; who may'st see
Plainly, as heaven sees earth, and earth sees heaven,
How I am galled,-might'st bespice a cup44,
To give mine enemy a lasting wink';

Which draught to me were cordial.

Cam.

Sir, my lord, I could do this: and that with no rash45 potion, But with a ling'ring dram, that should not work Maliciously like poison: But I cannot

Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress,
So sovereignly being honourable.

I have lov'd thee,

Leon. Make' thy question, and go rot46!! Dost think, I am so muddy, so unsettled, To appoint myself in this vexation? sully The purity and whiteness of my sheets, Which to preserve, is sleep; which being spotted, Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps47? Give scandal to the blood o' the prince my son, Who, I do think is mine, and love as mine;

44 'Bespice a cup.' So in Chapman's Translation of the tenth book of the Odyssey :

with a festival

She'll first receive thee; but will spice thy bread
With flowery poisons.'

45 Rash is hasty; as in King Henry IV. Part 11. 'rash gunpowder. Maliciously is malignantly, with effects openly hurtful.

་

46 Make that (i. e. Hermione's disloyalty, which is a clear point) a subject of doubt, and go rot! Dost think, I am such a fool as to torment myself, and to bring disgrace on me and my child, without sufficient grounds?

47 Something is necessary to complete the verse. reads:

Is goads and thorns, nettles and tails of wasps.

Hanmer