With violent hefts5.-I have drunk, and seen the spider.
Camillo was his help in this, his pander :-
There is a plot against my life, my crown;
All's true that is mistrusted :-that false villain,
Whom I employ'd, was pre-employ'd by him :
He has discover'd my design, and I

Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick

For them to play at will:-How came the posterns So easily open?

1 Lord.

By his great authority; Which often hath no less prevail'd than so, On your command.

Leon.

I know't too well.

Give me the boy; I am glad, you did not nurse him: Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you Have too much blood in him.

Her.

What is this? sport?

Leon. Bear the boy hence, he shall not come about

her.

Away with him :—and let her sport herself
With that she's big with; for 'tis Polixenes
Has made thee swell thus.

Her.
And, I'll be sworn, you would believe my saying,
Howe'er you lean to the nayward.

Leon.

But I'd say, he had not,

You, my lords,

Look on her, mark her well; be but about

To say, she is a goodly lady, and

The justice of your hearts will thereto add,

'Tis pity, she's not honest, honourable:

Praise her but for this her without-door form, (Which, on my faith, deserves high speech) and straight

5 Hefts, i. e. heavings, things which are heaved up.

A pinch'd thing, i. e. a thing pinched, a puppet for them to move and actuate as they please. This interpretation is countenanced by the manner in which showmen move their puppets by pinching them with the finger and thumb.

The shrug, the hum, or ha; these petty brands,
That calumny doth use :-O, I am out,
That mercy does; for calumny will sear7

Virtue itself:-these shrugs, these hums, and ha's,
When you have said, she's goodly, come between,
Ere you can say she's honest: But be it known,

From him that has most cause to grieve it should be, She's an adultress.

Her.

Should a villain say so,

The most replenish'd villain in the world,
He were as much more villain: you, my lord,

Do but mistake.

Leon.

You have mistook, my lady,

Polixenes for Leontes: O thou thing,

Which I'll not call a creature of thy place,
Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
Should a like language use to all degrees,
And mannerly distinguishment leave out
Betwixt the prince and beggar !—I have said,
She's an adultress; I have said with whom :
More, she's a traitor! and Camillo is

A federary with her; and one that knows
What she should shame to know herself,
But9 with her most vile principal, that she's
A bed-swerver, even as bad as those

That vulgars give bold'st titles; ay, and privy
To this their late escape.

Her.

No, by my life,

7 For calumny will sear, i. e. will brand it. Thus in All's Well that Ends Well:-" My maiden's name sear'd otherwise." 8 Federary. This word, which is probably of the poet's own invention, is used for confederate, accomplice. It may be only the printer's error for feodary, which occurs in Cymbeline, and in Measure for Measure.

9 One that knows what she should be asham'd to know herself, even if the knowledge of it was shared but with her paramour. It is the use of but for be-out (only, according to Malone) that obscures the sense.

Privy to none of this: How will this grieve you,
When you
shall come to clearer knowledge, that
You thus have publish'd me? Gentle my lord,
You scarce can right me throughly then, to say
You did mistake.

Leon.

No, no10; if I mistake

`In those foundations which I build upon,
The centre is not big enough to bear

A school-boy's top 11.-Away with her to prison:
He, who shall speak for her, is afar off guilty,
But that he speaks 12.

Her.

There's some ill planet reigns : I must be patient, till the heavens look

With an aspect more favourable.—Good my lords,
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex

Commonly are; the want of which vain dew,
Perchance, shall dry your pities: but I have
That honourable grief lodg'd here, which burns
Worse than tears drown: 'Beseech you all, my lords,
With thoughts so qualified as your charities
Shall best instruct you, measure me ;—and so
The king's will be perform'd!

My women may be with me; for, you see,

10 The reduplication of no is not in the old copy. 11 The centre is not big enough to bear

A school-boy's top.

i. e. no foundation can be trusted. Milton has expressed the same thought in more exalted language:

"If this fail,

The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble."

12 He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty,

But that he speaks.

i. e. He who shall speak for her is remotely guilty in merely speaking.

My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools; There is no cause: when you shall know your mistress Has deserv'd prison, then abound in tears, As I come out: this action, I now go on, Is for better grace.-Adieu, my

my

lord:

I never wish'd to see you sorry; now,

I trust, I shall.- -My women, come; you have leave.

Leon. Go, do our bidding; hence !

[Exeunt Queen and Ladies. 1 Lord. 'Beseech your highness, call the queen again.

Ant. Be certain what you do, sir; lest your justice

Prove violence; in the which three great ones suffer, Yourself, your queen, your son.

1 Lord.
For her, my lord,—
I dare my life lay down, and will do't, sir,
Please you to accept it, that the queen is spotless

I'the eyes of heaven, and to
In this which you accuse her.

Ant.

you; I mean,

If it prove
She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables 13 where

I lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;
Than when I feel and see her, no further trust her;
For every inch of woman in the world,

Ay, every dram of woman's flesh, is false,

If she be.

Leon.

1 Lord.

Hold your peaces!

Good my lord.

Ant. It is for you we speak, not for ourselves: You are abus'd, and by some putter-on, That will be damn'd for't; 'would, I knew the villain, I would land-damn 14 him: Be she honour-flaw'd,

13 Much has been said about this passage, but it may be explained thus:-" If she prove false, I'll make my stable or kennel of my wife's chamber; allow her no more liberty than my horses; I'll go in couples with her like a dog, and never leave her for a moment; trust her no further than I can feel and see her."

14 I would land-damn him. Johnson interprets this: "I will

I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven ;
The second, and the third, nine, and some five;

If this prove true, they'll pay for't: by mine honour
I'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see,
To bring false generations; they are coheirs ;
And I had rather glib myself, than they
Should not produce fair issue.

Leon.

Cease! no more.

You smell this business with a sense as cold

As is a dead man's nose: but I do see't, and feel't,

you

As
The instruments that feel 15.

feel doing thus; and see withal

Ant.

If it be so,

We need no grave to bury honesty;

There's not a grain of it, the face to sweeten
Of the whole dungy earth.

Leon.

What! lack I credit?

1 Lord. I had rather you did lack, than I, my lord, Upon this ground: and more it would content me To have her honour true, than your suspicion; Be blam'd for't how you might.

Leon.
Why, what need we
Commune with you of this? but rather follow
Our forceful instigation. Our prerogative

Calls not your counsels; but our natural goodness
Imparts this which, if you (or stupified,
Or seeming so in skill 16) cannot, or will not,

damn or condemn him to quit the land." It may have meant to encompass him by land, ensnare him: and then it should be printed land-damm: we have words of the same formation, as land-lockt, &c. Warner, in his Albion's England, has "country louts land-lurch their lords." Mr. Collier adverts to lamback, in the sense of to beat. Farmer suggested laudanum him!

15 I see and feel my disgrace, as you, Antigonus, now feel my doing this to you, and as you now see the instruments that feel, i. e. my fingers. Leontes must here be supposed to touch or lay hold of Antigonus.

16 In skill, i. e. by design, intentionally. The word occurs in the same sense in the 4th Act.