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STANFORD MARY

WINTER'S TALE.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Sicilia. An Antechamber in Leontes' Palace.

Enter CAMILLO, and ARCHIDAMUS.

ARCH. If you fhall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the like occafion whereon my fervices are now on foot, you fhall 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 visitation which he justly owes him.

ARCH. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us, we will be justified in our loves: for, indeed,CAM. 'Befeech 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, unintel ligent of our infufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accufe us.

CAM. You pay a great deal too dear, for what's given freely.

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our entertainment, &c.] Though we cannot give you equal entertainment, yet the consciousness of our good-will shall justify RS. JOHNSON.

ARCH. Believe me, I speak as my understanding inftructs me, and as mine honefty puts it to utterance.

CAM. Sicilia cannot show 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 attorney'd,' with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have feem'd to be together, though abfent; fhook hands, as over a vaft; and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves!

ARCH. 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 ;

3 royally attorney'd,] Nobly fupplied by fubftitution of embaffies, &c. JOHNSON.

-fbook 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 vaft fea. 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 sword 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.

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.

ARCH. Would they elfe be content to die?

GAM. 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.

SCENE II.

The fame. A Room of ftate in the Palace.

Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and Attendants.

POL. Nine changes of the wat'ry ftar 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 should, for perpetuity,

Go hence in debt: And therefore, like a cypher, Yet standing in rich place, I multiply,

With one we-thank-you, many thousands more go before it.

That

-phyficks the fubje&,] 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.”

LEON.

Stay your thanks a while;

And pay them when you part.

Sir, that's to-morrow.

POL. I am question'd by my fears, of what may chance, Or breed upon our abfence: That may blow No fneaping winds at home, to make us fay, This is put forth too truly! Befides, I have ftay'd To tire your royalty.

LEON.

We are tougher, brother,

that may blow

No freaping winds-] Dr. Warburton calls this nonfenfe: 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 tranflation 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 Kinfmen:

In thy rumination,

"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.

-fneaping winds-] Nipping winds. So, in Garvin Douglas's tranflation of Virgil's Eneid. Prologue of the feuynth Booke.

"Scharp foppis of fleit, and of the fnyppand fnaw."

HOLT WHITE.

↑ This is put forth too truly!] i. e. to make me fay, I had too good reafon for my fears concerning what might happen in my abfence from home. MALONE.

Prefs me not, 'befeech you, fo;

I'll no gain-faying.

POL.

There is no tongue that moves, none, none i'the

world,

So foon as yours, could win me: fo it fhould now,
Were there neceffity in your request, although
'Twere needful I deny'd 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 fave both,
Farewel, our brother.

LEON. Tongue-ty'd, our queen? fpeak you. HER. I had thought, fir, to have held my peace, until

You had drawn oaths from him, not to stay. You, fir,
Charge him too coldly: Tell him, you are sure,
All in Bohemia's well: this fatisfaction 8

The by-gone day proclaim'd; fay this to him,
He's beat from his best ward.

LEON.

Well faid, Hermione.

HER. To tell, he longs to fee his fon, were ftrong: But let him fay fo then, and let him go;

But let him fwear fo, and he fhall not ftay,

We'll thwack him hence with diftaffs.

Yet of your royal prefence [To POLIXENES.] I'll adventure

The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
You take my lord, I'll give him my commiffion,"

this fatisfaction- We had fatisfactory accounts yesterday of the state of Bohemia. JOHNSON.

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I'll give him my commiffion,] We should read:

I'll give you my commiffion,

The verb let, or hinder, which follows, fhows the neceffity of it: for fhe could not say she would give her husband a commiffion