Act 2, Scene III - Page 2

rule me.

ANTIGONUS
La you now, you hear:
When she will take the rein I let her run;
But she'll not stumble.

PAULINA
Good my liege, I come;
And, I beseech you, hear me, who profess
Myself your loyal servant, your physician,
Your most obedient counsellor, yet that dare
Less appear so in comforting your evils,
Than such as most seem yours: I say, I come
From your good queen.

LEONTES
Good queen!

PAULINA
Good queen, my lord,
Good queen; I say good queen;
And would by combat make her good, so were I
A man, the worst about you.

LEONTES
Force her hence.

PAULINA
Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes
First hand me: on mine own accord I'll off;
But first I'll do my errand. The good queen,
For she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter;
Here 'tis; commends it to your blessing.

Laying down the child

LEONTES
Out!
A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door:
A most intelligencing bawd!

PAULINA
Not so:
I am as ignorant in that as you
In so entitling me, and no less honest
Than you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant,
As this world goes, to pass for honest.

LEONTES
Traitors!
Will you not push her out? Give her the bastard.
Thou dotard! thou art woman-tired, unroosted
By thy dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard;
Take't up, I say; give't to thy crone.

PAULINA
For ever
Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou
Takest up the princess by that forced baseness
Which he has put upon't!

LEONTES
He dreads his wife.

PAULINA
So I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt
You'ld call your children yours.

LEONTES
A nest of traitors!

ANTIGONUS
I am none, by this good light.

PAULINA
Nor I, nor any
But one that's here, and that's himself, for he
The sacred honour of himself, his queen's,
His hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander,
Whose sting is sharper than the sword's;
and will not--
For, as the case now stands, it is a curse
He cannot be compell'd to't--once remove
The root of his opinion, which is rotten
As ever oak or stone was sound.

LEONTES
A callat
Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband
And now baits me! This brat is none of mine;
It is the issue of Polixenes:
Hence with it, and together with the dam
Commit them to the fire!

PAULINA
It is yours;
And, might we lay the old proverb to your charge,
So like you, 'tis the worse. Behold, my lords,
Although the print be little, the whole matter
And copy of the father, eye, nose, lip,
The trick of's frown, his forehead, nay, the