Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and others.

CLEO. Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd
A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make
Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down
More penitence, than done trespass: At the last
Do, as the heavens have done; forget your evil;
With them, forgive yourself.

LEON.

Whilst I remember

She I kill'd! I did so: but thou strik'st me
Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter

Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,
Say so but seldom.

You might have spoken a thousand things that would
Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd

a In Antony and Cleopatra' we have an explanation of the text:

"We use to say, the dead are well."

Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid you mark
Her eye; and tell me, for what dull part in 't
You chose her: then I'd shriek, that even your ears

Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd
Should be, "Remember mine!"

[TO LEONTES.

We have shifted the place of the parenthesis, making "her sainted spirit" the nominative case to " appear." By this arrangement, "where we offenders now" are must be understood. By any other construction we lose the force of the word "appear," as applied to “sainted spirit.” Malone proposed to read,―

"Again possess her corpse, (and on this stage

Where we offenders now appear soul-vex'd,)
And begin, Why to me?"

Steevens, whom Mr. Collier follows, reads

b Just cause.

"(Where we offenders now appear) soul-vex'd,
Begin' And why to me."

In the original just such cause. In modern editions such is omitted, following the authority of the third folio.

e

Stars, stars. So the original, but diluted by Hanmer into stars, very stars.

Never to marry, but by my free leave?

LEON. Never, Paulina: so be bless'd my spirit!

PAUL. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath,—
CLEO. You tempt him over-much.

As like Hermione as is her picture,

Affront his eye";—

CLEO.
Good madam, I have done.
PAUL. Yet, if my lord will marry,—if you will,

No remedy but you will; give me the office
To choose you a queen; she shall not be so young
As was your former; but she shall be such

As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy
To see her in your arms.

GENT. One that gives out himself prince Florizel,
Son of Polixenes, with his princess, (she
The fairest I have yet beheld,) desires access
To your high presence.

LEON.

What with him? he comes not
Like to his father's greatness: his approach,
So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us
"T is not a visitation fram'd, but forc'd

LEON.

His princess, say you, with him?

GENT. Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,

That e'er the sun shone bright on.

O Hermione,

PAUL.
As every present time doth boast itself
Above a better, gone, so must thy grave
Give way to what's seen now. Sir, you yourself
Have said, and writ so, (but your writing now

a The vehemence of Paulina overbears the interruption of Cleomenes, and he says "I have done." The modern editors give "I have done" to Paulina; when she is evidently going on, perfectly regardless of any opposition.

PAUL.
Had our prince
(Jewel of children) seen this hour, he had pair'd
Well with this lord; there was not full a month
Between their births.

LEON.
Prithee, no more; cease; thou know'st,
He dies to me again, when talk'd of: sure,
When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
Will bring me to consider that which may
Unfurnish me of reason.-They are come.-

Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and Attendants.

Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince;

For she did print your royal father off,
Conceiving you: Were I but twenty-one,
Your father's image is so hit in you,

His very air, that I should call you brother,
As I did him; and speak of something, wildly
By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!
And your fair princess, goddess!-O, alas!
I lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth
Might thus have stood, begetting wonder, as
You, gracious couple, do! and then I lost
(All mine own folly) the society,
Amity too, of your brave father; whom,