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The Winter’s Tale: Act V, Scene 3

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The Winter’s Tale
Act V, Scene 3

A chapel in Paulina’s house.

Leontes

Leontes

From costume designs for the Viola Allen production of Winter's Tale

Tom Heslewood, 1904

  1. Enter Leontes, Polixenes, Florizel, Perdita, Camillo,
  2. Paulina, Lords, etc.

Leontes

1 - 2
  1. O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort
  2. That I have had of thee!

Paulina

3 - 9
  1.                          What, sovereign sir,
  2. I did not well, I meant well. All my services
  3. You have paid home; but that you have vouchsaf’d,
  4. With your crown’d brother and these your contracted
  5. Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,
  6. It is a surplus of your grace, which never
  7. My life may last to answer.

Leontes

10 - 16
  1.                             O Paulina,
  2. We honor you with trouble; but we came
  3. To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery
  4. Have we pass’d through, not without much content
  5. In many singularities; but we saw not
  6. That which my daughter came to look upon,
  7. The statue of her mother.

Paulina

17 - 26
  1.                           As she liv’d peerless,
  2. So her dead likeness, I do well believe,
  3. Excels what ever yet you look’d upon,
  4. Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it
  5. Lonely, apart. But here it is; prepare
  6. To see the life as lively mock’d as ever
  7. Still sleep mock’d death. Behold, and say ’tis well.
  8. Paulina draws a curtain, and discovers Hermione standing
  9. like a statue.
  10. I like your silence, it the more shows off
  11. Your wonder; but yet speak. First, you, my liege;
  12. Comes it not something near?

Leontes

27 - 33
  1.                              Her natural posture!
  2. Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed
  3. Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she
  4. In thy not chiding; for she was as tender
  5. As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina,
  6. Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing
  7. So aged as this seems.

Polixenes

34
  1.                        O, not by much.

Paulina

35 - 37
  1. So much the more our carver’s excellence,
  2. Which lets go by some sixteen years, and makes her
  3. As she liv’d now.

Leontes

38 - 48
  1.                   As now she might have done,
  2. So much to my good comfort as it is
  3. Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,
  4. Even with such life of majesty (warm life,
  5. As now it coldly stands), when first I woo’d her!
  6. I am asham’d; does not the stone rebuke me
  7. For being more stone than it? O royal piece,
  8. There’s magic in thy majesty, which has
  9. My evils conjur’d to remembrance, and
  10. From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,
  11. Standing like stone with thee.
Viola Allen as Hermione

Viola Allen as Hermione

From Viola Allen's production of Winter's Tale

Byron Company, photographer; 1904

Perdita

49 - 53
  1.                                And give me leave,
  2. And do not say ’tis superstition, that
  3. I kneel, and then implore her blessing. Lady,
  4. Dear queen, that ended when I but began,
  5. Give me that hand of yours to kiss.

Paulina

54 - 56
  1.                                     O, patience!
  2. The statue is but newly fix’d; the color’s
  3. Not dry.

Camillo

57 - 61
  1. My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,
  2. Which sixteen winters cannot blow away,
  3. So many summers dry. Scarce any joy
  4. Did ever so long live; no sorrow
  5. But kill’d itself much sooner.

Polixenes

62 - 65
  1.                                Dear my brother,
  2. Let him that was the cause of this have pow’r
  3. To take off so much grief from you as he
  4. Will piece up in himself.

Paulina

66 - 69
  1.                           Indeed, my lord,
  2. If I had thought the sight of my poor image
  3. Would thus have wrought you (for the stone is mine),
  4. I’ld not have show’d it.

Leontes

70
  1.                          Do not draw the curtain.

Paulina

71 - 72
  1. No longer shall you gaze on’t, lest your fancy
  2. May think anon it moves.

Leontes

73 - 77
  1.                          Let be, let be.
  2. Would I were dead but that methinks already—
  3. What was he that did make it? See, my lord,
  4. Would you not deem it breath’d? And that those veins
  5. Did verily bear blood?

Polixenes

78 - 79
  1.                        Masterly done!
  2. The very life seems warm upon her lip.

Leontes

80 - 81
  1. The fixure of her eye has motion in’t,
  2. As we are mock’d with art.

Paulina

82 - 84
  1.                            I’ll draw the curtain.
  2. My lord’s almost so far transported that
  3. He’ll think anon it lives.

Leontes

85 - 88
  1.                            O sweet Paulina,
  2. Make me to think so twenty years together!
  3. No settled senses of the world can match
  4. The pleasure of that madness. Let’t alone.

Paulina

89 - 90
  1. I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr’d you; but
  2. I could afflict you farther.

Leontes

91 - 96
  1.                              Do, Paulina;
  2. For this affliction has a taste as sweet
  3. As any cordial comfort. Still methinks
  4. There is an air comes from her. What fine chisel
  5. Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,
  6. For I will kiss her.
Perdita kneeling to Hermione

Perdita kneeling to Hermione

Thomas Stothard, late 18th century

Paulina

97 - 100
  1.                      Good my lord, forbear.
  2. The ruddiness upon her lip is wet;
  3. You’ll mar it if you kiss it; stain your own
  4. With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?

Leontes

101
  1. No! Not these twenty years.

Perdita

102 - 103
  1.                             So long could I
  2. Stand by, a looker-on.

Paulina

104 - 110
  1.                        Either forbear,
  2. Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you
  3. For more amazement. If you can behold it,
  4. I’ll make the statue move indeed, descend,
  5. And take you by the hand; but then you’ll think
  6. (Which I protest against) I am assisted
  7. By wicked powers.

Leontes

111 - 114
  1.                   What you can make her do,
  2. I am content to look on; what to speak,
  3. I am content to hear; for ’tis as easy
  4. To make her speak as move.

Paulina

115 - 118
  1.                            It is requir’d
  2. You do awake your faith. Then, all stand still.
  3. On; those that think it is unlawful business
  4. I am about, let them depart.

Leontes

119 - 120
  1.                              Proceed;
  2. No foot shall stir.

Paulina

121 - 132
  1.                     Music! Awake her! Strike!
  2. Music.
  3. ’Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;
  4. Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come;
  5. I’ll fill your grave up. Stir; nay, come away;
  6. Bequeath to death your numbness; for from him
  7. Dear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs.
  8. Hermione comes down.
  9. Start not; her actions shall be holy, as
  10. You hear my spell is lawful. Do not shun her
  11. Until you see her die again, for then
  12. You kill her double. Nay, present your hand.
  13. When she was young, you woo’d her; now, in age,
  14. Is she become the suitor?

Leontes

133 - 135
  1.                           O, she’s warm!
  2. If this be magic, let it be an art
  3. Lawful as eating.

Polixenes

136
  1.                   She embraces him.

Camillo

137 - 138
  1. She hangs about his neck.
  2. If she pertain to life let her speak too.

Polixenes

139 - 140
  1. Ay, and make it manifest where she has liv’d,
  2. Or how stol’n from the dead.

Paulina

141 - 147
  1.                              That she is living,
  2. Were it but told you, should be hooted at
  3. Like an old tale; but it appears she lives,
  4. Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.
  5. Please you to interpose, fair madam, kneel,
  6. And pray your mother’s blessing. Turn, good lady,
  7. Our Perdita is found.
Scene design for Winter's Tale

Scene design for Winter's Tale

From Charles Kean's scrapbook

19th century

Hermione

148 - 155
  1.                       You gods, look down
  2. And from your sacred vials pour your graces
  3. Upon my daughter’s head! Tell me, mine own,
  4. Where hast thou been preserv’d? Where liv’d? How found
  5. Thy father’s court? For thou shalt hear that I,
  6. Knowing by Paulina that the oracle
  7. Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserv’d
  8. Myself to see the issue.

Paulina

156 - 163
  1.                          There’s time enough for that;
  2. Least they desire (upon this push) to trouble
  3. Your joys with like relation. Go together,
  4. You precious winners all; your exultation
  5. Partake to every one. I, an old turtle,
  6. Will wing me to some wither’d bough, and there
  7. My mate (that’s never to be found again)
  8. Lament till I am lost.

Leontes

164 - 184
  1.                        O, peace, Paulina!
  2. Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,
  3. As I by thine a wife: this is a match,
  4. And made between ’s by vows. Thou hast found mine,
  5. But how, is to be question’d; for I saw her
  6. (As I thought) dead; and have (in vain) said many
  7. A prayer upon her grave. I’ll not seek far
  8. (For him, I partly know his mind) to find thee
  9. An honorable husband. Come, Camillo,
  10. And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty
  11. Is richly noted; and here justified
  12. By us, a pair of kings. Let’s from this place.
  13. What? Look upon my brother. Both your pardons,
  14. That e’er I put between your holy looks
  15. My ill suspicion. This’ your son-in-law,
  16. And son unto the King, whom heavens directing
  17. Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,
  18. Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely
  19. Each one demand, and answer to his part
  20. Perform’d in this wide gap of time, since first
  21. We were dissever’d. Hastily lead away.
  1. Exeunt.
finis
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