The Winter's Tale, Act I, Scene 2

The Winter's Tale, Act I, Scene 2

HERMIONE:

If you would seek us,

We are yours i'th' garden. Shall's attend you there?

LEONTES:

To your own bents dispose you. You'll be found,

Be you beneath the sky. I am angling now,

Though you perceive me not how I give line.

Go to, go to!

How she holds up the neb, the bill to him,

And arms her with the boldness of a wife

To her allowing husband!

Exeunt Polixenes and Hermione.

Gone already.

Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a forked one!

Go play, boy, play. Thy mother plays, and I

Play too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue

Will hiss me to my grave. Contempt and clamour

Will be my knell. Go play, boy, play. There have been,

Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now,

And many a man there is, even at this present,

Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by th'arm,

That little thinks she has been sluiced in's absence,

And his pond fished by his next neighbour, by

Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there's comfort in't,

Whiles other men have gates, and those gates opened,

As mine, against their will. Should all despair

That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind

Would hang themselves. Physic for't there's none.

It is a bawdy planet, that will strike

Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful. Think it:

From east, west, north, and south, be it concluded,

No barricado for a belly. Know't,

It will let in and out the enemy

With bag and baggage. Many thousand on's

Have the disease and feel't not.