READ STUDY GUIDE: Act I, Scenes i-ii |
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Section 1:
ACT I, SCENE I Sicilia. An Antechamber in LEONTES' Palace.
ACT I, SCENE I Sicilia. An Antechamber in LEONTES' Palace.
| [Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS] |
| ARCHIDAMUS.: |
| If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the |
| like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, |
| as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your |
| Sicilia. |
| CAMILLO.: |
| I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to |
| pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him. |
| ARCHIDAMUS.: |
| Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be |
| justified in our loves; for indeed,— |
| CAMILLO.: |
| Beseech you,— |
| ARCHIDAMUS.: |
| Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we |
| cannot with such magnificence—in so rare—I know not what to |
| say.—We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, |
| unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot |
| praise us, as little accuse us. |
| CAMILLO.: |
| You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. |
| ARCHIDAMUS.: |
| Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me |
| and as mine honesty puts it to utterance. |
| CAMILLO.: |
| Sicilia cannot show himself overkind to Bohemia. They were |
| trained together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt |
| them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now. |
| Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made |
| separation of their society, their encounters, though not |
| personal, have been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, |
| letters, loving embassies; that they have seemed to be together, |
| though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embraced as it |
| were from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their |
| loves! |
| ARCHIDAMUS.: |
| 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: it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever |
| came into my note. |
| CAMILLO.: |
| I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a |
| gallant child; one that indeed physics the subject, makes old |
| hearts fresh: they that went on crutches ere he was born desire |
| yet their life to see him a man. |
| ARCHIDAMUS.: |
| Would they else be content to die? |
| CAMILLO.: |
| Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to |
| live. |
| ARCHIDAMUS.: |
| If the king had no son, they would desire to live on crutches |
| till he had one. |
| [Exeunt.] |
