Act 3, Scene 2

The same. A Court of Justice

[Enter LEONTES, Lords, and Officers appear, properly seated.]
Leontes
1163 This sessions,—to our great grief we pronounce,—
1164 Even pushes 'gainst our heart;—the party tried,
1165 The daughter of a king, our wife; and one
1166 Of us too much belov'd. Let us be clear'd
1167 Of being tyrannous, since we so openly
1168 Proceed in justice; which shall have due course,
1169 Even to the guilt or the purgation.—
1170 Produce the prisoner.
Officer
1171 It is his highness' pleasure that the queen
1172 Appear in person here in court.—
Crier
1173 Silence!
[HERMIONE, is brought in guarded; PAULINA, and Ladies attending.]
Leontes
1174 Read the indictment.
[Reads.]
Officer
1175 'Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes, king of
1176 Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason,
1177 in committing adultery with Polixenes, king of Bohemia; and
1178 conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign
1179 lord the king, thy royal husband: the pretence whereof being by
1180 circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the
1181 faith and allegiance of true subject, didst counsel and aid them,
1182 for their better safety, to fly away by night.'
Hermione
1183 Since what I am to say must be but that
1184 Which contradicts my accusation, and
1185 The testimony on my part no other
1186 But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me
1187 To say 'Not guilty': mine integrity,
1188 Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,
1189 Be so receiv'd. But thus,—if powers divine
1190 Behold our human actions,—as they do,—
1191 I doubt not, then, but innocence shall make
1192 False accusation blush, and tyranny
1193 Tremble at patience.—You, my lord, best know,—
1194 Who least will seem to do so,—my past life
1195 Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,
1196 As I am now unhappy: which is more
1197 Than history can pattern, though devis'd
1198 And play'd to take spectators; for behold me,—
1199 A fellow of the royal bed, which owe
1200 A moiety of the throne, a great king's daughter,
1201 The mother to a hopeful prince,—here standing
1202 To prate and talk for life and honour 'fore
1203 Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it
1204 As I weigh grief, which I would spare: for honour,
1205 'Tis a derivative from me to mine,
1206 And only that I stand for. I appeal
1207 To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes
1208 Came to your court, how I was in your grace,
1209 How merited to be so; since he came,
1210 With what encounter so uncurrent I
1211 Have strain'd t' appear thus: if one jot beyond
1212 The bound of honour, or in act or will
1213 That way inclining, harden'd be the hearts
1214 Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin
1215 Cry fie upon my grave!
Leontes
1216 I ne'er heard yet
1217 That any of these bolder vices wanted
1218 Less impudence to gainsay what they did
1219 Than to perform it first.
Hermione
1220 That's true enough;
1221 Though 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.
Leontes
1222 You will not own it.
Hermione
1223 More than mistress of
1224 Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not
1225 At all acknowledge. For Polixenes,—
1226 With whom I am accus'd,—I do confess
1227 I lov'd him, as in honour he requir'd;
1228 With such a kind of love as might become
1229 A lady like me; with a love even such,
1230 So and no other, as yourself commanded:
1231 Which not to have done, I think had been in me
1232 Both disobedience and ingratitude
1233 To you and toward your friend; whose love had spoke,
1234 Ever since it could speak, from an infant, freely,
1235 That it was yours. Now for conspiracy,
1236 I know not how it tastes; though it be dish'd
1237 For me to try how: all I know of it
1238 Is that Camillo was an honest man;
1239 And why he left your court, the gods themselves,
1240 Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.
Leontes
1241 You knew of his departure, as you know
1242 What you have underta'en to do in 's absence.
Hermione
1243 Sir,
1244 You speak a language that I understand not:
1245 My life stands in the level of your dreams,
1246 Which I'll lay down.
Leontes
1247 Your actions are my dreams;
1248 You had a bastard by Polixenes,
1249 And I but dream'd it:—as you were past all shame,—
1250 Those of your fact are so,—so past all truth:
1251 Which to deny concerns more than avails; for as
1252 Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,
1253 No father owning it,—which is, indeed,
1254 More criminal in thee than it,—so thou
1255 Shalt feel our justice; in whose easiest passage
1256 Look for no less than death.
Hermione
1257 Sir, spare your threats:
1258 The bug which you would fright me with, I seek.
1259 To me can life be no commodity:
1260 The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,
1261 I do give lost; for I do feel it gone,
1262 But know not how it went: my second joy,
1263 And first-fruits of my body, from his presence
1264 I am barr'd, like one infectious: my third comfort,
1265 Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast,—
1266 The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth,—
1267 Hal'd out to murder: myself on every post
1268 Proclaim'd a strumpet; with immodest hatred
1269 The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs
1270 To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried
1271 Here to this place, i' the open air, before
1272 I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,
1273 Tell me what blessings I have here alive,
1274 That I should fear to die. Therefore proceed.
1275 But yet hear this; mistake me not;—no life,—
1276 I prize it not a straw,—but for mine honour
1277 (Which I would free), if I shall be condemn'd
1278 Upon surmises—all proofs sleeping else,
1279 But what your jealousies awake—I tell you
1280 'Tis rigour, and not law.—Your honours all,
1281 I do refer me to the oracle:
1282 Apollo be my judge!
First Lord
1283 This your request
1284 Is altogether just: therefore, bring forth,
1285 And in Apollo's name, his oracle:
[Exeunt certain Officers.]
Hermione
1286 The Emperor of Russia was my father;
1287 O that he were alive, and here beholding
1288 His daughter's trial! that he did but see
1289 The flatness of my misery; yet with eyes
1290 Of pity, not revenge!
[Re-enter OFFICERS, with CLEOMENES and DION.]
Officer
1291 You here shall swear upon this sword of justice,
1292 That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have
1293 Been both at Delphos, and from thence have brought
1294 This seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd
1295 Of great Apollo's priest; and that since then,
1296 You have not dar'd to break the holy seal,
1297 Nor read the secrets in't.
Officer
1298 CLEOMENES, DION.
1299 All this we swear.
Leontes
1300 Break up the seals and read.
[Reads.]
Officer
1301 'Hermione is chaste; Polixenes blameless; Camillo
1302 a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; his innocent babe
1303 truly begotten; and the king shall live without an heir, if
1304 that which is lost be not found.'
Lords
1305 Now blessed be the great Apollo!
Hermione
1306 Praised!
Leontes
1307 Hast thou read truth?
Officer
1308 Ay, my lord; even so
1309 As it is here set down.
Leontes
1310 There is no truth at all i' the oracle:
1311 The sessions shall proceed: this is mere falsehood!
[Enter a Servant hastily.]
Servant
1312 My lord the king, the king!
Leontes
1313 What is the business?
Servant
1314 O sir, I shall be hated to report it:
1315 The prince your son, with mere conceit and fear
1316 Of the queen's speed, is gone.
Leontes
1317 How! gone?
Servant
1318 Is dead.
Leontes
1319 Apollo's angry; and the heavens themselves
1320 Do strike at my injustice.
[HERMIONE faints.]
Leontes
1321 How now there!
Paulina
1322 This news is mortal to the queen:—Look down
1323 And see what death is doing.
Leontes
1324 Take her hence:
1325 Her heart is but o'ercharg'd; she will recover.—
1326 I have too much believ'd mine own suspicion:—
1327 Beseech you tenderly apply to her
1328 Some remedies for life.—
[Exeunt PAULINA and Ladies with HERMIONE.]
Leontes
1329 Apollo, pardon
1330 My great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle!—
1331 I'll reconcile me to Polixenes;
1332 New woo my queen; recall the good Camillo—
1333 Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy;
1334 For, being transported by my jealousies
1335 To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose
1336 Camillo for the minister to poison
1337 My friend Polixenes: which had been done,
1338 But that the good mind of Camillo tardied
1339 My swift command, though I with death and with
1340 Reward did threaten and encourage him,
1341 Not doing it and being done: he, most humane,
1342 And fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest
1343 Unclasp'd my practice; quit his fortunes here,
1344 Which you knew great; and to the certain hazard
1345 Of all incertainties himself commended,
1346 No richer than his honour:—how he glisters
1347 Thorough my rust! And how his piety
1348 Does my deeds make the blacker!
[Re-enter PAULINA.]
Paulina
1349 Woe the while!
1350 O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,
1351 Break too!
First Lord
1352 What fit is this, good lady?
Paulina
1353 What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?
1354 What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling
1355 In leads or oils? what old or newer torture
1356 Must I receive, whose every word deserves
1357 To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny
1358 Together working with thy jealousies,—
1359 Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle
1360 For girls of nine,—O, think what they have done,
1361 And then run mad indeed,—stark mad! for all
1362 Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.
1363 That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 'twas nothing;
1364 That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant,
1365 And damnable ingrateful; nor was't much
1366 Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour,
1367 To have him kill a king; poor trespasses,—
1368 More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon
1369 The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter,
1370 To be or none or little, though a devil
1371 Would have shed water out of fire ere done't;
1372 Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death
1373 Of the young prince, whose honourable thoughts,—
1374 Thoughts high for one so tender,—cleft the heart
1375 That could conceive a gross and foolish sire
1376 Blemish'd his gracious dam: this is not,—no,
1377 Laid to thy answer: but the last,—O lords,
1378 When I have said, cry Woe!—the queen, the queen,
1379 The sweetest, dearest creature's dead; and vengeance for't
1380 Not dropp'd down yet.
First Lord
1381 The higher powers forbid!
Paulina
1382 I say she's dead: I'll swear't. If word nor oath
1383 Prevail not, go and see: if you can bring
1384 Tincture, or lustre, in her lip, her eye,
1385 Heat outwardly or breath within, I'll serve you
1386 As I would do the gods.—But, O thou tyrant!
1387 Do not repent these things; for they are heavier
1388 Than all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee
1389 To nothing but despair. A thousand knees
1390 Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,
1391 Upon a barren mountain, and still winter
1392 In storm perpetual, could not move the gods
1393 To look that way thou wert.
Leontes
1394 Go on, go on:
1395 Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserv'd
1396 All tongues to talk their bitterest!
First Lord
1397 Say no more:
1398 Howe'er the business goes, you have made fault
1399 I' the boldness of your speech.
Paulina
1400 I am sorry for't:
1401 All faults I make, when I shall come to know them,
1402 I do repent. Alas, I have show'd too much
1403 The rashness of a woman: he is touch'd
1404 To th' noble heart—What's gone and what's past help,
1405 Should be past grief: do not receive affliction
1406 At my petition; I beseech you, rather
1407 Let me be punish'd, that have minded you
1408 Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege,
1409 Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman:
1410 The love I bore your queen,—lo, fool again!—
1411 I'll speak of her no more, nor of your children;
1412 I'll not remember you of my own lord,
1413 Who is lost too: take your patience to you,
1414 And I'll say nothing.
Leontes
1415 Thou didst speak but well,
1416 When most the truth; which I receive much better
1417 Than to be pitied of thee. Pr'ythee, bring me
1418 To the dead bodies of my queen and son:
1419 One grave shall be for both; upon them shall
1420 The causes of their death appear, unto
1421 Our shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit
1422 The chapel where they lie; and tears shed there
1423 Shall be my recreation: so long as nature
1424 Will bear up with this exercise, so long
1425 I daily vow to use it.—Come, and lead me
1426 To these sorrows.
[Exeunt.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1169archaic vocab
“guilt or the purgation”
'Purgation' is the legal term for clearing oneself of a charge through an oath or ordeal — the formal proof of innocence. Leontes frames the trial as one that will end in either conviction or acquittal, but his phrasing is hollow: he has already decided she is guilty.
TLN 1179archaic vocab
“the pretence whereof being by circumstances”
'Pretence' here means 'purpose' or 'design' — not a false claim, as it does in modern English, but the intended plan or aim of the conspiracy. The indictment says the supposed plot was partly exposed by the surrounding evidence ('circumstances').
TLN 1186archaic vocab
“it shall scarce boot me / To say 'Not guilty'”
'Boot' means 'benefit' or 'profit' — it will scarcely help her to plead not guilty. Hermione opens her defence by acknowledging the hopeless position she is in: her only evidence is her own word, and her accusers will call that a lie.
TLN 1196archaic vocab
“which is more / Than history can pattern, though devis'd / And play'd to take spectators”
Hermione says her misery is greater than any historical precedent — more than any recorded example ('history can pattern') — even if one were invented and staged as a tragedy to move an audience. 'Pattern' is a verb meaning 'to give a precedent for,' 'to equal.' The phrase also collapses the distance between her real suffering and theatrical performance, a recurring idea in the romances.
TLN 1199archaic vocab
“A fellow of the royal bed, which owe / A moiety of the throne”
'Fellow' here means 'partner' or 'sharer,' not a casual equal. 'Moiety' means 'half' or 'share.' Hermione reminds the court that she is the queen, a co-holder of the throne, not merely a subject to be arraigned.
TLN 1205syntax grammar
“'Tis a derivative from me to mine, / And only that I stand for”
Hermione says she prizes life little, but she fights to clear her honour — not for her own sake, but because it passes from her to her children ('a derivative from me to mine'). A 'derivative' is something that flows from its source; her honour is an inheritance she transmits to her descendants, and that legacy is the only thing she defends.
TLN 1210archaic vocab
“With what encounter so uncurrent I / Have strain'd t' appear thus”
Hermione asks what conduct 'uncurrent' — literally 'not current,' not passing muster, counterfeit — she has ever shown since Polixenes arrived. A coin was 'current' if it was genuine and accepted at its face value; 'uncurrent' means debased or unacceptable. She is asking: in what way have I ever failed to ring true?
TLN 1240archaic vocab
“Wotting no more than I, are ignorant”
'Wotting' means 'knowing.' It is from the Old English verb 'witan' (to know) — still current in Shakespeare but already old-fashioned, lending Hermione's claim a formal, almost oath-like tone. The gods themselves, knowing no more than she does, are equally in the dark about why Camillo fled.
TLN 1245archaic vocab
“My life stands in the level of your dreams, / Which I'll lay down”
'Level' means 'aim' or 'range' — as in the line of fire of a weapon. Hermione says her life lies in the direct aim of Leontes's fantasies; he can shoot it down whenever he likes, and she is prepared to let him. The metaphor frames his jealousy as a weapon pointed at her.
TLN 1258archaic vocab
“The bug which you would fright me with, I seek”
A 'bug' was an Elizabethan word for a terrifying phantom, goblin, or bogeyman — not an insect. Hermione tells Leontes that the death he threatens her with is no monster to her; she welcomes it. The word survives in 'bugbear.'
TLN 1259archaic vocab
“To me can life be no commodity”
'Commodity' means 'advantage,' 'benefit,' or 'thing of value' — not merely a tradeable product. Hermione says that life, stripped of everything she loves, holds no value or advantage for her.
TLN 1262biblical allusion
“my second joy, / And first-fruits of my body”
'First-fruits' is a biblical phrase: in the Hebrew Bible, the first produce of the harvest was consecrated to God as an offering. Hermione calls Mamillius, her firstborn son, her 'first-fruits' — the sacred first yield of her body. The phrase casts his birth as a gift to God that Leontes has now squandered.
TLN 1265cultural context
“Starr'd most unluckily”
To be 'starred' was to have one's fate determined by the stars — in the Elizabethan astrological worldview, the constellation ruling the moment of a birth shaped the whole of a life. Hermione's newborn daughter Perdita is 'starred most unluckily': born under a malign configuration that spells misfortune from the start.
TLN 1269cultural context
“the child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs / To women of all fashion”
The 'child-bed privilege' was the period of lying-in after a birth — typically around a month — during which a new mother was excused all public duties, kept confined and warm, and attended by women. Hermione has been dragged to an outdoor court before her body has recovered from giving birth in prison. Even by the standards of enemies and commoners ('women of all fashion'), this is monstrous.
TLN 1271archaic vocab
“before / I have got strength of limit”
'Strength of limit' means the bodily recovery allowed by the lying-in period — the point at which a new mother would be declared strong enough to end her confinement. Hermione says she has been brought to court before she has regained that strength. 'Limit' refers to the prescribed period of the lying-in.
TLN 1301classical allusion
“Hermione is chaste; Polixenes blameless; Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; his innocent babe truly begotten; and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found”
The oracle's text is deliberately clear — Apollo speaks in plain declarations, not riddles — and each clause directly overturns one of Leontes's accusations. The oracle also carries a conditional curse: Leontes will die without an heir unless 'that which is lost' (the abandoned infant Perdita) is found. The whole second half of the play is the working-out of this prophecy.
classical Apollo and the oracle at Delphos
TLN 1310classical allusion
“There is no truth at all i' the oracle: / The sessions shall proceed: this is mere falsehood”
Leontes dismisses the oracle as a lie — a blasphemy against Apollo, the god of truth and prophecy. Within seconds his son's death is announced, the sign that Apollo has struck him for his defiance. In the ancient world, denying the god's oracle was one of the gravest possible impieties.
classical Apollo and the oracle at Delphos
TLN 1315archaic vocab
“with mere conceit and fear / Of the queen's speed, is gone”
'Mere' means 'absolute,' 'pure,' 'nothing but' — not 'only' in the modern sense of minimizing. 'Conceit' means imaginative distress or grief of the mind, not self-importance. Mamillius has died of pure mental anguish — nothing physical, only the grief and fear caused by his mother's disgrace and her trial. 'Speed' means 'fortune' or 'fate' (the outcome of events).
TLN 1350cultural context
“O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it, / Break too”
Paulina is wearing a tightly laced bodice — the standard stiff, boned outer garment of an Elizabethan noblewoman. She calls to have the lacing cut so that the constriction on her chest does not stop her breathing in grief. The image fuses the physical and emotional: her lace is tightening as her heart swells to break.
TLN 1354historical topical
“What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling / In leads or oils?”
Paulina catalogues the standard instruments of judicial torture available to a tyrant: the wheel (a spiked wheel to which a victim was bound and broken), the rack (a frame that stretched the body to dislocate the joints), fire, flaying (skinning alive), and boiling in lead or oil. These were real methods of capital punishment and torture in early modern Europe — not mere rhetoric — and Paulina is daring Leontes to use any of them on her.
TLN 1359rhetorical device
“Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle / For girls of nine”
Paulina's charge is sharpened by a double comparison: Leontes's jealous 'fancies' (irrational suspicions) are too childish even for young boys, and too immature ('green and idle') even for nine-year-old girls. The point is not merely that he is childish, but that his jealousy is below the threshold of sense expected of the most inexperienced imaginable person.
TLN 1389rhetorical device
“A thousand knees / Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting, / Upon a barren mountain, and still winter / In storm perpetual, could not move the gods”
Paulina's climax is a sustained hyperbole of penance: even if Leontes were to kneel a thousand times, fast and naked, on a bare mountain in perpetual winter storms, for ten thousand years — the gods still could not be moved to forgive what he has done. The accumulation of impossible conditions (multiplied time, multiplied penitents, extreme bodily suffering, a hostile landscape) is the rhetoric of absolute condemnation.
TLN 1422archaic vocab
“tears shed there / Shall be my recreation”
'Recreation' here means 're-creation' in a spiritual or moral sense — the renewal of the soul through an act of penitence — not leisure or amusement. Leontes vows to visit the chapel and weep daily as a discipline of self-reform: his tears are the means by which he will re-make himself. The word carries both the ordinary and the deeper sense simultaneously.