Act 5, Scene 3

The same. A Room in PAULINA's house.

[Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, FLORIZEL, PERDITA, CAMILLO, PAULINA, Lords and Attendants.]
Leontes
3050 O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort
3051 That I have had of thee!
Paulina
3052 What, sovereign sir,
3053 I did not well, I meant well. All my services
3054 You have paid home: but that you have vouchsaf'd,
3055 With your crown'd brother and these your contracted
3056 Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,
3057 It is a surplus of your grace which never
3058 My life may last to answer.
Leontes
3059 O Paulina,
3060 We honour you with trouble:—but we came
3061 To see the statue of our queen: your gallery
3062 Have we pass'd through, not without much content
3063 In many singularities; but we saw not
3064 That which my daughter came to look upon,
3065 The statue of her mother.
Paulina
3066 As she liv'd peerless,
3067 So her dead likeness, I do well believe,
3068 Excels whatever yet you look'd upon
3069 Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it
3070 Lonely, apart. But here it is: prepare
3071 To see the life as lively mock'd as ever
3072 Still sleep mock'd death: behold; and say 'tis well.
[PAULINA undraws a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE, standing as a statue.]
Paulina
3073 I like your silence,—it the more shows off
3074 Your wonder: but yet speak;—first, you, my liege.
3075 Comes it not something near?
Leontes
3076 Her natural posture!—
3077 Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed
3078 Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she
3079 In thy not chiding; for she was as tender
3080 As infancy and grace.—But yet, Paulina,
3081 Hermione was not so much wrinkled; nothing
3082 So aged, as this seems.
Polixenes
3083 O, not by much!
Paulina
3084 So much the more our carver's excellence;
3085 Which lets go by some sixteen years, and makes her
3086 As she liv'd now.
Leontes
3087 As now she might have done,
3088 So much to my good comfort, as it is
3089 Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,
3090 Even with such life of majesty,—warm life,
3091 As now it coldly stands,—when first I woo'd her!
3092 I am asham'd: does not the stone rebuke me
3093 For being more stone than it?—O royal piece,
3094 There's magic in thy majesty; which has
3095 My evils conjur'd to remembrance; and
3096 From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,
3097 Standing like stone with thee!
Perdita
3098 And give me leave;
3099 And do not say 'tis superstition, that
3100 I kneel, and then implore her blessing.—Lady,
3101 Dear queen, that ended when I but began,
3102 Give me that hand of yours to kiss.
Paulina
3103 O, patience!
3104 The statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's
3105 Not dry.
Camillo
3106 My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,
3107 Which sixteen winters cannot blow away,
3108 So many summers dry; scarce any joy
3109 Did ever so long live; no sorrow
3110 But kill'd itself much sooner.
Polixenes
3111 Dear my brother,
3112 Let him that was the cause of this have power
3113 To take off so much grief from you as he
3114 Will piece up in himself.
Paulina
3115 Indeed, my lord,
3116 If I had thought the sight of my poor image
3117 Would thus have wrought you,—for the stone is mine,—
3118 I'd not have show'd it.
Leontes
3119 Do not draw the curtain.
Paulina
3120 No longer shall you gaze on't; lest your fancy
3121 May think anon it moves.
Leontes
3122 Let be, let be.—
3123 Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already—
3124 What was he that did make it? See, my lord,
3125 Would you not deem it breath'd, and that those veins
3126 Did verily bear blood?
Polixenes
3127 Masterly done:
3128 The very life seems warm upon her lip.
Leontes
3129 The fixture of her eye has motion in't,
3130 As we are mock'd with art.
Paulina
3131 I'll draw the curtain:
3132 My lord's almost so far transported that
3133 He'll think anon it lives.
Leontes
3134 O sweet Paulina,
3135 Make me to think so twenty years together!
3136 No settled senses of the world can match
3137 The pleasure of that madness. Let't alone.
Paulina
3138 I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you: but
3139 I could afflict you further.
Leontes
3140 Do, Paulina;
3141 For this affliction has a taste as sweet
3142 As any cordial comfort.—Still, methinks,
3143 There is an air comes from her: what fine chisel
3144 Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,
3145 For I will kiss her!
Paulina
3146 Good my lord, forbear:
3147 The ruddiness upon her lip is wet;
3148 You'll mar it if you kiss it; stain your own
3149 With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?
Leontes
3150 No, not these twenty years.
Perdita
3151 So long could I
3152 Stand by, a looker on.
Paulina
3153 Either forbear,
3154 Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you
3155 For more amazement. If you can behold it,
3156 I'll make the statue move indeed, descend,
3157 And take you by the hand, but then you'll think,—
3158 Which I protest against,—I am assisted
3159 By wicked powers.
Leontes
3160 What you can make her do
3161 I am content to look on: what to speak,
3162 I am content to hear; for 'tis as easy
3163 To make her speak as move.
Paulina
3164 It is requir'd
3165 You do awake your faith. Then all stand still;
3166 Or those that think it is unlawful business
3167 I am about, let them depart.
Leontes
3168 Proceed:
3169 No foot shall stir.
Paulina
3170 Music, awake her: strike.—
[Music.]
Paulina
3171 'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;
3172 Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come;
3173 I'll fill your grave up: stir; nay, come away;
3174 Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him
3175 Dear life redeems you.—You perceive she stirs.
[HERMIONE comes down from the pedestal.]
Paulina
3176 Start not; her actions shall be holy as
3177 You hear my spell is lawful: do not shun her
3178 Until you see her die again; for then
3179 You kill her double. Nay, present your hand:
3180 When she was young you woo'd her; now in age
3181 Is she become the suitor?
[Embracing her.]
Leontes
3182 O, she's warm!
3183 If this be magic, let it be an art
3184 Lawful as eating.
Polixenes
3185 She embraces him.
Camillo
3186 She hangs about his neck:
3187 If she pertain to life, let her speak too.
Polixenes
3188 Ay, and make it manifest where she has liv'd,
3189 Or how stol'n from the dead.
Paulina
3190 That she is living,
3191 Were it but told you, should be hooted at
3192 Like an old tale; but it appears she lives,
3193 Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.—
3194 Please you to interpose, fair madam: kneel,
3195 And pray your mother's blessing.—Turn, good lady;
3196 Our Perdita is found.
[Presenting PERDITA, who kneels to HERMIONE.]
Hermione
3197 You gods, look down,
3198 And from your sacred vials pour your graces
3199 Upon my daughter's head!—Tell me, mine own,
3200 Where hast thou been preserv'd? where liv'd? how found
3201 Thy father's court? for thou shalt hear that I,—
3202 Knowing by Paulina that the oracle
3203 Gave hope thou wast in being,—have preserv'd
3204 Myself to see the issue.
Paulina
3205 There's time enough for that;
3206 Lest they desire upon this push to trouble
3207 Your joys with like relation.—Go together,
3208 You precious winners all; your exultation
3209 Partake to every one. I, an old turtle,
3210 Will wing me to some wither'd bough, and there
3211 My mate, that's never to be found again,
3212 Lament till I am lost.
Leontes
3213 O peace, Paulina!
3214 Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,
3215 As I by thine a wife: this is a match,
3216 And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine;
3217 But how, is to be question'd: for I saw her,
3218 As I thought, dead; and have, in vain, said many
3219 A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far,—
3220 For him, I partly know his mind,—to find thee
3221 An honourable husband.—Come, Camillo,
3222 And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty
3223 Is richly noted, and here justified
3224 By us, a pair of kings.—Let's from this place.—
3225 What! look upon my brother:—both your pardons,
3226 That e'er I put between your holy looks
3227 My ill suspicion.—This your son-in-law,
3228 And son unto the king, whom heavens directing,
3229 Is troth-plight to your daughter.—Good Paulina,
3230 Lead us from hence; where we may leisurely
3231 Each one demand, and answer to his part
3232 Perform'd in this wide gap of time, since first
3233 We were dissever'd: hastily lead away!
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 3054archaic vocab
“You have paid home”
'Paid home' means requited or repaid in full, with a secondary sense of paying back thoroughly. Paulina is saying Leontes has more than returned whatever services she rendered him — she has been fully, even overly, compensated.
TLN 3055syntax grammar
“your crown'd brother and these your contracted Heirs”
'Crown'd brother' refers to Polixenes, king of Bohemia; 'contracted heirs of your kingdoms' are Florizel and Perdita, whose betrothal ('contract') makes them the prospective joint inheritors of both Sicily and Bohemia. The long subject ('your crowned brother and these your contracted heirs') hangs before the simple verb 'visit,' stretching the sentence and giving it ceremonial weight.
TLN 3062archaic vocab
“not without much content In many singularities”
'Content' here means pleasure or satisfaction. 'Singularities' means remarkable or extraordinary things — unusual art-objects or curiosities, not a mathematical term. Leontes is saying the party walked through Paulina's gallery with real pleasure, admiring its many exceptional works.
TLN 3071rhetorical device
“the life as lively mock'd as ever Still sleep mock'd death”
Paulina's compressed simile says the statue imitates ('mocks') life just as convincingly as sleep imitates death: a sleeping person looks dead without being so, and the statue looks alive without being so. The comparison frames the whole scene's central trick — the statue is more life-like than a mere imitation should be.
TLN 3077syntax grammar
“Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she In thy not chiding”
The logic here is compressed: Leontes first asks the statue to scold him — because Hermione, when living, used to rebuke him gently — so that he could say the statue is truly her. Then he reverses himself: actually the stone's silence is equally like her, because she was as gentle and forgiving as infancy. Both scolding and not scolding prove the likeness to Hermione, and the reasoning doubles back on itself to show how desperately Leontes reads her presence into everything.
TLN 3081cultural context
“Hermione was not so much wrinkled; nothing So aged, as this seems”
Leontes remembers Hermione as she was sixteen years ago and is puzzled that the statue shows her aged. Paulina's explanation — the sculptor has rendered her 'as she liv'd now' — is the first dramatic signal that what we are looking at is not marble but a living woman who has aged in hiding. The detail of wrinkles serves the play's structural surprise.
TLN 3093archaic vocab
“O royal piece, There's magic in thy majesty; which has My evils conjur'd to remembrance”
'Piece' in early modern English could mean a masterwork, especially a painted or sculpted artwork, or — used of a person — someone of exceptional quality. Leontes means both: the statue is a royal masterpiece and represents a royal person. 'Conjur'd to remembrance' means summoned forcibly before the mind, as if by a magic spell — the statue's power over him is quasi-supernatural.
TLN 3099historical topical
“do not say 'tis superstition, that I kneel”
In post-Reformation England, kneeling before images — statues or pictures of holy figures — was branded 'superstition' and 'idolatry' by Protestant reformers; it was one of the central charges against Catholic devotional practice. Perdita's pre-emptive defence ('do not say it is superstition') acknowledges a real cultural anxiety her audience would have felt at once when watching a character kneel before a lifelike stone figure.
TLN 3120archaic vocab
“lest your fancy May think anon it moves”
'Fancy' means imagination or the mind's power to conjure images — particularly ones that may deceive. 'Anon' means shortly, in a moment. Paulina warns Leontes that continued staring will make his imagination take over and he will think he sees the statue stir. The irony is that she is right, and the motion will be real.
TLN 3129archaic vocab
“The fixture of her eye has motion in't, As we are mock'd with art”
'Fixture' means fixed or set position — the stillness of the eye as it holds its sculpted gaze. Leontes notices that even this fixed stare seems to have movement within it; he attributes it to the deceptive power of art ('as we are mock'd with art' = as art deceives us). What he reads as artistic illusion is, of course, real motion in a living face.
TLN 3141archaic vocab
“this affliction has a taste as sweet As any cordial comfort”
A 'cordial' was a medicinal drink made to revive or strengthen the heart ('cor' = heart in Latin) — a restorative used against faintness and shock. Leontes says the grief the statue brings him is paradoxically sweet, like a heart-medicine: it hurts, but the pain is healing. The oxymoron — sweet affliction — captures the strange comfort of mourning someone deeply loved.
TLN 3158historical topical
“I protest against,—I am assisted By wicked powers”
'Wicked powers' means demonic or diabolical aid — evil spirits. Paulina preemptively denies she is a witch or sorceress. In Elizabethan law and belief, a person who could make a statue move or who 'raised the dead' would be strongly suspected of trafficking with demons, a crime tried under the witchcraft statute. Paulina's disclaimer is legally and theologically pointed, not merely reassuring.
TLN 3164biblical allusion
“It is requir'd You do awake your faith”
The command to 'awake your faith' echoes the New Testament pattern of miracles that require the onlooker's belief — most pointedly the raising of Lazarus (John 11) and Jesus's 'thy faith hath made thee whole.' Faith is the precondition for witnessing a resurrection. Paulina is staging the recovery of Hermione in unmistakably redemptive terms.
TLN 3171rhetorical device
“'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach; Strike all that look upon with marvel”
Paulina's incantatory series of short commands — each a grammatically complete imperative — works like a spell: 'descend; be stone no more; approach; Strike all that look upon with marvel; Come; I'll fill your grave up; stir; nay, come away.' The rapid-fire imperatives give the verse the rhythm of a magic charm even while their content is the opposite of dark magic. The rhetorical figure is asyndeton — clauses strung without conjunctions, creating urgency.
TLN 3183rhetorical device
“If this be magic, let it be an art Lawful as eating”
Leontes accepts whatever power has restored Hermione, comparing it to eating — the most ordinary and necessary of acts, and an act the church has never forbidden. The simile deliberately deflates the theological charge that magic is diabolical: if this is magic, let it be as unremarkable and innocent as feeding oneself. The comparison between the miraculous and the daily is the scene's emotional resolution.
TLN 3197classical allusion
“You gods, look down, And from your sacred vials pour your graces Upon my daughter's head”
Hermione calls on 'the gods' — the plural of polytheistic religion, consistent with the play's Sicilian and Delphic setting — asking them to pour down blessings from their 'sacred vials' as one might pour oil or perfume from a ritual vessel. The image of gods dispensing blessings from vessels descends from classical libation ritual, where wine or oil was poured as an offering and sign of divine favour.
classical Apollo and the oracle at Delphos
TLN 3202historical topical
“Knowing by Paulina that the oracle Gave hope thou wast in being,—have preserv'd Myself to see the issue”
Hermione explains the logic of her sixteen-year concealment: she knew from the oracle's wording ('the king shall live without an heir if that which is lost be not found,' 3.2) that Perdita might still be alive. She kept herself alive to witness the fulfilment of that conditional prophecy — 'to see the issue.' 'Issue' carries both the meaning of outcome and of offspring. This is the first and only explanation the play gives for Hermione's survival.
classical Apollo and the oracle at Delphos
TLN 3209archaic vocab
“I, an old turtle, Will wing me to some wither'd bough, and there My mate, that's never to be found again, Lament till I am lost”
'Turtle' here is a turtledove, not a tortoise — the bird that was the classical and Renaissance emblem of faithful, inconsolable love. The turtledove was proverbially monogamous: if its mate died, it was said to mourn alone on a bare bough for the rest of its life. Paulina compares herself to such a bird: Antigonus, her husband, died years ago (eaten by the bear, 3.3), and she will spend her remaining years in faithful widowhood.
TLN 3232rhetorical device
“Perform'd in this wide gap of time, since first We were dissever'd”
'Wide gap of time' is the play's retrospective name for the sixteen-year break that Time the Chorus described in Act 4. 'Dissever'd' (separated, torn apart) casts the families not as people who drifted apart but as something violently split. The final speech turns the reunion into an occasion for storytelling — each person must report the 'part perform'd' in the intervening years — which frames the play's improbable plot as a story that is itself now worth hearing.