ACT 5
Scene 2

...to express it.
Enter another Gentleman.

...found his heir?
Most true, if ever truth were pregnant
by circumstance. That which you hear you’ll
swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The
mantle of Queen Hermione’s, her jewel about the
neck of it, the letters of Antigonus found with it,
which they know to be his character, the majesty of
the creature in resemblance of the mother, the
affection of nobleness which nature shows above
her breeding, and many other evidences proclaim
her with all certainty to be the King’s daughter. Did
you see the meeting of the two kings?

... No.
Then have you lost a sight which
was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might
you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in
such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take
leave of them, for their joy waded in tears. There
was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with
countenance of such distraction that they were to
be known by garment, not by favor. Our king, being
ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found
daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss,
cries “O, thy mother, thy mother!” then asks Bohemia
forgiveness, then embraces his son-in-law, then
again worries he his daughter with clipping her.
Now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by
like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings’ reigns.
I never heard of such another encounter, which
lames report to follow it and undoes description to
do it.

...hence the child?
Like an old tale still, which will
have matter to rehearse though credit be asleep and
not an ear open: he was torn to pieces with a bear.
This avouches the shepherd’s son, who has not only
his innocence, which seems much, to justify him,
but a handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina
knows.

...and his followers?
Wracked the same instant of their
master’s death and in the view of the shepherd, so
that all the instruments which aided to expose the
child were even then lost when it was found. But O,
the noble combat that ’twixt joy and sorrow was
fought in Paulina. She had one eye declined for the
loss of her husband, another elevated that the
oracle was fulfilled. She lifted the Princess from the
earth, and so locks her in embracing as if she would
pin her to her heart that she might no more be in
danger of losing.

...was it acted.
One of the prettiest touches of all,
and that which angled for mine eyes—caught the
water, though not the fish—was when at the relation
of the Queen’s death—with the manner how
she came to ’t bravely confessed and lamented by
the King—how attentiveness wounded his daughter,
till, from one sign of dolor to another, she did,
with an “Alas,” I would fain say bleed tears, for I am
sure my heart wept blood. Who was most marble
there changed color; some swooned, all sorrowed.
If all the world could have seen ’t, the woe had been
universal.

...to the court?
No. The Princess hearing of her
mother’s statue, which is in the keeping of
Paulina—a piece many years in doing and now
newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio
Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could
put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of
her custom, so perfectly he is her ape; he so near to
Hermione hath done Hermione that they say one
would speak to her and stand in hope of answer.
Thither with all greediness of affection are they
gone, and there they intend to sup.

...knowledge. Let’s along.
The Three Gentlemen exit.