The Winter’s Tale Act I, Scene ii – First Folio

The Winter’s Tale.         Act 1, Scene 2.               Leontes

(This text is featured in our interview with Chris Clavelli)

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267:   To her allowing Husband.  Gone already,
268:   Ynch-thick, knee-deepe; ore head and eares a fork’d one.
269:   Goe play (Boy) play: thy Mother playes, and I
270:  Play too; but so disgrac’d a part, whose issue
271:   Will hisse me to my Graue: Contempt and Clamor
272:   Will be my Knell. Goe play (Boy) play, there haue been
273:   (Or I am much deceiu’d) Cuckolds ere now,
274:   And many a man there is (euen at this present,
275:   Now, while I speake this) holds his Wife by th’ Arme,
276:   That little thinkes she ha’s been sluyc’d in’s absence,
277:   And his Pond fish’d by his next Neighbor (by
278:   Sir Smile, his Neighbor:) nay, there’s comfort in’t,
279:   Whiles other men haue Gates, and those Gates open’d
280:   (As mine) against their will. Should all despaire
281:   That haue reuolted Wiues, the tenth of Mankind
282:   Would hang themselues. Physick for’t, there’s none:
283:   It is a bawdy Planet, that will strike
284:   Where ’tis predominant; and ’tis powrefull: thinke it:
285:   From East, West, North, and South, be it concluded,
286:   No Barricado for a Belly. Know’t,
287:   It will let in and out the Enemy,
288:   With bag and baggage: many thousand on’s
289:   Haue the Disease, and feele’t not. How now Boy?