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?