Page 744 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

I’ll no gainsaying.

POLIXENES
Press me not, beseech you, so.
There is no tongue that moves, none, none i’ th’ world, [20]
So soon as yours, could win me: so it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although

’Twere needful I denied it. My affairs
Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder
Were (in your love) a whip to me; my stay, [25]

To you a charge and trouble: to save both,
Farewell, our brother.

LEONTES
Tongue-tied our queen? speak you.

HERMIONE
I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until
You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,
Charge him too coldly. Tell him, you are sure [30]

All in Bohemia’s well: this satisfaction
The by-gone day proclaim’d: say this to him,
He ’s beat from his best ward.

LEONTES
Well said, Hermione.

HERMIONE

To tell, he longs to see his son, were strong:
But let him say so then, and let him go; [35]
But let him swear so, and he shall not stay,
We’ll thwack him hence with distaffs.
Yet of your royal presence I’ll adventure

The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
You take my lord, I’ll give him my commission [40]
To let him there a month behind the gest

Prefix’d for’s parting: yet, good deed, Leontes