Page 754 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

My chamber-counsels, wherein, priest-like, thou
Hast cleans’d my bosom: I from thee departed
Thy penitent reform’d. But we have been
Deceiv’d in thy integrity, deceiv’d [240]

In that which seems so.

CAMILLO
Be it forbid, my lord!

LEONTES
To bide upon’t: thou art not honest: or,
If thou inclin’st that way, thou art a coward,
Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining

From course requir’d: or else thou must be counted [245]
A servant grafted in my serious trust,
And therein negligent; or else a fool,
That seest a game play’d home, the rich stake drawn,

And tak’st it all for jest.

CAMILLO
My gracious lord,
I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful; [250]
In every one of these no man is free,

But that his negligence, his folly, fear,
Among the infinite doings of the world,
Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,
If ever I were wilful-negligent, [255]
It was my folly: it industriously

I play’d the fool, it was my negligence,
Not weighing well the end: if ever fearful
To do a thing, where I the issue doubted,

Whereof the execution did cry out [260]
Against the non-performance, ’twas a fear
Which oft infects the wisest: these, my lord,
Are such allow’d infirmities that honesty
Is never free of. But, beseech your Grace,

Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass [265]
By its own visage: if I then deny it,