Page 755 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

’Tis none of mine.

LEONTES
Ha’ not you seen, Camillo?
(But that’s past doubt: you have, or your eye-glass
Is thicker than a cuckold’s horn) or heard?
(For to a vision so apparent rumour [270]

Cannot be mute) or thought? (for cogitation
Resides not in that man that does not think)
My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess,

Or else be impudently negative,
To have nor eyes, nor ears, nor thought, then say [275]
My wife’s a hobby-horse, deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench that puts to
Before her troth-plight: say’t and justify ’t!

CAMILLO
I would not be a stander-by, to hear
My sovereign mistress clouded so, without [280]
My present vengeance taken: ’shrew my heart,
You never spoke what did become you less

Than this; which to reiterate were sin
As deep as that, though true.

LEONTES
Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses? [285]
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career

Of laughter with a sigh (a note infallible
Of breaking honesty)? horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?

Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes [290]
Blind with the pin and web, but theirs; theirs only.
That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing?
Why then the world, and all that’s in’t, is nothing,
The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing,

My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings, [295]
If this be nothing.