Page 775 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

(Enter Gaoler, with Emilia.)

Dear gentlewoman, [20]
How fares our gracious lady?

EMILIA
As well as one so great and so forlorn
May hold together: on her frights and griefs

(Which never tender lady hath borne greater)
She is, something before her time, deliver’d. [25]

PAULINA
A boy?

EMILIA
A daughter; and a goodly babe,
Lusty, and like to live: the queen receives

Much comfort in ’t; says, ‘My poor prisoner,
I am innocent as you.’

PAULINA
I dare be sworn:
These dangerous, unsafe lunes i’ th’ king, beshrew them! [30]
He must be told on’t, and he shall: the office

Becomes a woman best. I’ll take ’t upon me:
If I prove honey-mouth’d, let my tongue blister,
And never to my red-look’d anger be

The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia, [35]
Commend my best obedience to the queen:
If she dares trust me with her little babe,
I’ll show ’t the king, and undertake to be
Her advocate to th’ loud’st. We do not know

How he may soften at the sight o’ th’ child: [40]
The silence often of pure innocence
Persuades, when speaking fails.

EMILIA