Page 849 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Sorely, to say I did: it is as bitter
Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,
Say so but seldom.

CLEOMENES
Not at all, good lady: [20]
You might have spoken a thousand things that would

Have done the time more benefit and grac’d
Your kindness better.

PAULINA
You are one of those
Would have him wed again.

DION

If you would not so,
You pity not the state, nor the remembrance [25]
Of his most sovereign name; consider little,
What dangers, by his highness’ fail of issue,
May drop upon his kingdom, and devour

Incertain lookers on. What were more holy
Than to rejoice the former queen is well? [30]
What holier than, for royalty’s repair,

For present comfort, and for future good,
To bless the bed of majesty again
With a sweet fellow to ’t?

PAULINA
There is none worthy,
Respecting her that’s gone. Besides, the gods [35]

Will have fulfill’d their secret purposes;
For has not the divine Apollo said,
Is ’t not the tenor of his Oracle,
That King Leontes shall not have an heir,

Till his lost child be found? which, that it shall, [40]
Is all as monstrous to our human reason
As my Antigonus to break his grave
And come again to me; who, on my life,