Page 860 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

able to express it. [25]

Enter (a third) Gentleman.

Here comes the Lady Paulina’s steward: he can deliver you more. How goes it
now, sir? This news, which is called true, is so like an old tale that the verity
of it is in strong suspicion. Has the king found his heir?

THIRD GENTLEMAN

Most true, if ever truth were pregnant [30] by circumstance: that which you
hear you’ll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of
Queen Hermione’s, her jewel about the neck of it, the letters of Antigonus
found with it, which they know to be his character; the majesty of the
creature is resemblance of the [35] mother, the affection of nobleness which

nature shows above her breeding, and many other evidences proclaim her,
with all certainty, to be the king’s daughter. Did you see the meeting of the
two kings?

SECOND GENTLEMAN
No. [40]

THIRD GENTLEMAN

Then have you lost a sight which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There
might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in such manner that it
seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears.
There was casting up of eyes, holding up [45] of hands, with countenance of
such distraction, that they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our

king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found
daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries ‘O, thy mother, thy
mother!’ then asks Bohemia forgiveness; [50] then embraces his son-in-law;

then again worries he his daughter with clipping her; now he thanks the old
shepherd, which stands by, like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings’
reigns. I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow,
it, and undoes [55] description to do it.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child?