th at all i' the oracle:
The sessions shall proceed: this is mere falsehood!

[Enter a Servant hastily.]

SERVANT.
My lord the king, the king!

LEONTES.
What is the business?

SERVANT.
O sir, I shall be hated to report it:
The prince your son, with mere conceit and fear
Of the queen's speed, is gone.

LEONTES.
How! gone?

SERVANT.
Is dead.

LEONTES.
Apollo's angry; and the heavens themselves
Do strike at my injustice.

[HERMIONE faints.]

How now there!

PAULINA.
This news is mortal to the queen:--Look down
And see what death is doing.

LEONTES.
Take her hence:
Her heart is but o'ercharg'd; she will recover.--
I have too much believ'd mine own suspicion:--
Beseech you tenderly apply to her
Some remedies for life.--

[Exeunt PAULINA and Ladies with HERMIONE.]

Apollo, pardon
My great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle!--
I'll reconcile me to Polixenes;
New woo my queen; recall the good Camillo--
Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy;
For, being transported by my jealousies
To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose
Camillo for the minister to poison
My friend Polixenes: which had been done,
But that the good mind of Camillo tardied
My swift command, though I with death and with
Reward did threaten and encourage him,
Not doing it and being done: he, most humane,
And fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest
Unclasp'd my practice; quit his fortunes here,
Which you knew great; and to the certain hazard
Of all incertainties himself commended,
No richer than his honour:--how he glisters
Thorough my rust! And how his piety
Does my deeds make the blacker!

[Re-enter PAULINA.]

PAULINA.
Woe the while!
O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,
Break too!

FIRST LORD.
What fit is this, good lady?

PAULINA.
What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?
What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling
In leads or oils? what old or newer torture
Must I receive, whose every word deserves
To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny
Together working with thy jealousies,--
Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle
For girls of nine,--O, think what they have done,
And then run mad indeed,--stark mad! for all
Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.
That thou betray'dst Polixenes,