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Antechamber in LEONTES' palace.
[Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS]
ARCHIDAMUS
If you shall chance (Camillo) to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon
my services are now on foot, you shall see (as I have said) great difference
betwixt our Bohemia, and your Sicilia.
CAMILLO
I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the
visitation, which he justly owes him.
ARCHIDAMUS
Wherein our entertainment shall shame us: we will be justified in our loves;
for indeed--
CAMILLO
Beseech you--
ARCHIDAMUS
Verily I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we cannot with such
magnificence--in so rare--I know not what to say--We will give you sleepy
drinks, that your senses (unintelligent of our insufficience) may, though
they cannot praise us, as little accuse us.
CAMILLO
You pay a great deal too dear, for what's given freely.
ARCHIDAMUS
Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty
puts it to utterance.
CAMILLO
Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were trained together
in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection,
which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities, and
royal necessities, made separation of their society, their encounters
(though not personal) have been royally attorneyed with interchange of
gifts, letters, loving embassies, that they have seemed to be together,
though absent: shook hands, as over a vast; and
embraced as it were from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue
their loves.
ARCHIDAMUS
I think there is not in the world, either malice or matter, to alter it. You
have an unspeakable comfort of your young prince Mamillius: it is a
gentleman of the greatest promise, that ever came into my note.
CAMILLO
I very well agree with you, in the hopes of him: it is a gallant child; one
that (indeed) physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on
crutches ere he was born, desire yet their life, to see him a man.
ARCHIDAMUS
Would they else be content to die?
CAMILLO
Yes; if there were no other excuse, why they should desire to live.
ARCHIDAMUS
If the king had no son, they would desire to live on crutches till he had
one.
[Exeunt]