| ACT IV SCENE II | Bohemia. The palace of POLIXENES. | |
| | Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO. | |
| POLIXENES | I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: | |
| | 'tis a sickness denying thee any thing; a death to | |
| | grant this. | |
| CAMILLO | It is fifteen years since I saw my country: though | 5 |
| | I have for the most part been aired abroad, I | |
| | desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent | |
| | king, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling | |
| | sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to | |
| | think so, which is another spur to my departure. | 10 |
| POLIXENES | As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of | |
| | thy services by leaving me now: the need I have of | |
| | thee thine own goodness hath made; better not to | |
| | have had thee than thus to want thee: thou, having | |
| | made me businesses which none without thee can | 15 |
| | sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute | |
| | them thyself or take away with thee the very | |
| | services thou hast done; which if I have not enough | |
| | considered, as too much I cannot, to be more | |
| | thankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit | 20 |
| | therein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal | |
| | country, Sicilia, prithee speak no more; whose very | |
| | naming punishes me with the remembrance of that | |
| | penitent, as thou callest him, and reconciled king, | |
| | my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen | 25 |
| | and children are even now to be afresh lamented. | |
| | Say to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my | |
| | son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not | |
| | being gracious, than they are in losing them when | |
| | they have approved their virtues. | 30 |
| CAMILLO | Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What | |
| | his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I | |
| | have missingly noted, he is of late much retired | |
| | from court and is less frequent to his princely | |
| | exercises than formerly he hath appeared. | 35 |
| POLIXENES | I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some | |
| | care; so far that I have eyes under my service which | |
| | look upon his removedness; from whom I have this | |
| | intelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a | |
| | most homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from | 40 |
| | very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his | |
| | neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate. | |
| CAMILLO | I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a | |
| | daughter of most rare note: the report of her is | |
| | extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage. | 45 |
| POLIXENES | That's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I | |
| | fear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou | |
| | shalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not | |
| | appearing what we are, have some question with the | |
| | shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not | 50 |
| | uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. | |
| | Prithee, be my present partner in this business, and | |
| | lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia. | |
| CAMILLO | I willingly obey your command. | |
| POLIXENES | My best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves. | 55 |
| | Exeunt | |
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