[Exeunt Polixenes, Hermione and Attendants.]
Gone already!
Inch-thick, knee-deep, o’er head and ears a fork’d one!—
Go, play, boy, play. Thy mother plays, and I
Play too; but so disgrac’d a part, whose issue
Will hiss me to my grave: contempt and clamour
Will be my knell. Go, play, boy, play. There have been,
Or I am much deceiv’d, cuckolds ere now;
And many a man there is, even at this present,
Now while I speak this, holds his wife by th’ arm,
That little thinks she has been sluic’d in ’s absence,
And his pond fish’d by his next neighbour, by
Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there’s comfort in ’t,
Whiles other men have gates, and those gates open’d,
As mine, against their will. Should all despair
That hath revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hang themselves. Physic for’t there’s none;
It is a bawdy planet, that will strike
Where ’tis predominant; and ’tis powerful, think it,
From east, west, north, and south. Be it concluded,
No barricado for a belly. Know’t;
It will let in and out the enemy
With bag and baggage. Many thousand of us
Have the disease, and feel’t not.—How now, boy!
MAMILLIUS.
I am like you, they say.
LEONTES.
Why, that’s some comfort.
What! Camillo there?
CAMILLO.
Ay, my good lord.
LEONTES.
Go play, Mamillius; thou’rt an honest man.
[Exit Mamillius.]
Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.
CAMILLO.
You had much ado to make his anchor hold:
When you cast out, it still came home.
LEONTES.
Didst note it?