SERVANT.
But few,
And those but mean.
LEONTES.
His princess, say you, with him?
SERVANT.
Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,
That e’er the sun shone bright on.
PAULINA.
O Hermione,
As every present time doth boast itself
Above a better gone, so must thy grave
Give way to what’s seen now! Sir, you yourself
Have said and writ so,—but your writing now
Is colder than that theme,—‘She had not been,
Nor was not to be equall’d’; thus your verse
Flow’d with her beauty once; ’tis shrewdly ebb’d,
To say you have seen a better.
SERVANT.
Pardon, madam:
The one I have almost forgot,—your pardon;—
The other, when she has obtain’d your eye,
Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,
Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
Of all professors else; make proselytes
Of who she but bid follow.
PAULINA.
How! not women?
SERVANT.
Women will love her that she is a woman
More worth than any man; men, that she is
The rarest of all women.
LEONTES.
Go, Cleomenes;
Yourself, assisted with your honour’d friends,
Bring them to our embracement.
[Exeunt Cleomenes and others.]
Still, ’tis strange
He thus should steal upon us.