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Known and allied to yours.

LEONTES.

Thou dost advise me

Even so as I mine own course have set down.

I'll give no blemish to her honour, none.

CAMILLO.

My lord,

Go then; and with a countenance as clear

As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia

And with your queen. I am his cupbearer;

If from me he have wholesome beverage,

Account me not your servant.

LEONTES.

This is all:

Do't, and thou hast the one half of my heart;

Do't not, thou split'st thine own.

CAMILLO.

I'll do't, my lord.

LEONTES.

I will seem friendly, as thou hast advis'd me. Exit

CAMILLO. O miserable lady! But, for me,

What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner

Of good Polixenes; and my ground to do't

Is the obedience to a master; one

Who, in rebellion with himself, will have

All that are his so too. To do this deed,

Promotion follows. If I could find example

Of thousands that had struck anointed kings

And flourish'd after, I'd not do't; but since

Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,

Let villainy itself forswear't. I must

Forsake the court. To do't, or no, is certain

To me a break-neck. Happy star reign now!

Here comes Bohemia.

Enter POLIXENES

POLIXENES.

This is strange. Methinks

My favour here begins to warp. Not speak?

Good day, Camillo.

CAMILLO.

Hail, most royal sir!

POLIXENES.

What is the news i' th' court?

CAMILLO.

None rare, my lord.

POLIXENES.

The King hath on him such a countenance

As he had lost some province, and a region

Lov'd as he loves himself; even now I met him

With customary compliment, when he,

Wafting his eyes to th' contrary and falling

A lip of much contempt, speeds from me;

So leaves me to consider what is breeding

That changes thus his manners.

CAMILLO.

I dare not know, my lord.

POLIXENES.

How, dare not! Do not. Do you know, and dare not

Be intelligent to me? 'Tis thereabouts;

For, to yourself, what you do know, you must,

And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,

Your chang'd complexions are to me a mirror

Which shows me mine chang'd too; for I must be

A party in this alteration, finding

Myself thus alter'd with't.

CAMILLO.

There is a sickness

Which puts some of us in distemper; but

I cannot name the disease; and it is caught

Of you that yet are well.

POLIXENES.

How! caught of me?

Make me not sighted like the basilisk;

I have look'd on thousands who have sped the better

By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo-

As you are certainly a gentleman; thereto

Clerk-like experienc'd, which no less adorns

Our gentry than our parents' noble names,

In whose success we are gentle- I beseech you,

If you know aught which does behove my knowledge

Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not

In ignorant concealment.

CAMILLO.

I may not answer.

POLIXENES.

A sickness caught of me, and yet I well?

I must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo?

I conjure thee, by all the parts of man

Which honour does acknowledge, whereof the least

Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare

What incidency thou dost guess of harm

Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near;

Which way to be prevented, if to be;

If not, how best to bear it.

CAMILLO.

Sir, I will tell you;

Since I am charg'd in honour, and by him

That I think honourable. Therefore mark my counsel,

Which must be ev'n as swiftly followed as

I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me

Cry lost, and so goodnight.

POLIXENES.

On, good Camillo.

CAMILLO.

I am appointed him to murder you.

POLIXENES.

By whom, Camillo?

CAMILLO.

By the King.

POLIXENES.

For what?

CAMILLO.

He thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears,

As he had seen 't or been an instrument

To vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen Forbiddenly.

POLIXENES.

O, then my best blood turn

To an infected jelly, and my name

Be yok'd with his that did betray the Best!

Turn then my freshest reputation to

A savour that may strike the dullest nostril

Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd,

Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection

That e'er was heard or read!