The Complete Works of William Shakespeare · William Shakespeare
SCENE II. Bohemia. A Room in the palace of Polixenes.
Enter Polixenes and Camillo. POLIXENES. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: ’tis a sickness denying thee anything; a death to grant this. CAMILLO. It is fifteen years since I saw my country. Though 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. POLIXENES. As thou lov’st 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 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 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 call’st him, and reconciled king, my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen 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.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.