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 follow’d 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!

Camillo. 
                             Swear his thought over
By each particular star in heaven and
By all their influences, you may as well
Forbid the sea for to obey the moon
As, or by oath remove, or counsel shake
The fabric of his folly, whose foundation
Is pil’d upon his faith, and will continue
The standing of his body.

Polixenes. 
                          How should this grow?