Leontes.
[To the Guard.] Shall I be heard?

Hermione. 
Who is’t that goes with me?—­Beseech your highness
My women may be with me; for, you see,
My plight requires it.—­Do not weep, good fools;
There is no cause:  when you shall know your mistress
Has deserv’d prison, then abound in tears
As I come out:  this action I now go on
Is for my better grace.—­Adieu, my lord: 
I never wish’d to see you sorry; now
I trust I shall.—­My women, come; you have leave.

Leontes. 
Go, do our bidding; hence!

[Exeunt queen and Ladies, with Guards.]

First lord. 
Beseech your highness, call the queen again.

Antigonus. 
Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice
Prove violence, in the which three great ones suffer,
Yourself, your queen, your son.

First lord. 
                                For her, my lord,—­
I dare my life lay down,—­and will do’t, sir,
Please you to accept it,—­that the queen is spotless
I’ the eyes of heaven and to you; I mean
In this which you accuse her.

Antigonus. 
                              If it prove
She’s otherwise, I’ll keep my stables where
I lodge my wife; I’ll go in couples with her;
Than when I feel and see her no further trust her;
For every inch of woman in the world,
Ay, every dram of woman’s flesh, is false,
If she be.

Leontes. 
Hold your peaces.

First lord. 
                  Good my lord,—­

Antigonus. 
It is for you we speak, not for ourselves: 
You are abus’d, and by some putter-on
That will be damn’d for’t:  would I knew the villain,
I would land-damn him.  Be she honour-flaw’d,—­
I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven;
The second and the third, nine and some five;
If this prove true, they’ll pay for’t.  By mine honour,
I’ll geld ’em all:  fourteen they shall not see,
To bring false generations:  they are co-heirs;
And I had rather glib myself than they
Should not produce fair issue.

Leontes. 
                               Cease; no more. 
You smell this business with a sense as cold
As is a dead man’s nose:  but I do see’t and feel’t
As you feel doing thus; and see withal
The instruments that feel.

Antigonus. 
                           If it be so,
We need no grave to bury honesty;
There’s not a grain of it the face to sweeten
Of the whole dungy earth.

Leontes. 
                          What!  Lack I credit?

First lord. 
I had rather you did lack than I, my lord,
Upon this ground:  and more it would content me
To have her honour true than your suspicion;
Be blam’d for’t how you might.