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 splitt’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’ the 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 the 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.