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Samuel Johnson [1765], The plays of William Shakespeare, in eight volumes, with the corrections and illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added notes by Sam. Johnson (Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and] C. Corbet [etc.], London) [word count] [S11001].
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SCENE III. Enter Florizel, Perdita, Cleomines, and others.


Your mother was most true to wedlock, Prince,
For she did print your royal father off,
Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,
Your father's image is so hit in you,
His very air, that I should call you brother,
As I did him, and speak of something wildly
By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome,
As your fair Princess, goddess!—oh! alas!
I lost a couple, that 'twixt heav'n and earth
Might thus have stood begetting wonder, as
You, gracious couple, do; and then I lost
(All mine own folly!) the society,
Amity too of your brave father, whom
Tho' bearing misery I desire my life
Once more to look on.

-- 334 --

Flo.
Sir, by his command
Have I here touch'd Sicilia, and from him
Give you all greetings, that a King at friend
Can send his brother; and but infirmity,
Which waits upon worn times, hath something seiz'd
His wish'd ability, he had himself
The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
Measur'd, to look upon you; whom he loves,
He bade me say so, more than all the scepters,
And those that bear them living.

Leo.
Oh, my brother!
Good gentleman, the wrongs I've done thee stir
Afresh within me; and these thy offices,
So rarely kind, are as interpreters
Of my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither,
As is the spring to th' earth. And hath he too
Expos'd this paragon to th' fearful usage
At least, ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,
To greet a man, not worth her pains; much less,
Th' adventure of her person?

Flo.
Good my Lord,
She came from Libya.

Leo.
Where the warlike Smalus,
That noble honour'd Lord, is fear'd, and lov'd?

Flo.
Most royal Sir,
From thence; from him, whose daughter4 note




His tears proclaim'd his parting with her; thence
(A prosperous south-wind friendly) we have cross'd,
To execute the charge my father gave me,
For visiting your Highness; my best train
I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd,
Who for Bohemia bend, to signify

-- 335 --


Not only my success in Libya, Sir,
But my arrival, and my wife's, in safety
Here, where we are.

Leo.
The blessed Gods
Purge all infection from our air, whilst you
Do climate here: You have a holy father,
A graceful gentleman, against whose person,
So sacred as it is, I have done sin;
For which the heavens, taking angry note,
Have left me issue-less; and your father's bless'd,
As he from heaven merits it, with you,
Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,
Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on,
Suck goodly things as you?
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Samuel Johnson [1765], The plays of William Shakespeare, in eight volumes, with the corrections and illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added notes by Sam. Johnson (Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and] C. Corbet [etc.], London) [word count] [S11001].
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