Enter Time, the Chorus. | |
| Time. I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror | |
| Of good and bad, that make and unfold error, | |
| Now take upon me, in the name of Time, | 4 |
| To use my wings. Impute it not a crime | |
| To me or my swift passage, that I slide | |
| O’er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried | |
| Of that wide gap; since it is in my power | 8 |
| To o’erthrow law, and in one self-born hour | |
| To plant and o’erwhelm custom. Let me pass | |
| The same I am, ere ancient’st order was | |
| Or what is now receiv’d: I witness to | 12 |
| The times that brought them in; so shall I do | |
| To the freshest things now reigning, and make stale | |
| The glistering of this present, as my tale | |
| Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing, | 16 |
| I turn my glass and give my scene such growing | |
| As you had slept between. Leontes leaving,— | |
| The effects of his fond jealousies so grieving, | |
| That he shuts up himself,—imagine me, | 20 |
| Gentle spectators, that I now may be | |
| In fair Bohemia; and remember well, | |
| I mention’d a son o’ the king’s, which Florizel | |
| I now name to you; and with speed so pace | 24 |
| To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace | |
| Equal with wondering: what of her ensues | |
| I list not prophesy; but let Time’s news | |
| Be known when ’tis brought forth. A shepherd’s daughter, | 28 |
| And what to her adheres, which follows after, | |
| Is th’ argument of Time. Of this allow, | |
| If ever you have spent time worse ere now: | |
| If never, yet that Time himself doth say | 32 |
| He wishes earnestly you never may. [Exit. | |
