Chapter 66

Observe the easy style of chitchat between Camillo and Archidamus as contrasted with the elevated diction on the introduction of the kings and Hermione in the second scene: and how admirably Polixenes’ obstinate refusal to Leontes to stay,—

“There is no tongue that moves; none, none i’ the world So soon as yours, could win me;”—

prepares for the effect produced by his afterwards yielding to Hermione;—which is, nevertheless, perfectly natural from mere courtesy of sex, and the exhaustion of the will by former efforts of denial, and well calculated to set in nascent action the jealousy of Leontes. This, when once excited, is unconsciously increased by Hermione,—

... “Yet, good deed, Leontes, I love thee not a jar o’ the clock behind What lady she her lord;”—

accompanied, as a good actress ought to represent it, by an expression and recoil of apprehension that she had gone too far.

“At my request, he would not:”—

The first working of the jealous fit;—

“Too hot, too hot:”—

The morbid tendency of Leontes to lay hold of the merest trifles, and his grossness immediately afterwards,—

“Paddling palms and pinching fingers;”—

followed by his strange loss of self-control in his dialogue with the little boy.