Woe the while! O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it, Break too! (FIRST LORD: What fit is this, good lady?) What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me? What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling In leads or oils? What old or newer torture Must I receive, whose every word deserves To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny, Together working with thy jealousies, Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle For girls of nine. O, think what they have done, And then run mad indeed, stark mad! for all Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it. That thou betray’dst Polixenes, ’twas nothing; That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant And damnable ingrateful; nor was’t much Thou wouldst have poison’d good Camillo’s honour, To have him kill a king; poor trespasses, More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter, To be or none or little, though a devil Would have shed water out of fire ere done’t, Nor is’t directly laid to thee the death Of the young prince, whose honourable thoughts, Thoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart That could conceive a gross and foolish sire Blemish’d his gracious dam: this is not, no, Laid to thy answer: but the last—O lords, When I have said, cry Woe!—the queen, the queen, The sweet’st, dear’st creature’s dead, and vengeance for’t Not dropp’d down yet. (FIRST LORD: The higher powers forbid!) I say she’s dead: I’ll swear’t. If word nor oath Prevail not, go and see: if you can bring Tincture, or lustre, in her lip, her eye, Heat outwardly or breath within, I’ll serve you As I would do the gods. But, O thou tyrant! Do not repent these things, for they are heavier Than all thy woes can stir. Therefore betake thee To nothing but despair. A thousand knees Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting, Upon a barren mountain, and still winter In storm perpetual, could not move the gods To look that way thou wert.

Paulina Monologue from The Winter's Tale

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