next2 way. We are lucky, boy; and to be so still, requires nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go: come, good boy, the next way home.

131

Clo. Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten: they are never curst,3 but when they are hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury it.

Shep. That's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that which is left of him what he is, fetch me to the sight of him.

Clo. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground.

141

Shep. 'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds on 't. [Exeunt.

SCENE I.

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,
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
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
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

10

Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,
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,
Gentle spectators, that I now may be
In fair Bohemia; and remember well,
I mentioned a son o' the king's, which Florizel

1 Bearing-cloth, i.e. christening-cloth.

20

I now name to you; and with speed so pace
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 't is brought forth. A shep-
herd's daughter,

And what to her adheres, which follows after,
Is the argument of Time. Of this allow,"
If ever you have spent time worse ere now;
If never, yet that Time himself doth say
He wishes earnestly you never may. [Exit.

31

SCENE II. Bohemia. The palace of Polirenes.

Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO.

Pol. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 't is a sickness denying thee any thing; a death to grant this.

Cam. It is fifteen years since I saw my country: though I have for the most part been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to think so, which is another spur to my departure. Pol. As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not

10

out the rest of thy services by leaving me now: [the need I have of thee, thine own goodness hath made; better not to have had thee than thus to want thee: thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I have not enough considered, as too much I cannot, to be more thankful to thee shall be my study; and my profit therein, the heaping friendships.1] Of that fatal country, Sicilia, prithee speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou callest him, and reconciled king, my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved their virtues.

32

Cam. Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I have missingly noted, he is of late much retired from court, and is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.

Pol. I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care; so far, that I have eyes under my service which look upon his removedness; from whom I have this intelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.

Cam. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note: the report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage.

50

Pol. That's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I fear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not appearing what we are, have some question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not uneasy3

1 Friendships, friendly services.

2 Question, conversation.

3 Not uneasy, i.e. easy, not difficult

to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Prithee, be my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia. Cam. I willingly obey your command. Pol. My best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves. [Exeunt.

SCENE III. A road near the Shepherd's
Cottage.

Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.

When daffodils begin to peer,

With, heigh the doxy over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, With, heigh! the sweet birds, O how they sing! Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;

For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,

60

11

With, heigh! with, heigh! the thrush and the jay,
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay.

I have serv'd Prince Florizel and in my time
wore three-pile; but now I am out of service:
But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
The pale moon shines by night:
And when I wander here and there,
I then do most go right.

If tinkers may have leave to live,
And bear the sow-skin budget,
Then my account I well may give,

And in the stocks avouch it.

20

My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father nam'd me Autolycus; who being, as I am, litter'd under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. [With die and drab I purchas'd this caparison; and my revenue is the silly cheat.] Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway; beating and hanging are terrors to me; for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it. A prize! a prize!

Enter Clown.

32

Clo. Let me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod yields pound and odd shilling: fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?

4 Pugging, thievish.

5 Three-pile, i.e. three-pile velvet.

Aut. [Aside] If the springe hold, the cock's mine.

Clo. I cannot do't without counters. Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar; five pound of currants; rice-what will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers, three- man songmen1 all, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases; but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron, to colour the warden-pies; mace; dates, none, that's out of my note; nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I may beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' the sun.

Aut. O that ever I was born!

52

Aut. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compass'd a motion1 of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus.

Clo. Out upon him! prig,2 for my life, prig: he haunts wakes, fairs and bear-baitings.

Aut. Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that put me into this apparel.

111

Clo. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but look'd big and spit at him, he'd have run.

Aut. I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant him.

Clo. How do you now?

Aut. Sweet, sir, much better than I was; I can stand and walk: I will even take my leave of you, and pace softly towards my kinsman's.

Clo. Shall I bring thee on the way? 122 Aut. No, good-fac'd sir; no, sweet sir. Clo. Then fare thee well: I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing.

Aut. Prosper you, sweet sir! [Exit Clown.] Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too: if I make not this cheat bring out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unroll'd,3 and my name put in the book of virtue!

131

Apprehend

Flo. Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves, Humbling their deities to love, have taken The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter Became a bull, and bellow'd; the green Neptune A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob❜d god, Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain, As I seem now. Their transformations Were never for a piece of beauty rarer, [Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires Run not before mine honour, nor my lusts Burn hotter than my faith.]

Per.

30

O but, sir, Your resolution cannot hold, when 't is Oppos'd, as it must be, by the power of the king: One of these two must be necessities, Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose,

With these forc'd thoughts, I prithee,darken not
The mirth o' the feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,
Or not my father's; for I cannot be
Mine own, nor any thing to any, if

I be not thine: to this I am most constant,
Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle;
Strangle such thoughts as these with any thing
That you behold the while. Your guests are
coming:

Lift up your countenance, as it were the day
Of celebration of that nuptial which
We two have sworn shall come.
Per.

Stand you auspicious!

50

O Lady Fortune,

I'll not put

The dibble in earth to set one slip of them;
No more than were I painted I would wish
This youth should say 't were well, and only
therefore

Desire to breed by me.] Here's flowers for you;
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun
And with him rises weeping: these are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age. You're very welcome.
Cam. I should leave grazing, were I of your
flock,

And only live by gazing.

1 For, because.