some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door-work: they were warmer, that got this, than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he hollaed but even now. Whoa, ho hoa!

Enter Clown.

Clo. Hilloa, loa!

Shep. What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ailest thou, man?

Clo. I have seen two such sights, by sea, and by land;—but I am not to say, it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the firmament and it, you cannot thrust a bodkin's point.

Shep. Why, boy, how is it?

Clo. I would, you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up the shore! but that's not to the point: O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em: now the ship boring the moon with her main-mast; and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land service,-To see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said, his name was Antigonus, a nobleman :-But to make an end of the ship:—to see how the sea flap-dragoned it:-but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them ;-and how the poor gentleman roared, and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than the sea, or weather.

Shep. 'Name of mercy, when was this, boy? Clo. Now, now; I have not winked since I saw these sights: the men are not yet cold un

der water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman; he's at it now.

Shep. Would I had been by, to have helped the old man!

Clo. I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her; there your charity would have lacked footing. Aside.

Shep. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself; thou met'st with things dying, I with things new born. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's child! Look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open't. So, let's see; It was told me, I should be rich by the fairies: this is some changeling :-open't : What's within, boy?

Clo. You're a made old man; if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!

Shep. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up with it, keep it close; home, home, the next 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.

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, but when they are hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury it.

Shep. That's a good deed: If thou may'st 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.

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

Enter Time, as Chorus.

Time. I,-that please some, try all; both joy, and terror,

Of good and bad; that make, and unfold er

ror,

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 received: 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

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
I now name to you; and with speed so pace
To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace
Equal with wond'ring: What of her ensues,
I list not prophecy; but let Time's news
Be known, when 'tis 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.

present partner in this business, and lay aside

of Polixenes.

Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO. Pol. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more

Cam. I willingly obey your command. Pol. My best Camillo!-We must disguise ourselves. [Exeunt.

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 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 sufficient-| ly 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. Of that fatal country Sicilia, pr'ythee speak no more: whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou call'st 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 saw'st 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.

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 services, 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.

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 uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Pr'ythee, be my

herd'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, hey! 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,—
With, hey! with, hey! the thrush and the jay:—
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay.

I have served 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.

My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me, Autolycus; who being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles: With die, and drab, I purchased 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.

Clo. Let me see:-Every 'leven wether-tods; every tod yields-pound and odd shilling: fifteen hundred shorn,-What comes the wool to? Aut. If the springe hold, the cock's mine.

[Aside. 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 cur rants: 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 song-men 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!

[Grovelling on the ground.

Clo. I'the name of me,Aut. O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death?

Clo. Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off. Aut. O, sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more than the stripes I have received, which are mighty ones, and millions.

Clo. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter.

Aut. I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon me.

Clo. What, by a horse-man, or a foot-man? Aut. A foot-man, sweet sir, a foot-man.

Clo. Indeed, he should be a foot-man, by the garments he hath left with thee: if this be a horse-man's coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand. [Helping him up. Aut. O! good sir, tenderly, oh! Clo. Alas, poor soul.

professions, he settled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus.

Clo. Out upon him! Prig, 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.

Clo. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but looked 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? Aut. No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir. Clo. Then fare thee well; I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing,

Ant. 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 unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue !

Clo. How now? canst stand?

Aut. Softly, dear sir; [Picks his pocket.] good sir, softly; you ha' done me a charitable office.

Clo. Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.

Aut. No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or any thing I want. Offer me no money, I pray you; that kills my heart. Clo. What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?

Aut. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with trol-my-dames: I knew him once a servant of the prince; I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.

Clo. His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped out of court: they cherish it, to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but abide.

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 compassed a motion 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

Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA.

Flo. These your unusual weeds to each part of you

Do give a life: no shepherdess; but Flora
Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing
Is as a meeting of the petty gods,
And you the queen on't.

Per. Sir, my gracious lord,
To chide at your extremes, it not becomes me;
O, pardon, that I name them: your high self,
The gracious mark o'the land, you have obscur'd,
With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly
maid,

Most goddess-like prank'd up: But that our feasts
In every mess have folly, and the feeders
Digest it with a custom, I should blush
To see you so attired; sworn, I think,
To show myself a glass.

Flo. I bless the time,
When my good falcon made her flight across
Thy father's ground.

Per. Now Jove afford you cause!
Tome, the difference forges dread; your greatness
Hath not been us'd to fear. Even now I tremble
To think, your father, by some accident,
Should pass this way, as you did: O, the fates!
How would he look, to see his work, so noble,
Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how

Flo. Thou dearest Perdita,

With these forc'd thoughts, I pr'ythee, 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. O lady fortune,

Stand you auspicious!

Enter Shepherd, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO, disguised; Clown, MoPSA, DORCAS, and others.

Flo. See, your guests approach: Address yourself to entertain them sprightly, And let's be red with mirth.

Shep. Fye, daughter! when my old wife liv'd,

upon

This day, she was both pantler, butler, cook;
Both dame and servant: welcom'd all; serv'd all:
Would sing her song, and dance her turn: now
here,

At upper end o'the table, now, i'the middle;
On his shoulder, and his; her face o'fire
With labour; and the thing, she took to quench it,
She would to each one sip: You are retir'd,
As if you were a feasted one, and not
The hostess of the meeting: Pray you, bid
These unknown friends to us welcome: for it is
A way to make us better friends, more known.
Come, quench your blushes; and present yourself
That, which you are, mistress o'the feast: Come

Pol. Then make your garden rich in gillyflowers,

And do not call them bastards.

Per. 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, 'twere 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 with 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 are very welcome.
Cam. I should leave grazing, were I of your
flock,
And only live by gazing.

Per. Out, alas!

might

Become your time of day; and yours, and yours; That wear upon your virgin branches yet Your maidenheads growing:-0 Proserpina,

For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall

From Dis's waggon! daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and
The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack,
To make you garlands of; and, my sweet friend,
To strew him o'er and o'er.

Flo. What? like a corse?

I'd have you do it ever : when you sing,
I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms;
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too: When you do dance, I wish
you

A wave o'the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so, and own
No other function: Each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.

Per. O Doricles,

But smacks of something greater than herself; Too noble for this place.

Cam. He tells her something,

Upon the water, as he'll stand, and read,
As 'twere, my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain,
I think there is not half a kiss to choose,
Who loves another best.

Pol. She dances featly.

Shep. So she does any thing; though I report it,

That should be silent: If
young Doricles
Do light upon her, she shall bring him that,
Which he not dreams of.

Enter a Servant.

Serv. O master, if you did but hear the pedler at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings several tunes, faster than you'll tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men's ears grew to his

tunes.

Clo. He could never come better; he shall come in I love a ballad but even too well; if it be doleful matter, merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung lamentably.

of

Serv. He hath songs, for man, or woman, all sizes; no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves he has the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings: jump her and thump her; and where some stretch-mouth'd rascal would, as it were, mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer, Whoop, do me no harm, good man; puts him off, slights him, with Whoop, do me no harm, good man.

Pol. This is a brave fellow.

Clo. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirableconceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares?

Serv. He hath ribands of all the colours i'the rainbow; points, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they

she is

The queen of curds and cream.

Clo. Come on, strike up.

garlic,

To mend her kissing with.—

Clo. Pr'ythee, bring him in; and let him approach singing.