membered. My clown (who wants but something| Cam. What I do next, shall be, to tell the king to be a reasonable man,) grew so in love with the

Flo.

[Aside.

Fortune speed us!

wenches' song, that he would not stir his pettitoes, Of this escape, and whither they are bound;
till he had both tune and words; which so drew the Wherein my hope is, I shall so prevail,
rest of the herd to me, that all their other senses To force him after: in whose company
stuck in ears: you might have pinched a placket, I shall review Sicilia; for whose sight
it was senseless; 'twas nothing, to geld a cod-piece I have a woman's longing.
of a purse; I would have filed keys off, that hung
in chains: no hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side.
and admiring the nothing of it. So that, in this time
of lethargy, I picked and cut most of their festival
purses and had not the old man come in with a
whoobub against his daughter and the king's son,
and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not
left a purse alive in the whole army.

Cam. The swifter speed, the better.

[Exeunt Florizel, Perdita, and Camillo. Aut. I understand the business, I hear it: To have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cut-purse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for the other senses. [Camillo, Florizel, and Perdita, come forward. I see, this is the time that the unjust man doth Cam. Nay, but my letters by this means being thrive. What an exchange had this been without

there

Who have we here?
[Seeing Autolycus.
We'll make an instrument of this; omit
Nothing may give us aid.

boot? what a boot is here, with this exchange? Sure the gods do this year connive at us, and we may do any thing extempore. The prince himself is about a piece of iniquity; stealing away from his father, with his clog at his heels: If I thought it were not a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal, I would do't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it: and therein am I constant to my profession.

Enter Clown and Shepherd. Aside, aside;-here is more matter for a hot brain: Aut. If they have overheard me now,--why Every lane's end, every shop, church, session, hanghanging. [Aside. ing, yields a careful man work.

Cam. How now, good fellow? Why shakest thou so? Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee.

Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir.

Clo. See, see; what a man you are now! there is no other way, but to tell the king she's a changeling, and none of your flesh and blood. Shep. Nay, but hear me. Clo. Nay, but hear me. Shep. Go to then.

Cam. Why, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from thee: Yet, for the outside of thy poverty, we must make an exchange: therefore, discase thee Clo. She being none of your flesh and blood, instantly (thou must think there's necessity in't,) your flesh and blood has not offended the king; and change garments with this gentleman: Though and, so, your flesh and blood is not to be punished the pennyworth, on his side, be the worst, yet hold by him. Show those things you found about her thee, there's some boot.2 those secret things, all but what she has with her: Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir:-I know ye well This being done, let the law go whistle; I warrant enough. Aside. you. Cam. Nay, pr'ythee, despatch: the gentleman Shep. I will tell the king all, every word, yea, is half flayed already. and his son's pranks too; who, I may say, is no Aut. Are you in earnest, sir ?—I smell the trick honest man neither to his father, nor to me, to go of it.about to make me the king's brother-in-law.

[Aside.

Flo. Despatch, I pr'ythee. Aut. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with conscience take it.

Cam. Unbuckle, unbuckle.

[Flo. and Aut. exchange garments.
Fortunate mistress,-let my prophecy
Come home to you!-You must retire yourself
Into some covert: take your sweetheart's hat,
And pluck it o'er your brows: muille your face;
Dismantle you: and as you can, disliken

The truth of your own seeming; that you may
(For I do fear eyes over you,) to shipboard
Get undescried.

Clo. Indeed, brother-in-law was the furthest off you could have been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer, by I know how much an ounce. Aut. Very wisely; puppies!

[Aside.

Shep. Well; let us to the king; there is that in this fardel, will make him scratch his beard. Aut. I know not what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master.

Clo. 'Pray heartily he be at palace.

Aut. Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance:-Let me pocket up my pedler's excrement."--[ Takes off his false beard.] How now, rustics? whither are you bound?

Shep. To the palace, an it like your worship. Aut. Your affairs there? what? with whom? the condition of that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages, of what having, breeding, and any thing that is fitting to be known, discover.

Clo. We are but plain fellows, sir.

G

Clo. Your worship had like to have given us one, me (for you seem to be honest plain men,) what If you had not taken yourself with the manner. you have to the king: being something gently con Shep. Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir? sidered, I'll bring you where he is aboard, tender Aut. Whether it like me, or no, I am a courtier. your persons to his presence, whisper him in your See'st thou not the air of the court, in these enfold- behalf's; and, if it be in man, besides the king to ings? hath not my gait in it the measure of the effect your suits, here is man shall do it. court ? receives not thy nose court-odour from Clo. He seems to be of great authority; close ine? reflect I not on thy baseness, court-contempt ? with him, give him gold; and though authority be Think'st thou, for that I insinuate, or toze from a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am gold: show the inside of your purse to the outside courtier, cap-a-pé; and one that will either push of his hand, and no more ado: Remember stoned, on, or pluck back, thy business there: whereupon and flayed alive. I command thee to open thy affair.

Shep. My business, sir, is to the king.
Aut. What advocate hast thou to him?
Shep. I know not, an't like you.

Clo. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say, you have none.

Shep. None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.
Aut. How bless'd are we, that are not simple

men!

Yet nature might have made me as these are,
Therefore I'll not disdain.

Clo. This cannot be but a great courtier.
Shep. His garments are rich, but he wears them
not handsomely.

Clo. He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical; a great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking on's teeth.

Aut. The fardel there? what's i'the fardel? Wherefore that box?

Shep. Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel, and box, which none must know but the king; and which he shall know within this hour, if I may come to the speech of him.

Aut. Age, thou hast lost thy labour.
Shep. Why, sir?

Aut. The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy, and air himself: For, if thou be'st capable of things serious, thou must know, the king is full of grief.

Shep. So 'tis said, sir; about his son, that should have married a shepherd's daughter.

Aut. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly the curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of

monster.

Clo. Think you so, sir?

Aut. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy, and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though removed fifty times, shall all come under the hangman: which though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace! Some say, he shall be stoned; but that death is too soft for him, say I: Draw our throne into a sheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.

Clo. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an't like you, sir?

Shep. An't please you, sir, to undertake the bu siness for us, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much more; and leave this young man in pawn, till I bring it you.

Aut. After I have done what I promised?
Shep. Ay, sir.

Aut. Well, give me the moiety :-Are you a party in this business?

Clo. In some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it. Aut. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son:Hang him, he'll be made an example.

Clo. Comfort, good comfort: we must to the king, and show our strange sights; he must know, 'tis none of your daughter, nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does, when the business is performed; and remain, as he says, your pawn, till it be brought you.

Aut. I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on the right hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you.

Clo. We are blessed in this man, as I may say, even blessed.

Shep. Let's before, as he bids us: he was provided to do us good. [Exeunt Shep, and Clown.

Aut. If I had a mind to be honest, I see, fortune would not suffer me; she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occasion; gold, and a means to do the prince my master good; which, who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he think it fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue, for being so far oflicious; for I am proof against that title, and what else shame belongs to't: To him will I present them, there may be matter in it.

ACT V.

[Erit.

A room in the palace of
SCENE I-Sicilia.
Leontes. Enter Leontes, Cleomenes, Dion, Pau-
lina, and others.

Cleo. Sir, you have done enough, and have per-
form'd

A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make, Aul. He has a son, who shall be flayed alive; Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down then, 'nointed over with honey, set on the head of More penitence, than done trespass: At the last, a wasp's nest; then stand, till he be three-quarters Do, as the heavens have done; forget your evil; and a dram dead: then recovered again with aqua-With them, forgive yourself.

vitæ, or some other hot infusion: then, raw as he Leon.

Whilst I remember

is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, Her, and her virtues, I cannot forget shall be set against a brick wall, the sun looking My blemishes in them; and so still think of with a southward eye upon him; where he is to be- The wrong I did myself: which was so much, hold him, with flies blown to death. But what talk That heirless it hath made my kingdom; and we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to Destroy'd the sweet'st companion, that e'er man be smiled at, their offences being so capital? Tell Bred his hopes out of.

Paul.

True, too true, my lord: (And all eyes else dead coals!-fear tnou no wife,
I'll have no wife, Paulina.

If, one by one, you wedded all the world,
Or, from the all that are, took something good,
To make a perfect woman; she, you kill'd,
Would be unparallel'd.

Leon.

I think so.

Kill'd?

You are one of those,

Would have him wed again.

Dion.
If you would not so,
You pity not the state, nor the remembrance
Of his most sovereign dame; consider little,
What dangers, by his highness' fail of issue,
May drop upon his kingdom, and devour
Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy,
Than to rejoice, the former queen is well?1
What holier, than,-for royalty's repair,
For present comfort and for future good,-
To bless the bed of majesty again
With a sweet fellow to't?

Paul.

There is none worthy,
Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods
Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes:
For has not the divine Apollo said,

Is't not the tenor of his oracle,

That king Leontes shall not have an heir,

Till his lost child be found? which, that it shall,
Is all as monstrous to our human reason,
As my Antigonus to break his grave,
And come again to me; who, on my life,
Did perish with the infant. "Tis your counsel,
My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
Oppose against their will.--Care not for issue;
[To Leontes.
The crown will find an heir: Great Alexander
Left his to the worthiest; so his successor
Was like to be the best.
Leon.

Good Paulina,-
Who has the memory of Hermione,
I know, in honour,-0, that ever I
Had squar'd me to thy counsel !-then, even now,
I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes;
Have taken treasure from her lips,——
Paul.

And left them
Thou speak'st truth.
No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse,
And better us'd, would make her sainted spirit
Again possess her corpse; and, on this stage
(Where we offenders now appear,) soul-vex'd,
Begin, And why to me?
Paul.

More rich, for what they yielded.
Leon.

She had just cause.

Leon.

Had she such power,

She had; and would incense2 me
To murder her I married.

Paul.
I should so:
Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid you mark
Her eye; and tell me, for what dull part in't
You chose her: then I'd shriek, that even your ears
Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd
Should be, Remember mine.
Leon.

(1) At rest, dead.
Split.

.

Stars, very stars,

(2) Instigate.
(4) Meet.

Never to marry, but by my free leave?
Leon. Never, Paulina; so be bless'd my spirit!
Paul. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his

oath.

Cleo. You tempt him over-much.
Paul.

As like Hermione as is her picture,
Affront his eye.

Cleo.
Paul.

Good madam,

Unless another,

I have done.

Yet, if my lord will marry,-if you will, sir,
No remedy, but you will; give me the office
To choose you a queen: she shall not be so young
As was your former; but she shall be such,
As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should
take joy

To see her in your arms.

Leon.

My truc Paulina, We shall not marry, till thou bidd'st us.

Paul.

That

O Hermione,
As every present time doth boast itself
Above a better, gone; so must thy grave
Give way to what's seen now. Sir, you yourself
Have said, and writ so, (but your writing now
Is colder than that theme,) She had not been,
Nor was not to be equall'd ;-thus your verse
Flow'd with her beauty onee: 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,
To say, you have seen a better.
Gent.

Pardon, madam:
The one I have almost forgot; (your pardon,)
The other, when she has obtain'd your eye,
Will have your tongue too. This is such a creature,
Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
Of all professors else; make proselytes
Of who she but bid follow.

Paul.
How? not women?
Gent. Women will love her, that she is a woman
More worth than any man; men, that she is
The rarest of all women.

Lord. Most noble sir, That, which I shall report, will bear no credit, Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir, Bohemia greets you from himself, by me: and Desires you to attach his son; who has (His dignity and duty both cast off,) Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with A shepherd's daughter.