steal that from thee: yet for the outside of thy poverty we must make an exchange; therefore discase thee instantly,-thou must think there's a necessity in t,-and change garments with this gentleman: though the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee, there's some boot. Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir. [Aside] I know ye well enough. Cam. Nay, prithee, despatch: the gentleman is half flayed already. Aut. Are you in earnest, sir? [Aside] I smell the trick on't. Flo. Despatch, I prithee. Aut. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with conscience take it. 660 No remedy. 670 Should I now meet my father, Have you done there? Flo. He would not call me son. Nay, you shall have no hat. Cam. Aside] What I do next, shall be to tell the king Of this escape and whither they are bound; I shall review Sicilia, for whose sight Flo. 680 [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. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth thrive. What an exchange had this been without 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 a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal, I would not do't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my profession. Re-enter Clown and Shepherd. Aside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain: every lane's end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man work. 701 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. 709 Clo. She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the king; and so your flesh and blood is not to be punished by him. Show those things you found about her, those secret things, all but what she has with her: this being done, let the law go whistle: I warrant you. Shep will tell the king all, every word, yea, and his son's pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man, neither to his father nor to me, to go about to make me the king's brotherin-law. 721 Clo. Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have been to him, and then your blood had been the dearer by I know how much an ounce. Aut. [Aside Very wisely, puppies! Shep. Well, let us to the king: there is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard. Aut. [Aside] I know not what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master. Clo. Pray heartily he be at palace. 731 Aut. Aside] Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance: let me pocket up my peddler'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. Aut. A lie; you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying: it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie: but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel; therefore they do not give us the lie. Clo. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the manner. Shep. Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir? Aut. Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings? hath not my gait in it the measure of the court? receives not thy nose court-odor from me? reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Thinkest thou for that I' insinuate, or ftoaze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-a-pe: and one that will either push on or pluck back thy business there: whereupon I command thee to open thy affair. Shep. My business, sir, is to the king. Clo. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant: say you have none. Shep. None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen. 771 Aut. How blessed are we that are not simple men! Yet nature might have made me as these are, Therefore I will 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. 780 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 labor. Aut. The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy and air himself: for, if thou beest 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? 799 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 sheepwhistling 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? 811 Aut. He has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then 'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest; then stand till he be three quarters and a dram dead; then recovered again with aqua-vitæ or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set against a brickwall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he is to behold him with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at, their offences being so capital? Tell me, for you seem to be honest plain men, what you have to the king: being something gently considered, I'll bring you where he is aboard, tender your persons to his presence, whisper him in your behalfs; and if it be in man beside the king to effect your suits, here is man shall do it. 829 Clo. He seems to be of great authority: close with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold: show the inside of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado. Remember 'stoned,' and 'flayed alive.' Shep. An't please you, sir, to undertake the business 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? 840 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. 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 blest in this man, as I may say, even blest. Shep. Let's before as he bids us: he was provided to do us good. 861 [Exeunt Shepherd 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 officious; for I am proof against that title and what shame else belongs to't. To him will I present them: there may be matter in it. [Exit. ACT V. SCENE I. A room in LEONTES' palace. Enter LEONTEs, Cleomenes, DION, PAULINA, and Servants. Cleo. Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make, Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down More penitence than done trespass: at the last, Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil: With them forgive yourself. Leon. Whilst I remember Her and her virtues, I cannot forget My blemishes in them, and so still think of The wrong I did myself; which was so much, That heirless it hath made my kingdom and to Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man Bred his hopes out of. Paul True, too true, my lord: 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! She I kill'd! I did so: but thou strikest me Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter Upon thy tongue as in my thought: now, good Say so but seldom. Cleo. now, Not at all, good lady: 20 41 Till his lost child be found? which, that it shall, The crown will find an heir: great Alexander 50 Good Paulina, Who hast the memory of Hermione, I know, in honor, O, that ever I Had squared me to thy counsel! then, even now, I might have looked upon my queen's full eyes, Have taken treasure from her lipsPaul. And left them More rich for what they yielded. Leon. Thou speak'st truth. No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse, And better used, would make her sainted spirit Again possess her corpse, and on this stage, Where we're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd, fAnd begin, 'Why to me?' Paul. She had just cause. Leon. Had she such power, 60 She had; and would incense me To murder her I married. Paul. I should so, Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't You chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your 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. That 80 Paul. Shall be when your first queen's again in breath: Never till then. Enter a Gentleman. Gent. One that gives out himself Prince Son of Polixenes, with his princess, she And those but mean. Leon. But few, His princess, say you, with him? Gent. Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think, That e'er the sun shone bright on. O Hermione, 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. 110 Leon. Go, Cleomenes; Yourself, assisted with your honor'd friends, Bring them to our embracement. Still, 'tis strange [Exeunt Cleomenes and others. He thus should steal upon us. Paul. Had our prince, Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd Well with this lord: there was not full a month Between their births. Leon. Prithee, no more; cease; thou know'st He dies to me again when talk'd of: sure, 120 When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches, Re-enter CLEOMENES and others, with Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince; 140 Camillo has betray'd me; Fio. His wish'd ability, he had himself Lay't so to his charge: earth; The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his Forswear themselves as often as they speak: 200 Per. O my poor father! You are married? Is this the daughter of a king? When once she is my wife. My lord, She is, Leon. That 'once,' I see by your good father's speed, 210 Will come on very slowly. I am sorry, Flo. Dear, look up: mistress. Which he counts but a trifle. Paul. Sir, my liege, Your eye hath too much youth in't: not a month 'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes Than what you look on now. Leen. THE WINTER'S TALE. Even in these looks I made. [To Florizel.] But Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father: SCENE II. Before LEONTES' palace. 329 joy were now become a loss, cries, 'O, thy himself for joy of his found daughter, as if that mother, thy mother!' then asks Bohemia foragain worries he his daughter with clipping her; giveness; then embraces his son-in-law; then now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands reigns. by like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings' I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it, and undoes description to do it, Sec. Gent. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child? First Gent. I was by at the opening of the and not an ear open. Third Gent. Like an old tale still, which will fardel, heard the old shepherd deliver the manhave matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep ner how he found it: whereupon, after a little who has not only his innocence, which seems with a bear: this avouches the shepherd's son; He was torn to pieces amazedness, we were all commanded out of the much, to justify him, but a handkerchief and chamber, only this methought I heard the shep-rings of his that Paulina knows. herd say, he found the child. Aut. I would most gladly know the issue of it. First Gent. I make a broken delivery of the business; but the changes I perceived in the king and Camillo, were very notes of admiration: they seemed, almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture; they looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not say if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be. Enter another Gentleman. more. Sec. Gent. Nothig but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled: the king's daughter is found; such a deal of wonder is broken out within the hour that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it. Enter a third Gentleman. Here comes the lady Paulina's steward: he can deliver you more. news which is called true is so like an old tale, How goes it now, sir? this that the verity of it is in strong suspicion: has the king found his heir? Third Gent. Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance: that which you hear you'll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione's, her jewel about the neck of it, the letters of Antigonus found with it which they know to be his character, the majesty of the creature in resemblance of the mother, the affection of nobleness which nature shows above her breeding, and many other evidences proclaim her with all certainty to be the king's daughter. the meeting of the two kings? Sec. Gent. No. Did you see Third Gent. Then have you lost a sight, which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenances of such distraction that they were to be known by garment, not by favor. Our king, being ready to leap out of followers? master's death and in the view of the shepherd: so Third Gent. Wrecked the same instant of their that all the instruments which aided to expose the child were even then lost when it was found. But O, the noble combat that 'twixt joy and sorvated that the oracle was fulfilled; she lifted the row was fought in Paulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband, another eleprincess from the earth, and so locks her in embracing, as if she would pin her to her heart that she might no more be in danger of losing. First Gent. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted: the water though not the fish, was when, at the Third Gent. One of the prettiest touches of all and that which angled for mine eyes, caught how she came to't bravely confessed and lamented relation of the queen's death, with the manner by the king, how attentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of dolor to another, tears, for I am sure my heart wept blood. Who she did, with an 'Alas,' I would fain say, bleed swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world could was most marble there changed color; some have seen't, the woe had been universal. 100 First Gent. Are they returned to the court? the benefit of access? every wink of an eye some |