AUTOLYCUS. Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn
brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my
trumpery;
not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander,
brooch,
table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet,
horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting. They throng who
should
buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed and brought a
benediction to the buyer; by which means I saw whose purse
was
best in picture; and what I saw, to my good use I rememb'red.
My
clown, who wants but something to be a reasonable man, grew
so in
love with the wenches' song that he would not stir his
pettitoes
till he had both tune and words, which so drew the rest of
the
herd to me that all their other senses stuck in ears. You
might
have pinch'd a placket, it was senseless; 'twas nothing to
geld a
codpiece of a purse; I would have fil'd keys off that hung in
chains. No hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and
admiring
the nothing of it. So that in this time of lethargy I pick'd
and
cut most of their festival purses; and had not the old man
come
in with whoobub against his daughter and the King's son and
scar'd my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse
alive in
the whole army.
CAMILLO, FLORIZEL, and PERDITA come forward
CAMILLO. Nay, but my letters, by this means being there
So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.
FLORIZEL. And those that you'll procure from King Leontes?
CAMILLO. Shall satisfy your father.
PERDITA. Happy be you!
All that you speak shows fair.
CAMILLO. [seeing AUTOLYCUS] Who have we here?
We'll make an instrument of this; omit
Nothing may give us aid.
AUTOLYCUS. [Aside] If they have overheard me now- why,
hanging.
CAMILLO. How now, good fellow! Why shak'st thou so?
Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee.
AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir.
CAMILLO. 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 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. [Giving money]
AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir. [Aside] I know ye well
enough.
CAMILLO. Nay, prithee dispatch. The gentleman is half flay'd
already.
AUTOLYCUS. Are you in camest, sir? [Aside] I smell the trick
on't.
FLORIZEL. Dispatch, I prithee.
AUTOLYCUS. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with
conscience
take it.
CAMILLO. Unbuckle, unbuckle.
FLORIZEL and AUTOLYCUS exchange garments
Fortunate mistress- let my prophecy
Come home to ye! – you must retire yourself
Into some covert; take your sweetheart's hat
And pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face,
Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken
The truth of your own seeming, that you may-
For I do fear eyes over- to shipboard
Get undescried.
PERDITA. I see the play so lies
That I must bear a part.
CAMILLO. No remedy.
Have you done there?
FLORIZEL. Should I now meet my father,
He would not call me son.
CAMILLO. Nay, you shall have no hat.
[Giving it to PERDITA]
Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.
AUTOLYCUS. Adieu, sir.
FLORIZEL. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!
Pray you a word. [They converse apart]
CAMILLO. [Aside] What I do next shall be to tell the King
Of this escape, and whither they are bound;
Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail
To force him after; in whose company
I shall re-view Sicilia, for whose sight
I have a woman's longing.
FLORIZEL. Fortune speed us!
Thus we set on, Camillo, to th' sea-side.
CAMILLO. The swifter speed the better.
Exeunt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO
AUTOLYCUS. 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
th' 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 anything 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. CLOWN. 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. SHEPHERD. Nay, but hear me. CLOWN. Nay- but hear me. SHEPHERD. Go to, then. CLOWN. 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 punish'd 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. SHEPHERD. I 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 brother-in-law. CLOWN. 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. AUTOLYCUS. [Aside] Very wisely, puppies! SHEPHERD. Well, let us to the King. There is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard. AUTOLYCUS. [Aside] I know not what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master. CLOWN. Pray heartily he be at palace. AUTOLYCUS. [Aside] Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance. Let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement. [Takes off his false beard] How now, rustics! Whither are you bound? SHEPHERD. To th' palace, an it like your worship. AUTOLYCUS. 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 anything that is fitting to be known- discover. CLOWN. We are but plain fellows, sir. AUTOLYCUS. 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. CLOWN. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the manner. SHEPHERD. Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir? AUTOLYCUS. 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-odour from me? Reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Think'st thou, for that I insinuate, that toaze 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 the to open thy affair. SHEPHERD. My business, sir, is to the King. AUTOLYCUS. What advocate hast thou to him? SHEPHERD. I know not, an't like you. CLOWN. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say you have none. SHEPHERD. None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen. AUTOLYCUS. How blessed are we that are not simple men! Yet nature might have made me as these are, Therefore I will not disdain. CLOWN. This cannot be but a great courtier. SHEPHERD. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely. CLOWN. He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical. A great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking on's teeth. AUTOLYCUS. The fardel there? What's i' th' fardel? Wherefore that box? SHEPHERD. 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 th' speech of him. AUTOLYCUS. Age, thou hast lost thy labour. SHEPHERD. Why, Sir? AUTOLYCUS. 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. SHEPHERD. So 'tis said, sir- about his son, that should have married a shepherd's daughter. AUTOLYCUS. 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. CLOWN. Think you so, sir? AUTOLYCUS. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though remov'd 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 ston'd; 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. CLOWN. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an't like you, sir? AUTOLYCUS. He has a son- who shall be flay'd 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 recover'd again with aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set against a brick wall, 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 smil'd 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 consider'd, 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 besides the King to effect your suits, here is man shall do it. CLOWN. 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- ston'd and flay'd alive. SHEPHERD. 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. AUTOLYCUS. After I have done what I promised? SHEPHERD. Ay, sir. AUTOLYCUS. Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this business? CLOWN. In some sort, sir; but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flay'd out of it. AUTOLYCUS. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son! Hang him, he'll be made an example. CLOWN. 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. AUTOLYCUS. 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. CLOWN. We are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest. SHEPHERD. Let's before, as he bids us. He was provided to do us good. Exeunt SHEPHERD and CLOWN AUTOLYCUS. 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. Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES
Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and OTHERS
CLEOMENES. 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.
LEONTES. 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
Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man
Bred his hopes out of.
PAULINA. 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.
LEONTES. I think so. Kill'd!
She I kill'd! I did so; but thou strik'st me
Sorely, to say I did. It is as bitter
Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,
Say so but seldom.
CLEOMENES. Not at all, good lady.
You might have spoken a thousand things that would
Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd
Your kindness better.
PAULINA. 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 name; 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?
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?
PAULINA. 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 tenour 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 wills. [To LEONTES] Care not for
issue;
The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander
Left his to th' worthiest; so his successor
Was like to be the best.
LEONTES. Good Paulina,
Who hast the memory of Hermione,
I know, in honour, O 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-
PAULINA. And left them
More rich for what they yielded.
LEONTES. 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 offend her now, appear soul-vex'd,
And begin 'Why to me'-
PAULINA. Had she such power,
She had just cause.
LEONTES. She had; and would incense me
To murder her I married.
PAULINA. 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.'
LEONTES. Stars, stars,
And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;
I'll have no wife, Paulina.
PAULINA. Will you swear
Never to marry but by my free leave?
LEONTES. Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!
PAULINA. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.
CLEOMENES. You tempt him over-much.
PAULINA. Unless another,
As like Hermione as is her picture,
Affront his eye.
CLEOMENES. Good madam-
PAULINA. 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.
LEONTES. My true Paulina,
We shall not marry till thou bid'st us.
PAULINA. That
Shall be when your first queen's again in breath;
Never till then.
Enter a GENTLEMAN
GENTLEMAN. One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,
Son of Polixenes, with his princess- she
The fairest I have yet beheld- desires access
To your high presence.
LEONTES. What with him? He comes not
Like to his father's greatness. His approach,
So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us
'Tis not a visitation fram'd, but forc'd
By need and accident. What train?
GENTLEMAN. But few,
And those but mean.
LEONTES. His princess, say you, with him?
GENTLEMAN. Ay; the most peerless piece of earth, I think,
That e'er the sun shone bright on.
PAULINA. 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 once; 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,
To say you have seen a better.
GENTLEMAN. 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 a creature,
Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
Of all professors else, make proselytes
Of who she but bid follow.
PAULINA. How! not women?
GENTLEMAN. Women will love her that she is a woman
More worth than any man; men, that she is
The rarest of all women.
LEONTES. Go, Cleomenes;
Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,
Bring them to our embracement. Exeunt
Still, 'tis strange
He thus should steal upon us.
PAULINA. 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.
LEONTES. Prithee no more; cease. Thou know'st
He dies to me again when talk'd of. Sure,
When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
Will bring me to consider that which may
Unfurnish me of reason.
Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and ATTENDANTS
They are come.
Your mother was most true to wedlock, Prince;
For she did print your royal father off,
Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,
Your father's image is so hit in you
His very air, that I should call you brother,
As I did him, and speak of something wildly
By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!
And your fair princess- goddess! O, alas!
I lost a couple that 'twixt heaven and earth
Might thus have stood begetting wonder as
You, gracious couple, do. And then I lost-
All mine own folly- the society,
Amity too, of your brave father, whom,
Though bearing misery, I desire my life
Once more to look on him.
FLORIZEL. By his command
Have I here touch'd Sicilia, and from him
Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,
Can send his brother; and, but infirmity,
Which waits upon worn times, hath something seiz'd
His wish'd ability, he had himself
The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
Measur'd, to look upon you; whom he loves,
He bade me say so, more than all the sceptres
And those that bear them living.
LEONTES. O my brother-
Good gentleman! – the wrongs I have done thee stir
Afresh within me; and these thy offices,
So rarely kind, are as interpreters
Of my behind-hand slackness! Welcome hither,
As is the spring to th' earth. And hath he too
Expos'd this paragon to th' fearful usage,
At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,
To greet a man not worth her pains, much less
Th' adventure of her person?
FLORIZEL. Good, my lord,
She came from Libya.
LEONTES. Where the warlike Smalus,
That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and lov'd?
FLORIZEL. Most royal sir, from thence; from him whose daughter
His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her; thence,
A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,
To execute the charge my father gave me
For visiting your Highness. My best train
I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;
Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
Not only my success in Libya, sir,
But my arrival and my wife's in safety
Here where we are.
LEONTES. The blessed gods
Purge all infection from our air whilst you
Do climate here! You have a holy father,
A graceful gentleman, against whose person,
So sacred as it is, I have done sin,
For which the heavens, taking angry note,
Have left me issueless; and your father's blest,
As he from heaven merits it, with you,
Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,
Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on,
Such goodly things as you!
Enter a LORD
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;
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.
LEONTES. Where's Bohemia? Speak.
LORD. Here in your city; I now came from him.
I speak amazedly; and it becomes
My marvel and my message. To your court
Whiles he was hast'ning- in the chase, it seems,
Of this fair couple- meets he on the way
The father of this seeming lady and
Her brother, having both their country quitted
With this young prince.
FLORIZEL. Camillo has betray'd me;
Whose honour and whose honesty till now
Endur'd all weathers.
LORD. Lay't so to his charge;
He's with the King your father.
LEONTES. Who? Camillo?
LORD. Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now
Has these poor men in question. Never saw I
Wretches so quake. They kneel, they kiss the earth;
Forswear themselves as often as they speak.
Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them
With divers deaths in death.
PERDITA. O my poor father!
The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have
Our contract celebrated.
LEONTES. You are married?
FLORIZEL. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be;
The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first.
The odds for high and low's alike.
LEONTES. My lord,
Is this the daughter of a king?
FLORIZEL. She is,
When once she is my wife.
LEONTES. That 'once,' I see by your good father's speed,
Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,
Most sorry, you have broken from his liking
Where you were tied in duty; and as sorry
Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,
That you might well enjoy her.
FLORIZEL. Dear, look up.
Though Fortune, visible an enemy,
Should chase us with my father, pow'r no jot
Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,
Remember since you ow'd no more to time
Than I do now. With thought of such affections,
Step forth mine advocate; at your request
My father will grant precious things as trifles.
LEONTES. Would he do so, I'd beg your precious mistress,
Which he counts but a trifle.
PAULINA. 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.
LEONTES. I thought of her
Even in these looks I made. [To FLORIZEL] But your petition
Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father.
Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires,
I am friend to them and you. Upon which errand
I now go toward him; therefore, follow me,
And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord. Exeunt