FLORIZEL
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.

    PERDITA
                        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’ th’ 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 attir’d; swoon, I think,
To show myself a glass.

    FLORIZEL
                        I bless the time
When my good falcon made her flight across
Thy father’s ground.

    PERDITA
                Now Jove afford you cause!
To me 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
Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts, behold
The sternness of his presence?

    FLORIZEL
                                Apprehend
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.

    PERDITA
                        O, but, sir,
Your resolution cannot hold when ’tis
Oppos’d, as it must be, by th’ pow’r of the King.
One of these two must be necessities,
Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose,
Or I my life.

    FLORIZEL
                Thou dearest Perdita,
With these forc’d thoughts, I prithee, darken not
The mirth o’ th’ feast. Or I’ll be thine, my fair,
Or not my father’s; for I cannot be
Mine own, nor anything 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.

    PERDITA
                        O Lady Fortune,
Stand you auspicious!

    FLORIZEL
                See, your guests approach.
Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,
And let’s be red with mirth.

    SHEPHERD
Fie, 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’ th’ table, now i’ th’ 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 retired,
As if you were a feasted one, and not
The hostess of the meeting. Pray you bid
These unknown friends to’s 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’ th’ Feast. Come on,
And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,
As your good flock shall prosper.

    PERDITA
[To POLIXENES]                    Sir, welcome.
It is my father’s will I should take on me
The hostess-ship o’ th’ day. [To CAMILLO]
You’re welcome, sir.
Give me those flow’rs there, Dorcas. Reverend sirs,
For you there’s rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long.
Grace and remembrance be to you both!
And welcome to our shearing.

    POLIXENES
                                Shepherdess—
A fair one are you— well you fit our ages
With flow’rs of winter.

    PERDITA
                Sir, the year growing ancient,
Not yet on summer’s death nor on the birth
Of trembling winter, the fairest flow’rs o’ th’ season
Are our carnations and streak’d gillyvors,
Which some call nature’s bastards. Of that kind
Our rustic garden’s barren; and I care not
To get slips of them.

    POLIXENES
                Wherefore, gentle maiden,
Do you neglect them?

    PERDITA
                For I have heard it said
There is an art which in their piedness shares
With great creating nature.

    POLIXENES
                        Say there be;
Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean; so over that art
Which you say adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentler scion to the wildest stock,
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race. This is an art
Which does mend nature— change it rather; but
The art itself is nature.

    PERDITA
                        So it is.

    POLIXENES
Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,
And do not call them bastards.

    PERDITA
                                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 flow’rs for you:
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ th’ sun,
And with him rises weeping; these are flow’rs
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age. Y’are very welcome.

    CAMILLO
I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,
And only live by gazing.

    PERDITA
                        Out, alas!
You’d be so lean that blasts of January
Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair’st friend,
I would I had some flow’rs o’ th’ spring that might
Become your time of day— and yours, and yours,
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maidenheads growing. O Proserpina,
From 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 flow’r-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!

    FLORIZEL
                        What, like a corse?

    PERDITA
No; like a bank for love to lie and play on;
Not like a corse; or if— not to be buried,
But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flow’rs.
Methinks I play as I have seen them do
In Whitsun pastorals. Sure, this robe of mine
Does change my disposition.

    FLORIZEL
                        What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
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 ord’ring your affairs,
To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ th’ 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.

    PERDITA
                                O Doricles,
Your praises are too large. But that your youth,
And the true blood which peeps fairly through’t,
Do plainly give you out an unstain’d shepherd,
With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,
You woo’d me the false way.

    FLORIZEL
                        I think you have
As little skill to fear as I have purpose
To put you to’t. But, come; our dance, I pray.
Your hand, my Perdita; so turtles pair
That never mean to part.

    PERDITA
I’ll swear for ’em.

    POLIXENES
This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever
Ran on the green-sward; nothing she does or seems
But smacks of something greater than herself,
Too noble for this place.

    CAMILLO
                        He tells her something
That makes her blood look out. Good sooth, she is
The queen of curds and cream.

    CLOWN
                        Come on, strike up.

    DORCAS
Mopsa must be your mistress; marry, garlic,
To mend her kissing with!

    MOPSA
                        Now, in good time!

    CLOWN
Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.
Come, strike up.

    POLIXENES
Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this
Which dances with your daughter?

    SHEPHERD
They call him Doricles, and boasts himself
To have a worthy feeding; but I have it
Upon his own report, and I believe it:
He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter;
I think so too; for never gaz’d the moon
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.

    POLIXENES
                        She dances featly.

    SHEPHERD
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.

    SERVANT
O master, if you did but hear the pedlar 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.

    CLOWN
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.

    SERVANT
He hath songs for man or woman of 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.’

    POLIXENES
This is a brave fellow.

    CLOWN
Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares?

    SERVANT
He hath ribbons of all the colours i’ th’ rainbow; points, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by th’ gross; inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns. Why he sings ’em over as they were gods or goddesses; you would think a smock were she-angel, he so chants to the sleeve-hand and the work about the square on’t.

    CLOWN
Prithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.

    PERDITA
Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in’s tunes.

    CLOWN
You have of these pedlars that have more in them than you’d think, sister.

    PERDITA
Ay, good brother, or go about to think.

    CLOWN
If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me; but being enthrall’d as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.

    MOPSA
I was promis’d them against the feast; but they come not too late now.

    DORCAS
He hath promis’d you more than that, or there be liars.

    MOPSA
He hath paid you all he promis’d you. May be he has paid you more, which will shame you to give him again.

    CLOWN
Is there no manners left among maids? Will they wear their plackets where they should bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guests? ’Tis well they are whisp’ring. Clammer your tongues, and not a word more.

    MOPSA
I have done. Come, you promis’d me a tawdry-lace, and a pair of sweet gloves.

    CLOWN
Have I not told thee how I was cozen’d by the way, and lost all my money?

    AUTOLYCUS
And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it behoves men to be wary.

    CLOWN
Fear not thou, man; thou shalt lose nothing here.

    AUTOLYCUS
I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge.

    CLOWN
What hast here? Ballads?

    MOPSA
Pray now, buy some. I love a ballad in print o’ life, for then we are sure they are true.

    AUTOLYCUS
Here’s one to a very doleful tune: how a usurer’s wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden, and how she long’d to eat adders’ heads and toads carbonado’d.

    MOPSA
Is it true, think you?

    AUTOLYCUS
Very true, and but a month old.

    DORCAS
Bless me from marrying a usurer!

    AUTOLYCUS
Here’s the midwife’s name to’t, one Mistress Taleporter, and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I carry lies abroad?

    MOPSA
Pray you now, buy it.

    CLOWN
Come on, lay it by; and let’s first see moe ballads; we’ll buy the other things anon.

    AUTOLYCUS
Here’s another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids. It was thought she was a woman, and was turn’d into a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that lov’d her. The ballad is very pitiful, and as true.

    DORCAS
Is it true too, think you?

    AUTOLYCUS
Five justices’ hands at it; and witnesses more than my pack will hold.

    CLOWN
Lay it by too. Another.

    AUTOLYCUS
This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.

    MOPSA
Let’s have some merry ones.

    AUTOLYCUS
Why, this is a passing merry one, and goes to the tune of ‘Two maids wooing a man.’ There’s scarce a maid westward but she sings it; ’tis in request, I can tell you.

    MOPSA
We can both sing it. If thou’lt bear a part, thou shalt hear; ’tis in three parts.

    DORCAS
We had the tune on’t a month ago.

    AUTOLYCUS
I can bear my part; you must know ’tis my occupation. Have at it with you.

    CLOWN
We’ll have this song out anon by ourselves; my father and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we’ll not trouble them. Come, bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I’ll buy for you both. Pedlar, let’s have the first choice. Follow me, girls.

    AUTOLYCUS
And you shall pay well for ’em.            [Exit Autolycus, Singing

    SERVANT
Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swineherds, that have made themselves all men of hair; they call themselves Saltiers, and they have dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in’t; but they themselves are o’ th’ mind, if it be not too rough for some that know little but bowling, it will please plentifully.

    SHEPHERD
Away! We’ll none on’t; here has been too much homely foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.

    POLIXENES
You weary those that refresh us. Pray, let’s see these four threes of herdsmen.

    SERVANT
One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danc’d before the King; and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by th’ squier.

    SHEPHERD
Leave your prating; since these good men are pleas’d, let them come in; but quickly now.

    SERVANT
Why, they stay at door, sir.

    POLIXENES
[To SHEPHERD]    O, father, you’ll know more of that hereafter.
[To CAMILLO]    Is it not too far gone? ’Tis time to part them.
He’s simple and tells much.    [To FLORIZEL]    How now, fair shepherd!
Your heart is full of something that does take
Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young
And handed love as you do, I was wont
To load my she with knacks; I would have ransack’d
The pedlar’s silken treasury and have pour’d it
To her acceptance: you have let him go
And nothing marted with him. If your lass
Interpretation should abuse and call this
Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited
For a reply, at least if you make a care
Of happy holding her.

    FLORIZEL
                        Old sir, I know
She prizes not such trifles as these are.
The gifts she looks from me are pack’d and lock’d
Up in my heart, which I have given already,
But not deliver’d. O, hear me breathe my life
Before this ancient sir, whom, it should seem,
Hath sometime lov’d. I take thy hand— this hand,
As soft as dove’s down and as white as it,
Or Ethiopian’s tooth, or the fann’d snow that’s bolted
By th’ northern blasts twice o’er.

    POLIXENES
                                What follows this?
How prettily the young swain seems to wash
The hand was fair before! I have put you out.
But to your protestation; let me hear
What you profess.

    FLORIZEL
                Do, and be witness to’t.

    POLIXENES
And this my neighbour too?

    FLORIZEL
                        And he, and more
Than he, and men— the earth, the heavens, and all:
That, were I crown’d the most imperial monarch,
Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth
That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge
More than was ever man’s, I would not prize them
Without her love; for her employ them all;
Commend them and condemn them to her service
Or to their own perdition.

    POLIXENES
                        Fairly offer’d.

    CAMILLO
This shows a sound affection.

    SHEPHERD
                                But, my daughter,
Say you the like to him?

    PERDITA
                        I cannot speak
So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better.
By th’ pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out
The purity of his.

    SHEPHERD
                Take hands, a bargain!
And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to’t:
I give my daughter to him, and will make
Her portion equal his.

    FLORIZEL
                        O, that must be
I’ th’ virtue of your daughter. One being dead,
I shall have more than you can dream of yet;
Enough then for your wonder. But come on,
Contract us fore these witnesses.

    SHEPHERD
                                Come, your hand;
And, daughter, yours.

    POLIXENES
                    Soft, swain, awhile, beseech you;
Have you a father?

    FLORIZEL
                    I have, but what of him?

    POLIXENES
Knows he of this?

    FLORIZEL
                            He neither does nor shall.

    POLIXENES
Methinks a father
Is at the nuptial of his son a guest
That best becomes the table. Pray you, once more,
Is not your father grown incapable
Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid
With age and alt’ring rheums? Can he speak, hear,
Know man from man, dispute his own estate?
Lies he not bed-rid, and again does nothing
But what he did being childish?

    FLORIZEL
                                        No, good sir;
He has his health, and ampler strength indeed
Than most have of his age.

    POLIXENES
                                By my white beard,
You offer him, if this be so, a wrong
Something unfilial. Reason my son
Should choose himself a wife; but as good reason
The father— all whose joy is nothing else
But fair posterity— should hold some counsel
In such a business.

    FLORIZEL
                        I yield all this;
But, for some other reasons, my grave sir,
Which ’tis not fit you know, I not acquaint
My father of this business.

    POLIXENES
                                Let him know’t.

    FLORIZEL
He shall not.

    POLIXENES
                Prithee let him.

    FLORIZEL
                                No, he must not.

    SHEPHERD
Let him, my son; he shall not need to grieve
At knowing of thy choice.

    FLORIZEL
                        Come, come, he must not.
Mark our contract.

    POLIXENES
[Discovering himself]                Mark your divorce, young sir,
Whom son I dare not call; thou art too base
To be acknowledg’d— thou a sceptre’s heir,
That thus affects a sheep-hook! Thou, old traitor,
I am sorry that by hanging thee I can but
Shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece
Of excellent witchcraft, who of force must know
The royal fool thou cop’st with—

    SHEPHERD
                                        O, my heart!

    POLIXENES
I’ll have thy beauty scratch’d with briers and made
More homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy,
If I may ever know thou dost but sigh
That thou no more shalt see this knack— as never
I mean thou shalt— we’ll bar thee from succession;
Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,
Farre than Deucalion off. Mark thou my words.
Follow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time,
Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee
From the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment,
Worthy enough a herdsman— yea, him too
That makes himself, but for our honour therein,
Unworthy thee— if ever henceforth thou
These rural latches to his entrance open,
Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,
I will devise a death as cruel for thee
As thou art tender to’t.

    PERDITA
                        Even here undone!
I was not much afeard; for once or twice
I was about to speak and tell him plainly
The self-same sun that shines upon his court
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
Looks on alike. [To FLORIZEL] Will’t please you, sir, be gone?
I told you what would come of this. Beseech you,
Of your own state take care. This dream of mine—
Being now awake, I’ll queen it no inch farther,
But milk my ewes and weep.

    CAMILLO
                        Why, how now, father!
Speak ere thou diest.

    SHEPHERD
                I cannot speak nor think,
Nor dare to know that which I know.    [To FLORIZEL]    O sir,
You have undone a man of fourscore-three
That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,
To die upon the bed my father died,
To lie close by his honest bones; but now
Some hangman must put on my shroud and lay me
Where no priest shovels in dust.    [To PERDITA]    O cursed wretch,
That knew’st this was the Prince, and wouldst adventure
To mingle faith with him!— Undone, undone!
If I might die within this hour, I have liv’d
To die when I desire.

            FLORIZEL
                Why look you so upon me?
I am but sorry, not afeard; delay’d,
But nothing alt’red. What I was, I am:
More straining on for plucking back; not following
My leash unwillingly.

    CAMILLO
                        Gracious, my lord,
You know your father’s temper. At this time
He will allow no speech— which I do guess
You do not purpose to him— and as hardly
Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear;
Then, till the fury of his Highness settle,
Come not before him.

    FLORIZEL
                        I not purpose it.
I think Camillo?

    CAMILLO
                Even he, my lord.

    PERDITA
How often have I told you ’twould be thus!
How often said my dignity would last
But till ’twere known!

    FLORIZEL
                        It cannot fail but by
The violation of my faith; and then
Let nature crush the sides o’ th’ earth together
And mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks.
From my succession wipe me, father; I
Am heir to my affection.

    CAMILLO
                        Be advis’d.

    FLORIZEL
I am— and by my fancy; if my reason
Will thereto be obedient, I have reason;
If not, my senses, better pleas’d with madness,
Do bid it welcome.

    CAMILLO
                        This is desperate, sir.

    FLORIZEL
So call it; but it does fulfil my vow:
I needs must think it honesty. Camillo,
Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may
Be thereat glean’d, for all the sun sees or
The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hides
In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath
To this my fair belov’d. Therefore, I pray you,
As you have ever been my father’s honour’d friend,
When he shall miss me— as, in faith, I mean not
To see him any more— cast your good counsels
Upon his passion. Let myself and Fortune
Tug for the time to come. This you may know,
And so deliver: I am put to sea
With her who here I cannot hold on shore.
And most opportune to her need I have
A vessel rides fast by, but not prepar’d
For this design. What course I mean to hold
Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor
Concern me the reporting.

    CAMILLO
                                O my lord,
I would your spirit were easier for advice.
Or stronger for your need.

    FLORIZEL
                Hark, Perdita.        [Takes her aside]
[To CAMILLO] I’ll hear you by and by.

    CAMILLO
                        He’s irremovable,
Resolv’d for flight. Now were I happy if
His going I could frame to serve my turn,
Save him from danger, do him love and honour,
Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia
And that unhappy king, my master, whom
I so much thirst to see.

    FLORIZEL
                        Now, good Camillo,
I am so fraught with curious business that
I leave out ceremony.

    CAMILLO
                        Sir, I think
You have heard of my poor services i’ th’ love
That I have borne your father?

    FLORIZEL
                                        Very nobly
Have you deserv’d. It is my father’s music
To speak your deeds; not little of his care
To have them recompens’d as thought on.

    CAMILLO
                                        Well, my lord,
If you may please to think I love the King,
And through him what’s nearest to him, which is
Your gracious self, embrace but my direction.
If your more ponderous and settled project
May suffer alteration, on mine honour,
I’ll point you where you shall have such receiving
As shall become your Highness; where you may
Enjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see,
There’s no disjunction to be made but by,
As heavens forfend! your ruin— marry her;
And with my best endeavours in your absence
Your discontenting father strive to qualify,
And bring him up to liking.

    FLORIZEL
                                How, Camillo,
May this, almost a miracle, be done?
That I may call thee something more than man,
And after that trust to thee.

    CAMILLO
                                Have you thought on
A place whereto you’ll go?

    FLORIZEL
                                Not any yet;
But as th’ unthought-on accident is guilty
To what we wildly do, so we profess
Ourselves to be the slaves of chance and flies
Of every wind that blows.

    CAMILLO
                                Then list to me.
This follows, if you will not change your purpose
But undergo this flight: make for Sicilia,
And there present yourself and your fair princess—
For so, I see, she must be-fore Leontes.
She shall be habited as it becomes
The partner of your bed. Methinks I see
Leontes opening his free arms and weeping
His welcomes forth; asks thee there ‘Son, forgiveness!’
As ’twere i’ th’ father’s person; kisses the hands
Of your fresh princess; o’er and o’er divides him
̵

;Twixt his unkindness and his kindness— th’ one
He chides to hell, and bids the other grow
Faster than thought or time.

    FLORIZEL
                                Worthy Camillo,
What colour for my visitation shall I
Hold up before him?

    CAMILLO
                    Sent by the King your father
To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,
The manner of your bearing towards him, with
What you as from your father shall deliver,
Things known betwixt us three, I’ll write you down;
The which shall point you forth at every sitting
What you must say, that he shall not perceive
But that you have your father’s bosom there
And speak his very heart.

    FLORIZEL
                                I am bound to you.
There is some sap in this.

    CAMILLO
                        A course more promising
Than a wild dedication of yourselves
To unpath’d waters, undream’d shores, most certain
To miseries enough; no hope to help you,
But as you shake off one to take another;
Nothing so certain as your anchors, who
Do their best office if they can but stay you
Where you’ll be loath to be. Besides, you know
Prosperity’s the very bond of love,
Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together
Affliction alters.

    PERDITA
                One of these is true:
I think affliction may subdue the cheek,
But not take in the mind.

    CAMILLO
                        Yea, say you so?
There shall not at your father’s house these seven years
Be born another such.

    FLORIZEL
                    My good Camillo,
She is as forward of her breeding as
She is i’ th’ rear o’ our birth.

    CAMILLO
                        I cannot say ’tis pity
She lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress
To most that teach.

    PERDITA
                    Your pardon, sir; for this
I’ll blush you thanks.

    FLORIZEL
                        My prettiest Perdita!
But, O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo—
Preserver of my father, now of me;
The medicine of our house— how shall we do?
We are not furnish’d like Bohemia’s son;
Nor shall appear in Sicilia.

    CAMILLO
                            My lord,
Fear none of this. I think you know my fortunes
Do all lie there. It shall be so my care
To have you royally appointed as if
The scene you play were mine. For instance, sir,
That you may know you shall not want— one word.

    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
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 earnest, 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.

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.

    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.

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-vitæ 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.

    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.