If ever you have spent time worse ere now;
If never yet, that Time himself doth say,
He wishes earnestly you never may.

[Exit.

SCENE I. The same. A Room in the Palace of Polixenes.

Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO.

Pol. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate. 'Tis a sickness, denying thee any thing; a death, to grant

this.

Cam. It is fifteen years since I saw my country: though I have, for the most part, been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to think so; which is another spur to my departure.

Pol. As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy services, by leaving me now. The need I have of thee, thine own goodness hath made; better not to have had thee, than thus to want thee. Thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I have not enough considered, (as too much I cannot,) to be more thankful to thee, shall be my study; and my profit therein, the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country, Sicilia, pr'ythee speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou call'st him, and reconciled king, my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children, are even now to be fresh lamented. Say to me, when saw'st thou the prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them, when they have approved their virtues.

Cam. Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I have missingly noted, he is of late much retired from court; and is less frequent to his princely exercises, than formerly he hath appeared.

Pol. I have considered so much, Camillo; and with some care; so far, that I have eyes under my service, which look upon this removedness, from whom I have this intelligence; that he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the

imagination of his neighbors, is grown into an unspeakable

estate.

Cam. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note; the report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage.

Pol. That's likewise part of my intelligence. But I fear the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not appearing what we are, have some question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Pr'ythee, be my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

Cam. I willingly obey your command.

Pol. My best Camillo!-We must disguise ourselves.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same. A Road near the Shepherd's

Cottage.

Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.

When daffodils begin to peer,

With heigh! the doxy over the dale,

Why, then comes in the sweet o'the year;

For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,

With, hey! the sweet birds, O how they sing!

Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;

For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,

With, hey! with, hey! the thrush and the jay,Are summer songs for my aunts,

While we lie tumbling in the hay.

I have served prince Florizel, and, in my time, wore threepile; but now I am out of service.

But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?

The pale moon shines by night;

And when I wander here and there,

I then do most go right.

If tinkers may have leave to live,

And bear the sow-skin budget;
Then my account I well may give,

And in the stocks avouch it.

My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who, being, as I

am, littered under Mercury, was like-wise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With dye, and drab, I purchased this caparison; and my revenue is the silly cheat. Gallows, and knock, are too powerful on the highway; beating, and hanging, are terrors to me; for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it.-A prize! A prize!

Enter Clown.

Clo. Let me see; - Every 'leven wether-tods; every tod yields-pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?

-

Three pound what will this hath made her She hath made

Aut. If the springe hold, the cock's mine. [Aside. Clo. I cannot do't without counters.-Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? of sugar; five pound of currants; rice — sister of mine do with rice? But my father mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers; three-man songmen all, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases: but one Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron, to color the warden pics; mace,—dates,-none; that's out of my note; nutmegs, seven; a race, or two, of ginger; but that I may beg;-four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o'the sun.

Aut. O that ever I was born!

Clo. I'the name of me,

[Grovelling on the ground.

Aut. O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death!

Clo. Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off.

Aut. O, sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more than the stripes I have received; which are mighty ones and millions.

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

Aut. I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon me. Clo. What, by a horse-man, or a foot-man?

Aut. A foot-man, sweet sir, a foot-man.

Clo. Indeed, he should be a foot-man, by the garments he hath left with thee; if this be a horse-man's coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand; I'll help thee! come, lend me thy hand.

Aut. O, good sir, tenderly, oh!

[Helping him

up.

Clo. Alas, poor soul!

Aut. O, good sir, softly, good sir.

shoulder-blade is out.

Clo. How now? canst stand?

I fear, sir, my

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

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

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

Clo. What manner of fellow was he that robbed you.

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

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

Aut. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a motion of the prodigal son, and married a tinker's wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue. Some call him Autolycus. Clo. Out upon him! Prig, for my life, prig: he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings.

Aut. Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that put me into this apparel.

Clo. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but looked big, and spit at him, he'd have run.

Aut. I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter. I am false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant him. Clo. How do you now?

Aut. Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand, and walk. I will even take my leave of you, and pace softly towards my kinsman's.

Clo. Shall I bring thee on the way?

Aut. No, good-faced sir! no, sweet sir.

Clo. Then fare thee well; I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing.

Aut. Prosper you, sweet sir!-[Exit Clown.] Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat VOL. II.-8

K *

bring out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue!

Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
And merrily heat the stile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.

[Exit.

SCENE III. The same. A Shepherd's Cottage.

Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA.

Flo. These your unusual weeds to each part of you
Do give a life; no shepherdess, but Flora,

Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing
Is as a meeting of the petty gods,

And you the queen on't.

Per.

Sir, my gracious lord,
To chide at your extremes, it not becomes me;
O, pardon, that I name them. Your high self,
The gracious mark o'the land, you have obscured
With a swain's wearing; and me, poor, lowly maid,
Most goddess-like pranked up. But that our feasts
In every mess have folly, and the feeders
Digest it with a custom, I should blush
To see you so attired; sworn, I think,
To show myself a glass.

Flo.

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

Per.
Now Jove afford you cause!
To me, the difference forges dread; your greatness
Hath not been used 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?

Flo.
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 bellowed; the green Neptune
A ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god,
Golden Apollo, a poor, humble swain,