'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such

gazes

Than what you look on now.

Leon. I thought of her,

Even in these looks I made.-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.
[Trumpets sound.-Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A Square before the Palace.

Enter PHOCION and DION.

Dion. 'Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?

Pho. I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it whereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber: Only this, methought, I heard the shepherd say, he found the child.

Dion. I would most gladly know the issue of it.

Pho. I make a broken delivery of the business :But the changes I perceived in the king, and Camillo, were very notes of admiration: there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture:

Enter THASIUS.

Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more:The news?

Tha. Nothing but bonfires: The oracle is fulfilled; the king's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is broken out within this hour, that balladmakers cannot be able to express it!

Enter CLEOMENES.

Pho. How goes it now, sir? This news, which is called true, is so like an old tale, that the verity of it is in strong suspicion: Has the king found his heir?

Cleo. Most true; if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance: The mantle of Queen Hermione ;her jewel about the neck of it;-the letters of Antigonus, found with it; the majesty of the creature, in resemblance of the mother; and many other evidences, proclaim her, with all certainty, to be the king's daughter. Did you see the meeting of the two kings?

Dion. No.

Cleo. Then have you lost a sight, which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another; there was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands; with countenance of such distraction, that they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries, " O, thy mother, thy mother!"-then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his daughter, with clipping her: now he thanks the old shepherd, who stands by, like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings' reigns :-I never

heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it, and undoes description to do it.

Pho. What, 'pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child?

Cleo. Like an old tale still; which will have matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep, and not an ear open: He was torn to pieces with a bear: this avouches the shepherd's son; who has not only his innocence (which seems much) to justify him, but a handkerchief, and rings of his, that Paulina knows.

Tha. What became of his bark, and his followers? Cleo. Wrecked, the same instant of their master's death; and in the view of the shepherd: so 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 sorrow, was fought in Paulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband; another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled: She lifted the princess 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.

Pho. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted.

Cleo. One of the prettiest touches of all was, when at the relation of the queen's death, with the manner how she came to it, (bravely confessed, and lamented by the king,) how attentiveness wounded his daughter: till, from one sign of dolour to another, she did, with an alas! I would fain say, bleed tears: for, I am sure, my heart wept blood.

Dion. Are they returned to the court?

Cleo. No: the princess hearing of her mother's statue, which is in the keeping of Paulina,-a piece many years in doing, and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano,-thither with all greediness of affection are they gone.

Pho. She hath privately, twice or thrice a-day,

ever since the death of Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall we thither, and with our company piece the rejoicing?

Cleo. Who would be thence, that has the benefit of access? Every wink of an eye, some new grace will be born: our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along. [Exeunt.

Enter AUTOLYCUS.

Aut. Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man and his son aboard the prince; told him, I heard them talk of a fardel, and I know not what: but he at that time, over-fond of the shepherd's daughter (so he then took her to be), would not make the leisure to hear me, and this mystery remained undiscovered.-Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.

Enter SHEPHERD and CLOWN.

Shep. Come, boy, I am past more children; but thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born.

Clown. You are well met, sir: You denied to fight with me the other day, because I was no gentleman born: See you these clothes? Say, you see them not, and think me still no gentleman born: You were best say, these robes are not gentlemen born. Give me the lie; do; and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.

Aut. I know, you are now, sir, a gentleman born. Clown. Ay, and have been so any time these four hours.

Shep. And so have I, boy.

Clown. So you have:-but I was a gentleman born before my father; for the king's son took me by the hand, and called me, brother; and then the two kings called my father, brother; and then the

prince, my brother-and the princess, my sistercalled my father, father; and so we wept :-and there was the first gentlemanlike tears that ever we shed. Shep. We may live, son, to shed many more.

Clown. Ay; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so preposterous estate as we are.

Aut. I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I have committed to your worship, and to give me your good report to the prince, my master. Shep. 'Pr'ythee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are gentlemen.

Clown. Thou wilt amend thy life?

Aut. Ay, an it like your good worship.

Clown. Give me thy hand :-Hast nothing in it?— Am I not a courtier?-I must be gently considered: -Seest thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings?-Hath not my gait in it the measure of the

court?

Aut. Here is what gold I have, sir.

Clown. Well, I will swear to the prince, thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.

Shep. You may say it, but not swear it.

Clown. Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins say it, I'll swear it.

Shep. How, if it be false, son?

Clown. If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it, in the behalf of his friend:-And I'll swear to the prince, thou art a tall fellow of thy hands, and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands, and that thou wilt be drunk; but I'll swear it.

[Trumpets sound.]

Hark! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are going to see the queen's picture. Come, follow us: we'll be thy good masters.

Aut. O, sweet sir!-I have brib'd him with his own money! [Exeunt.