bearing-cloth for a squire's child! look thee
here ;
take up, take up, boy; open 't. So, 120
let's see it was told me I should be rich by
the fairies. This is some changeling: open't.
What's within, boy?
Clo. You're a made old man: if the sins of your
youth are forgiven you, you're well to live.
Gold! all gold!
Shep. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so:
up with 't, keep it close: home, home, the next
way. We are lucky, boy; and to be so still
requires nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep 130
go: come, good boy, the next way home.
Clo. Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman and how much he hath eaten: they are never curst but when they are hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury it.
Shep. That's a good deed. If thou mayest discern
by that which is left of him what he is, fetch
me to the sight of him.
Clo. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him 140
Shep. 'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good
Time. I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror
Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
To me or my swift passage, that I slide
O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap, since it is in my power
To o'erthrow law and in one self-born hour
To plant and o'erwhelm custom.
Let me pass
The same I am, ere ancient'st order was
Or what is now received: I witness to
The times that brought them in; so shall I do
To the freshest things now reigning, and make stale
The glistering of this present, as my tale
Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,
I turn my glass and give my scene such growing
As you had slept between: Leontes leaving,
The effects of his fond jealousies so grieving
That he shuts up himself, imagine me,
Gentle spectators, that I now may be
In fair Bohemia; and remember well,
I mentioned a son o' the king's, which Florizel
I now name to you; and with speed so pace
To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace
Equal with wondering: what of her ensues
I list not prophesy; but let Time's news
Be known when 'tis brought forth. A shepherd's
daughter,
And what to her adheres, which follows after,
Is the argument of Time. Of this allow,
If ever you have spent time worse ere now;
If never, yet that Time himself doth say
He wishes earnestly you never may.
Bohemia. The palace of Polixenes.
Enter Polixenes and Camillo.
Pol. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more impor-
tunate: '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,
prithee speak no more; whose very naming
punishes me with the remembrance of that peni-
tent, as thou callest him, and reconciled king,
my brother; whose loss of his most precious
queen and children are even now to be afresh
lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the
Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less
unhappy, their issue not being gracious, than 30 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 40
service which look upon his 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 neighbours, 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
|