Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid,
Either for life or death, upon the earth

Of its right father.-Blossom, speed thee well!
There lie, and there thy character: there these;
Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,
And still rest thine.-The storm begins.-Poor wretch,
That for thy mother's fault art thus expos'd

To loss and what may follow!-Weep I cannot,
But my heart bleeds; and most accurs'd am I

To be by oath enjoin'd to this.-Farewell!

The day frowns more and more; thou 'rt like to have
A lullaby too rough: I never saw

The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour!-
Well may I get aboard!-This is the chase;
I am gone for ever.

50

[Exit, pursued by a bear.

Enter a Shepherd.

Shepherd. I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting-Hark you now! Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the master; if any where I have them, 't is by the seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an 't be thy will! what have we here? Mercy on 's, a barne; a very pretty barne! A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one; a very pretty one. Sure, some scape; though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. I'll take it

up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he hallooed but even now. Whoa, họ, hoạ!

73

Enter Clown.

Clown. Hilloa, loa!

Shepherd. What, art so near? If thou 'lt see a thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither.

What

ailest thou, man?

Clown. I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land! but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the firmament and it you cannot thrust a bodkin's point. Shepherd. Why, boy, how is it?

81

Clown. I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up the shore! but that 's not to the point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em; now the ship boring the moon with her main-mast, and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land-service, to see how the bear tore out his shoulderbone; how he cried to me for help and said his name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an end of the ship, to see how the sea flap-dragoned it: but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them; and how the poor gentleman roared and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than the sea or weather.

Shepherd. Name of mercy, when was this, boy?

94

Clown. Now, now; I have not winked since I saw these sights the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman; he's at it now.

Shepherd. Would I had been by, to have helped the old

man!

100

Clown. I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her; there your charity would have lacked footing) Shepherd. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself; thou mettest with things dying, I with things new-born. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's child! look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open 't. So, let's see; it was told me I should be rich by the fairies. This is some changeling; open 't. What's within, boy?

Clown. You're a made old man; if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you 're well to live. Gold! all gold!

III

Shepherd. This is fairy gold, boy, and 't will 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 go; come, good boy, the next way home.

Clown. 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.

Shepherd. 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.

122

Clown. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground.

Shepherd. "T is a lucky day, boy, and we 'll do good deeds

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.

4

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 receiv'd: 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 mention'd 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 't is 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.

30

[Exit.