Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see I did in time collect myself; and thought [Laying down the Child. There lie; and there thy character:* there these; [Laying down a bundle. Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty, To loss, and what may follow!-Weep I cannot, The day frowns more and more; thou art like to have The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour ?— I am gone for ever. [Exit, pursued by a Bear. Enter an old SHEPHERD. Shep. I would, there were no age between ten and three-andtwenty; or that youth would sleep out the rest: for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, 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 anywhere I have them, 'tis by the sea side, browzing on ivy. Good luck, an't be thy will! what have we here? [Taking up the Child.] 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. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door-work: they were warmer that got this, than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he halloed but even now. Whoa, ho hoa! Clo. Hiloa, loa! Enter CLOWN. Shep. 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 ? * Description, † Child. + Female infant. Clo. 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. Shep. Why, boy, how is it? Clo. I would, you did but see how it chases, 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 shoulder-bone; 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. Shep. 'Name of mercy, when was this, boy? Clo. 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. Shep. Would I had been by, to have helped the old man! Clo. I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her; there your charity would have lacked footing. [Aside. Shep. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself; thou met'st with things dying, I with things new born. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing-clotht 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? 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 it, keep it close; home, home, the next§ way. We are lucky, boy; and to be so still, requires nothing but secresy.-Let my sheep 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 may'st 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 i' the ground. Shep. "Tis a lucky day, boy; and we'll do good deeds on't. [Exeunt. Swallowed. + The mantle in which a child is carried to be baptized. + Some child left behind by fairies, in the room of one they have stolen. § Nearest. Mischievous. ACT IV. Enter TIME, as Chorus. Time. I,-that please some, try all; both joy, and terror, Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing, I turn my glass; and give my scene such growing, In fair Bohemia; and remember well, Be known, when 'tis brought forth :-a shepherd's daughter, Is the argument of time: Of this allow,§ If ever you have spent time worse ere now; [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 anything; 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 * Progress unexamined. § Approve. + Imagine for me. Think too highly. 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 afresh lamented. Say to me, when saw'st thou the prince Florizel my son ? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not been 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 notedt 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 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 angel 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. * Friendly offices. † Observed at intervals. + Talk. I. e. the spring blood reigns over the parts lately under the dominion of winter. Thievish. The lark, tirra-lirra chants, With, hey! with, hey! the thrush and the jay : While we lie tumbling in the hay. I have served prince Florizel, and, in my time, wore three-pile;† 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, If tinkers may have leave to live, 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 likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles: With die, and drabt 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 ? 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? Three pound of sugar; five pound of currants; rice-What will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers: three-man-song menT 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 colour the wardent pies; 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! [Grovelling on the ground. Clo. I' the name of me, 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. *Pale or loose women. + By gambling and women. † Best velvet. || (Yields.) †† Pear. |