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CAMILLO 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.
POLIXENES That’s likewise part of my intelligence: but,
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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. Prithee, be
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my present partner in this business, and lay aside the
thoughts of Sicilia.
CAMILLO I willingly obey your command.
POLIXENES My best Camillo! We must disguise
ourselves. Exeunt.
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4.3 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,
5
With hey! the sweet birds, O how they sing!
Doth set my pugging tooth an edge;
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.
The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,
With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,
10
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
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?
15
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,
20
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 likewise a
25
snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die 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
30
prize! a prize!
Enter Clown.
CLOWN Let me see: every ’leven wether tods; every tod
yields pound and odd shilling: fifteen hundred
shorn, what comes the wool to?
AUTOLYCUS [aside] If the springe hold, the cock’s mine.
35
CLOWN 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.
40
She hath made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the
shearers, three-man song-men all, and very good ones;
but they are most of them means and basses but one
puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to horn-
pipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden pies;
45
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’th’
sun.
AUTOLYCUS O that ever I was born!
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[grovelling on the ground]
CLOWN I’th’ name of me!
AUTOLYCUS O, help me, help me! pluck but off these
rags; and then, death, death!
CLOWN Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to
lay on thee, rather than have these off.
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AUTOLYCUS O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends
me more than the stripes I have received, which are
mighty ones and millions.
CLOWN Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come
to a great matter.
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AUTOLYCUS I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money
and apparel ta’en from me, and these detestable things
put upon me.
CLOWN What, by a horseman, or a footman?
AUTOLYCUS A footman, sweet sir, a footman.
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CLOWN Indeed, he should be a footman by the
garments he has left with thee: if this be a horseman’s
coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand,
I’ll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.
AUTOLYCUS O, good sir, tenderly, O!
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CLOWN Alas, poor soul!
AUTOLYCUS O, good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my
shoulder-blade is out.
CLOWN How now? canst stand?
AUTOLYCUS Softly, dear sir [Picks his pocket.]; good sir,
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softly. You ha’ done me a charitable office.
CLOWN Dost lack any money? I have a little money for
thee.
AUTOLYCUS No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I
have a kinsman not past three-quarters of a mile
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hence, unto whom I was going: I shall there have
money, or anything I want: offer me no money, I pray
you; that kills my heart.
CLOWN What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?
AUTOLYCUS A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about
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with troll-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.
CLOWN His vices, you would say; there’s no virtue
whipped out of the court: they cherish it to make it
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stay there; and yet it will no more but abide.
AUTOLYCUS 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
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mile where my land and living lies; and, having flown
over many knavish professions, he settled only in
rogue. Some call him Autolycus.
CLOWN Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts
wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings.
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AUTOLYCUS Very true, sir; he, sir, he: that’s the rogue
that put me into this apparel.
CLOWN Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia: if
you had but looked big and spit at him, he’d have run.
AUTOLYCUS I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter:
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I am false of heart that way; and that he knew, I
warrant him.
CLOWN How do you now?
AUTOLYCUS Sweet sir, much better than I was: I can
stand, and walk: I will even take my leave of you, and
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pace softly towards my kinsman’s.
CLOWN Shall I bring thee on the way?
AUTOLYCUS No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir.
CLOWN Then fare-thee-well: I must go buy spices for
our sheep-shearing. Exit.
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AUTOLYCUS Prosper you, sweet sir! Your purse is not
&
nbsp; hot enough to purchase your spice. I’ll be with you at
your sheep-shearing too: if I make not this cheat bring
out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be
unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue!
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Song.
Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a. Exit.
4.4 Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA followed, at a little distance, by Shepherd, Clown; POLIXENES, CAMILLO, disguised; MOPSA, DORCAS, servants, shepherds and shepherdesses.
FLORIZEL
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.
PERDITA Sir: my gracious lord,
5
To chide at your extremes, it not becomes me –
O pardon, that I name them! Your high self,
The gracious mark o’th’ land, you have obscur’d
With a swain’s wearing, and me, poor lowly maid,
Most goddess-like prank’d up: but that our feasts
10
In every mess have folly, and the feeders
Digest it with a custom, I should blush
To see you so attir’d; swoon, I think,
To show myself a glass.
FLORIZEL I bless the time
When my good falcon made her flight across
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Thy father’s ground.
PERDITA Now Jove afford you cause!
To me the difference forges dread (your greatness
Hath not been us’d to fear): even now I tremble
To think your father, by some accident
Should pass this way, as you did: O the Fates!
20
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?
FLORIZEL Apprehend
Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,
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Humbling their deities to love, have taken
The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter
Became a bull, and bellow’d; the green Neptune
A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob’d god,
Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,
30
As I seem now. Their transformations
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,
Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires
Run not before mine honour, nor my lusts
Burn hotter than my faith.
PERDITA O, but sir,
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Your resolution cannot hold when ’tis
Oppos’d, as it must be, by th’ power of the king:
One of these two must be necessities,
Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose,
Or I my life.
FLORIZEL Thou dearest Perdita,
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With these forc’d thoughts, I prithee, darken not
The mirth o’th’ feast. Or I’ll be thine, my fair,
Or not my father’s. For I cannot be
Mine own, nor anything to any, if
I be not thine. To this I am most constant,
45
Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle,
Strangle such thoughts as these with anything
That you behold the while. Your guests are coming:
Lift up your countenance, as it were the day
Of celebration of that nuptial which
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We two have sworn shall come.
PERDITA O lady Fortune,
Stand you auspicious!
[Shepherd, Clown, Mopsa, Dorcas and others come
forward, with the disguised Polixenes and Camillo.]
FLORIZEL See, your guests approach:
Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,
And let’s be red with mirth.
SHEPHERD
Fie, daughter! when my old wife liv’d, upon
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This day she was both pantler, butler, cook,
Both dame and servant; welcom’d all, serv’d all;
Would sing her song and dance her turn; now here
At upper end o’th’ table, now i’th’ middle;
On his shoulder, and his; her face o’fire
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With labour, and the thing she took to quench it
She would to each one sip. You are retired,
As if you were a feasted one, and not
The hostess of the meeting: pray you, bid
These unknown friends to’s welcome; for it is
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A way to make us better friends, more known.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 569
