So filled and so becoming. In pure white robes

Like very sanctity she did approach

My cabin where I lay, thrice bowed before me,

And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes

Became two spouts. The fury spent, anon

Did this break from her: ‘Good Antigonus,

Since fate, against thy better disposition,

Hath made thy person for the thrower-out

Of my poor babe according to thine oath,

Places remote enough are in Bohemia.

There weep, and leave it crying; and for the babe

Is counted lost for ever, Perdita

I prithee call’t. For this ungentle business

Put on thee by my lord, thou ne’er shalt see

Thy wife Paulina more.’ And so with shrieks

She melted into air. Affrighted much,

I did in time collect myself, and thought

This was so, and no slumber. Dreams are toys,

Yet for this once, yea superstitiously,

I will be squared by this. I do believe

Hermione hath suffered death, and that

Apollo would—this being indeed the issue

Of King Polixenes—it should here be laid,

Either for life or death, upon the earth

Of its right father. Blossom, speed thee well!

He lays down the babe and a scroll

There lie, and there thy character.

He lays down a box

There these,

Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,

And still rest thine.

⌈Thunder⌉

The storm begins. Poor wretch,

That for thy mother’s fault art thus exposed

To loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot,

But my heart bleeds, and most accursed am I

To be by oath enjoined 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!

Exit, pursued by a bear

Enter an Old Shepherd

OLD SHEPHERD I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, 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 seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an’t be thy will!

He sees the babe

What have we here? Mercy on‘s, a bairn! A very pretty bairn. 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 hallooed but even now. Whoa-ho-hoa!

Enter Clown

CLOWN Hilloa, loa!

OLD SHEPHERD What, art so near? If thou‘lt see a thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ail’st 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.

OLD SHEPHERD Why, boy, how is it?

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 mainmast, and anon swallowed with yeast 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.

OLD SHEPHERD Name of mercy, when was this, boy?

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.

OLD SHEPHERD Would I had been by to have helped the old man!

CLOWN I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her. There your charity would have lacked footing.

OLD SHEPHERD Heavy matters, heavy matters. But look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself. Thou metst with things dying, I with things new-born. Here’s a sight for thee. Look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire’s child.

He points to the box

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 (opening the box) You’re a made old man. If the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you’re well to live. Gold, all gold!

OLD SHEPHERD 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 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.

OLD SHEPHERD That’s a good deed. If thou mayst discern by that which is left of him what he is, fetch me to th’ sight of him.

CLOWN Marry will I; and you shall help to put him i’th’ ground.

OLD SHEPHERD ’Tis a lucky day, boy, and we’ll do good deeds on’t.

Exeunt

4.1 Enter Time, the Chorus

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