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 th’ 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

Th‘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’th’ King‘s, which Florizel

I now name to you; and with speed so pace

To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace

Equal with wond’ring. 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 th’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.

Exit

4.2 Enter Polixenes and Camillo

POLIXENES I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate. ’Tis a sickness denying thee anything, a death to grant this.

CAMILLO It is sixteen 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.

POLIXENES As thou lov’st 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 penitent—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 they are in losing them when they have approved their virtues.

CAMILLO 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.

POLIXENES 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.

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, 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 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

4.3 Enter Autolycus singing

AUTOLYCUS

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 heigh, 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.

The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,

With heigh, with heigh, the thrush and the jay,

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?

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,

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 snapperup 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 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.

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. 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 hornpipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden 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’th’ sun.

AUTOLYCUS (grovelling on the ground) O, that ever I was born!

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.