AUTOLYCUS This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one. MOPSA Let’s have some merry ones.
AUTOLYCUS Why, this is a passing merry one, and goes to the tune of ‘Two Maids Wooing a Man’. There’s scarce a maid westward but she sings it. ’Tis in request, I can tell you.
MOPSA We can both sing it. If thou‘lt bear a part thou shalt hear; ’tis in three parts.
DORCAS We had the tune on’t a month ago.
AUTOLYCUS I can bear my part, you must know, ’tis my occupation. Have at it with you.
![William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition _143.jpg](https://litlife.club/books/248589/read/images/_143.jpg)
CLOWN We’ll have this song out anon by ourselves. My father and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we’ll not trouble them. Come, bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I’ll buy for you both. Pedlar, let’s have the first choice. Follow me, girls.
Exit with Dorcas and Mopsa
AUTOLYCUS And you shall pay well for ’em.
![William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition _144.jpg](https://litlife.club/books/248589/read/images/_144.jpg)
Enter Servant
SERVANT Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neatherds, three swineherds that have made themselves all men of hair. They call themselves saultiers, and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in’t. But they themselves are o’th’ mind, if it be not too rough for some that know little but bowling, it will please plentifully.
OLD SHEPHERD Away. We’ll none on’t. Here has been too much homely foolery already. (To Polixenes) I know, sir, we weary you.
POLIXENES You weary those that refresh us. Pray, let’s see these four threes of herdsmen.
SERVANT One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the King, and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by th’ square.
OLD SHEPHERD Leave your prating. Since these good men are pleased, let them come in—but quickly, now.
SERVANT Why, they stay at door, sir.
Here a dance of twelve satyrs
POLIXENES (to the Old Shepherd)
O, father, you’ll know more of that hereafter.
(To Camillo) Is it not too far gone? ’Tis time to part
them.
He’s simple, and tells much.
(To Florizel) How now, fair shepherd,
Your heart is full of something that does take
Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young
And handed love as you do, I was wont
To load my she with knacks. I would have ransacked
The pedlar’s silken treasury, and have poured it
To her acceptance. You have let him go,
And nothing marted with him. If your lass
Interpretation should abuse, and call this
Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited
For a reply, at least if you make a care
Of happy holding her.
FLORIZEL
Old sir, I know
She prizes not such trifles as these are.
The gifts she looks from me are packed and locked
Up in my heart, which I have given already,
But not delivered.
(To Perdita) O, hear me breathe my life
Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem,
Hath sometime loved. I take thy hand, this hand
As soft as dove’s down, and as white as it,
Or Ethiopian’s tooth, or the fanned snow that’s bolted
By th’ northern blasts twice o’er.
POLIXENES
What follows this?
How prettily the young swain seems to wash
The hand was fair before! I have put you out.
But to your protestation. Let me hear
What you profess.
FLORIZEL
Do, and be witness to’t.
POLIXENES
And this my neighbour too?
FLORIZEL
And he, and more
Than he; and men, the earth, the heavens, and all,
That were I crowned the most imperial monarch,
Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth
That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge
More than was ever man’s, I would not prize them
Without her love; for her employ them all,
Commend them and condemn them to her service
Or to their own perdition.
POLIXENES
Fairly offered.
CAMILLO
This shows a sound affection.
OLD SHEPHERD
But, my daughter,
Say you the like to him?
PERDITA
I cannot speak
So well, nothing so well, no, nor mean better.
By th’ pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out
The purity of his.
OLD SHEPHERD
Take hands, a bargain;
And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to’t.
I give my daughter to him, and will make
Her portion equal his.
FLORIZEL
O, that must be
I’th’ virtue of your daughter. One being dead,
I shall have more than you can dream of yet,
Enough then for your wonder. But come on,
Contract us fore these witnesses.
OLD SHEPHERD
Come, your hand;
And, daughter, yours.
POLIXENES
Soft, swain, a while, beseech you.
Have you a father?
FLORIZEL I have. But what of him?
POLIXENES Knows he of this?
FLORIZEL He neither does nor shall.
POLIXENES Methinks a father
Is at the nuptial of his son a guest
That best becomes the table. Pray you once more,
Is not your father grown incapable
Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid
With age and alt’ring rheums? Can he speak, hear,
Know man from man? Dispute his own estate?
Lies he not bed-rid, and again does nothing
But what he did being childish?
FLORIZEL
No, good sir.
He has his health, and ampler strength indeed
Than most have of his age.
POLIXENES
By my white beard,
You offer him, if this be so, a wrong
Something unfilial. Reason my son
Should choose himself a wife, but as good reason
The father, all whose joy is nothing else
But fair posterity, should hold some counsel
In such a business.
FLORIZEL
I yield all this;
But for some other reasons, my grave sir,