Camillo, Florizel, and Perdita come forward

CAMILLO

Nay, but my letters by this means being there

So soon as you arrive shall clear that doubt.

FLORIZEL

And those that you’ll procure from King Leontes—

CAMILLO

Shall satisfy your father.

PERDITA

Happy be you!

All that you speak shows fair.

CAMILLO (seeing Autolycus) Who have we here?

We’ll make an instrument of this, omit Nothing may give us aid.

AUTOLYCUS (aside) If they have overheard me now—why, hanging!

CAMILLO How now, good fellow? Why shakest thou so? Fear not, man. Here’s no harm intended to thee.

AUTOLYCUS I am a poor fellow, sir.

CAMILLO Why, be so still. Here’s nobody will steal that from thee. Yet for the outside of thy poverty, we must make an exchange. Therefore discase thee instantty—thou must think there’s a necessity in’t-and change garments with this gentleman. Though the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee, (giving him money) there’s some boot.

AUTOLYCUS I am a poor fellow, sir. (Aside) I know ye well enough.

CAMILLO Nay prithee, dispatch—the gentleman is half flayed already.

AUTOLYCUS Are you in earnest, sir? (Aside) I smell the trick on’t.

FLORIZEL Dispatch, I prithee.

AUTOLYCUS Indeed, I have had earnest, but I cannot with conscience take it.

CAMILLO Unbuckle, unbuckle.

Florizel and Autolycus exchange clothes

(To Perdita) Fortunate mistress—let my prophecy

Come home to ye!—you must retire yourself

Into some covert, take your sweetheart’s hat

And pluck it o’er your brows, muffle your face,

Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken

The truth of your own seeming, that you may—

For I do fear eyes—over to shipboard

Get undescried.

PERDITA

I see the play so lies

That I must bear a part.

CAMILLO

No remedy.

(To Florizel) Have you done there?

FLORIZEL

Should I now meet my father

He would not call me son.

CAMILLO

Nay, you shall have no hat.

He gives the hat to Perdita

Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.

AUTOLYCUS Adieu, sir.

FLORIZEL

O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!

Pray you, a word.

They speak aside

CAMILLO (aside)

What I do next shall be to tell the King

Of this escape, and whither they are bound;

Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail

To force him after, in whose company

I shall re-view Sicilia, for whose sight

I have a woman’s longing.

FLORIZEL

Fortune speed us!

Thus we set on, Camillo, to th’ seaside.

CAMILLO The swifter speed the better.

Exeunt Florizel, Perdita, and Camillo

AUTOLYCUS I understand the business, I hear it. To have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand is necessary for a cutpurse. A good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for th’other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth thrive. What an exchange had this been without boot! What a boot is here with this exchange! Sure the gods do this year connive at us, and we may do anything extempore. The Prince himself is about a piece of iniquity, stealing away from his father with his clog at his heels. If I thought it were a piece of honesty to acquaint the King withal, I would not do’t. I hold it the more knavery to conceal it, and therein am I constant to my profession.

Enter the Clown and the Old Shepherd, carrying a fardel and a box

Aside, aside! Here is more matter for a hot brain. Every lane’s end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man work.

CLOWN See, see, what a man you are now! There is no other way but to tell the King she’s a changeling, and none of your flesh and blood.

OLD SHEPHERD Nay, but hear me.

CLOWN Nay, but hear me.

OLD SHEPHERD Go to, then.

CLOWN She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the King, and so your flesh and blood is not to be punished by him. Show those things you found about her, those secret things, all but what she has with her. This being done, let the law go whistle, I warrant you.

OLD SHEPHERD I will tell the King all, every word, yea, and his son’s pranks, too, who, I may say, is no honest man, neither to his father nor to me, to go about to make me the King’s brother-in-law.

CLOWN Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have been to him, and then your blood had been the dearer by I know not how much an ounce. AUTOLYCUS (aside) Very wisely, puppies.

OLD SHEPHERD Well, let us to the King. There is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard.

AUTOLYCUS (aside) I know not what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master.

CLOWN Pray heartily he be at’ palace.

AUTOLYCUS (aside) Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance. Let me pocket up my pedlar’s excrement.

He removes his false beard

—How now, rustics, whither are you bound?

OLD SHEPHERD To th’ palace, an it like your worship.

AUTOLYCUS Your affairs there? What? With whom? The condition of that fardel? The place of your dwelling? Your names? Your ages? Of what having, breeding, and anything that is fitting to be known, discover.

CLOWN We are but plain fellows, sir.

AUTOLYCUS A lie, you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying. It becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie, but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel, therefore they do not give us the lie.

CLOWN Your worship had like to have given us one if you had not taken yourself with the manner.

OLD SHEPHERD Are you a courtier, an’t like you, sir?

AUTOLYCUS Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings? Hath not my gait in it the measure of the court? Receives not thy nose court-odour from me? Reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Thinkest thou, for that I insinuate to toze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-à-pie, and one that will either push on or pluck back thy business there. Whereupon I command thee to open thy affair.

OLD SHEPHERD My business, sir, is to the King.

AUTOLYCUS What advocate hast thou to him?

OLD SHEPHERD I know not, an’t like you.

CLOWN (aside to the Old Shepherd) ’Advocate’ ’s the court word for a pheasant. Say you have none.

OLD SHEPHERD

None, sir. I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.

AUTOLYCUS (aside)

How blessed are we that are not simple men!

Yet nature might have made me as these are,

Therefore I will not disdain.

CLOWN This cannot be but a great courtier.

OLD SHEPHERD His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.

CLOWN He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical. A great man, I’ll warrant. I know by the picking on’s teeth.

AUTOLYCUS The fardel there, what’s i’th’ fardel? Wherefore that box?

OLD SHEPHERD Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box which none must know but the King, and which he shall know within this hour, if I may come to th’ speech of him.

AUTOLYCUS Age, thou hast lost thy labour. OLD SHEPHERD Why, sir?