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Cam. The swifter speed, the better.

[Exeunt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO. Aut. I understand the business, I hear it: To have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cut-purse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for the 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 any thing 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 not a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal, I would do't I hold it the more knavery to conceal it and therein am I constant to my profession.

Enter Clown and Shepherd.

Think'st thou, for that I insinuate, or toze from
thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am
courtier cap-a-pè; and one that will either push on,
or pluck back thy business there: whereupon I
command thee to open thy affair.

Shep. My business, sir, is to the king.
Aut. What advocate hast thou to him?
Shep. I know not, an't like you.

Clo. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say, you have none.

Shep. None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock, nor hen.
Aut. How bless'd are we, that are not simple
men!

Yet nature might have made me as these are,
Therefore I'll not disdain.

Clo. This cannot be but a great courtier.

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

Aside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain : Clo. He seems to be the more noble in being fanEvery lane's end, every shop, church, session, hang-tastical: a great man, I'll warrant; I know, by the ing, yields a careful man work.

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Shep. 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.

Clo. Indeed, brother-in-law was the furthest off you could have been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer, by I know how much an ounce. Aut. Very wisely; puppies! [Aside. Shep. Well; let us to the king; there is that in this fardel, will make him scratch his beard. Aut. I know not what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master.

picking on's teeth.

Aut. The fardel there? what's i'the fardel?
Wherefore that box?

Shep. 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 the speech of him.

Aut. Age, thou hast lost thy labour.
Shep. Why, sir?

Aut. The king is not at the palace: he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy, and air himself: For, if thou be'st capable of things serious, thou must know, the king is full of grief.

Shep. So 'tis said, sir; about his son, that should have married a shepherd's daughter.

Ant. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly; the curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster.

Clo. Think you so, sir?

Aut. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy, and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though removed fifty times, shall all come under the hangman: which though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace! Some say, he shall be stoned; Aut. Though I am not naturally honest, I am so but that death is too soft for him, say I: Draw our sometimes by chance :-Let me pocket up my ped-throne into a sheep-cote! all deaths are too few, ler's excrement. [Takes off his false beard.] How the sharpest too easy. rusticks? whether are you bound?

Clo. 'Pray heartily he be at palace.

now,

Shep. To the palace, an it like your worship. Aut. 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 any thing that is fitting to be known, discover. Clo. We are but plain fellows, sir.

.

Aut. 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; there fore they do not give us the lie.

Clo. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the manner. Shep. Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir? Aut. Whether it like me, or no, I am a courtier. See'st 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?

Clo. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an't like you, sir?

Aut. He has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then, 'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest; then stand, till he be three-quarters and a dram dead: then recovered again with aqua-vitæ, or some other hot infusion: then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set against a brick wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him; where he is to behold him with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at, their offences being so capital? Tell me, (for you seem to be honest plain men,) what you have to the king: being something gently considered, I'll bring you where he is aboard, tender your persons to his presence, whisper him in your behalfs; and, if it be in man, besides the king, to effect your suits, here is man shall do it.

Clo. He seems to be of great authority close

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with him, give him gold; and though authority be | a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold: show the inside of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado: Remember, stoned and flayed alive.

Sep. An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for us, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much more; and leave this young man in pawn, till I bring it you.

Aut. After I have done what I promised?
Step. Ay, sir.

Aut. Well, give me the moiety:- Are you a party in this business?

Cla. In some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it. Aut. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son:Hang him, he'll be made an example.

Cla. Comfort, good comfort: we must to the king, and show our strange sights: he must know, tis none of your daughter, nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old min does, when the business is performed; and

remain, as he says, your pawn, till it be brought you.

Aut. I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on the right hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you.

Clo. We are blessed in this man, as I may say, even blessed.

Shep. Let's before, as he bids us: he was provided to do us good. [Exeunt Shepherd and Clown. Aut. If I had a mind to be honest, I see, fortune would not suffer me; she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occasion; gold, and a means to do the prince my master good; which, who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he think it fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they have to the king concerns nim nothing, let him call me, rogue, for being so far officious; for I am proof against that title, and what shame else belongs to't: To him will I present them, there may be matter in it. [Exil.

ACT V.

SCENE I. — Sicilia. A Room in the Palace of Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy,

Leontes.

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Than to rejoice, the former queen is well?
What holier, than, for royalty's repair,
For present comfort and for future good,-
To bless the bed of majesty again
With a sweet fellow to't?

Paul.

There is none worthy, Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes : For has not the divine Apollo said, Is't not the tenour of his oracle,

That king Leontes shall not have an heir,

Till his lost child be found? which, that it shall,
Is all as monstrous to our human reason,
As my Antigonus to break his grave,
And come again to me; who, on my life,
Did perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel,
My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
Oppose against their wills. Care not for issue;
[TO LEONTES.
The crown will find an heir: Great Alexander
Left his to the worthiest; so his successor
Was like to be the best.

1

Leon. Good Paulina, Who hast the memory of Hermione, I know, in honour, O, that ever I Had squar'd me to thy counsel! I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes; Have taken treasure from her lips,

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then, even now,

And left them

Thou speak'st truth.

No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse,
And better us'd, would make her sainted spirit
Again possess her corps; and, on this stage,
(Where we offenders now appear,) soul-vexed,
Begin, And why to me?

Paul.

She had just cause.

Leon.

Had she such power,

She had; and would incense me

To murder her I married.

Paul.

I should so :

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But few, His princess, say you, with him? Gent. Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,

That e'er the sun shone bright on.

Paul.

O Hermione, As every present time doth boast itself Above a better, gone; so must thy grave Give way to what's seen now. Sir, you yourself Have said, and writ so, (but your writing now Is colder than that theme,) She had not been, Nor was not to be equall'd; thus your verse Flow'd with her beauty once; 'tis shrewdly ebb'd, To say you have seen a better. 'Gent. Pardon, madam; The one I have almost forgot; (your pardon,) The other, when she has obtain'd your eye, Will have your tongue too. This is such a creature, Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal Of all professors else; make proselytes Of who she but bid follow.

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Leon.

Pr'ythee, no more; thou know'st,
He dies to me again, when talk'd of: sure,
When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
Will bring me to consider that, which may
Unfurnish me of reason. — They are come.

Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and
Attendants.
Your mother was, most true to wedlock, prince;
For she did print your royal father off,
Conceiving you: Were I but twenty-one,
Your father's image is so hit in you,
His very air, that I should call you brother,
As I did him; and speak of something, wildly
By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!
And your fair princess, goddess! — O, alas!
I lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth
Might thus have stood, begetting wonder, as
You, gracious couple, do! and then I lost
(All mine own folly,) the society,
Amity too, of your brave father; whom,
Though bearing misery, I desire my life
Once more to look upon.

Flo.

By his command Have I here touched Sicilia: and from him Give you all greetings, that a king, at friend, Can send his brother: and, but infirmity (Which waits upon worn times,) hath something seiz'd

His wish'd ability, he had himself

The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
Measur'd to look upon you; whom he loves
(He bade me say so,) more than all the scepters,
And those that bear them, living.

Leon. O, my brother, (Good gentleman!) the wrongs I have done thee, stir

Afresh within me; and these thy offices,
So rarely kind, are as interpreters

Of my behind-hand slackness! - Welcome hither,
As is the spring to the earth. And hath he too
Expos'd this paragon to the fearful usage
(At least, ungentle,) of the dreadful Neptune,
To greet a man, not worth her pains; much less
The adventure of her person?

Flo.

She came from Libya.

Good, my lord,

Leon.
Where the warlike Smalus,
That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd, and lov'd?
Flo. Most royal sir, from thence; from him
whose daughter

His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence
(A prosperous south-wind friendly,) we have cross'd
To execute the charge my father gave me,
For visiting your highness: My best train
I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;
Who for Bohemia bend, to signify

Not only my success in Libya, sir,
But my arrival, and my wife's, in safety
Here, where we are.

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Purge all infection from our air, whilst you

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I thought of her, But your petition [TO FLORIZEL

Is yet unanswer'd: I will to your father;
Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires,
I am a friend to them, and you: upon which errand
I now go toward him; therefore follow me,
And mark what way I make: Come, good my lord.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same. Before the Palace.
Enter AUTOLYCUS and a Gentleman.
Aut. 'Beseech you, sir, were you present at this
relation?

1 Gent. I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it whereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber; only this, methought I heard the shepherd say, he found the child.

Aut. I would most gladly know the issue of it. 1 Gent. I make a broken delivery of the business:- But the changes I perceived in the king, and Camillo, were very notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture; they looked, as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: A notable passion of wonder appeared in them: but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not say, if the importance were joy, or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be.

Enter another Gentleman, Here comes a gentleman, that, happily, knows more: The news, Rogero?

2 Gent. Nothing but bonfires: The oracle is fulfilled; the king's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is broken out within this hour, that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it.

Enter a third Gentleman.

Here comes the lady Paulina's steward; he can deliver you more. — How goes it now, sir? this news, which is called true, is so like an old tale, that the

Leon. That once, I see, by your good father's verity of it is in strong suspicion: Has the king

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of them; for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands; with countenance of such distraction, that they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter; as if that joy were now become a loss, cries, 0, thy mother, thy mother! then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces his son-inlaw; then again worries he his daughter, with clipping her; now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by, like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings' reigns. I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it, and undoes description to do it.

2 Gent. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child?

3 Gent. Like an old tale still; which will have matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep, and not an ear open: He was torn to pieces with a bear: this avouches the shepherd's son; who has not only his innocence (which seems much,) to justify him, but a handkerchief, and rings, of his, that Paulina knows.

1 Gent. What became of his bark, and his followers?

3 Gent. Wrecked, the same instant of their master's death; and in the view of the shepherd: so that all the instruments, which aided to expose the child, were even then lost, when it was found. But, O, the noble combat, that, 'twixt joy and sorrow, was fought in Paulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband; another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled: She lifted the princess from the earth; and so locks her in embracing, as if she would pin her to her heart, that she might no more be in danger of losing.

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1 Gent. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted.

3 Gent. One of the prettiest touches of all, and that which angled for mine eyes (caught the water, though not the fish,) was, when at the relation of the queen's death, with the manner how she came to it, (bravely confessed, and lamented by the king,) how attentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of dolour to another, she did, with an alas! I would fain say, bleed tears; for, I am sure, my heart wept blood. Who was most marble there, changed colour; some swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world could have seen it, the woe had been universal.

1 Gent. Are they returned to the court? 3 Gent. No: the princess hearing of her mother's statue, which is in the keeping of Paulina, a piece many years in doing, and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano ; who, had he himself eternity, and could put breath into his work, would beguile nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione, that, they say, one would speak to her, and stand in hope of answer: thither, with all greediness of affection, are they gone; and there they intend to sup.

2 Gent. I thought, she had some great matter there in hand; for she hath privately, twice or thrice a day, ever since the death of Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall we thither, and with our company piece the rejoicing?

1 Gent. Who would be thence, that has the enefit of access? every wink of an eye, some new

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Aut. Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man and his son aboard the prince; told him, I heard them talk of a fardel, and I know not what; but he at that time, over-fond of the shepherd's daughter, (so he then took her to be,) who began to be much sea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of weather continuing, this mystery remained undiscovered. But 'tis all one to me; for had I been the finder out of this secret, it would not have relished among my other discredits.

Enter Shepherd and Clown,

Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.

Shep. Come, boy; I am past more children, but thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born. Clo. You are well met, sir: You denied to fight with me this other day, because I was no gentleman born: See you these clothes? say, you see them not, and think me still no gentleman born: you were best say, these robes are not gentlemen born. Give me the lie; do; and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.

Aut. I know, you are now, sir, a gentleman born. Clo. Ay, and have been so any time these four hours.

Shep. And so have I, boy.

Clo. So you have:- but I was a gentleman born before my father: for the king's son took me by the hand, and called me, brother; and then the two kings called my father, brother; and then the prince, my brother, and the princess, my sister, called my father, father; and so we wept: and there was the first gentleman-like tears that ever we shed. Shep. We may live, son, to shed many more. Clo. Ay; or else 'twere hard luck; being in so preposterous estate as we are.

Aut. I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I have committed to your worship, and to give me your good report to the prince my

master.

Shep. Pr'ythee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are gentlemen.

Clo. Thou wilt amend thy life?

Aut. Ay, an it like your good worship.

Clo. Give me thy hand: I will swear to the prince, thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.

Shep. You may say it, but not swear it.

Clo. Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins say it, I'll swear it. Shep. How if it be false, son?

Clo. If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it, in the behalf of his friend :-And I'l swear to the prince, thou art a tall fellow of thy hands, and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I know, thou art no tall fellow of thy hands, and that thou wilt be drunk; but I'll swear it: and I would, thou would'st be a tall fellow of thy hands.

Aut. I will prove so, sir, to my power. Clo. Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow : If I do not wonder, how thou darest venture to be drunk, not being a tall fellow, trust me not. Hark! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are

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