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If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.
I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.
Wherein our entertainment shall shame us; we will be justified in our loves. For indeed,—
Beseech you—
Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge. We cannot with such magnificence—in so rare—I know not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us.
You pay a great deal too dear for what’s given freely.
Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.
Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods, and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies, that they have seemed to be together, though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embraced as it were from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves!
I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young Prince Mamillius. It is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.
I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a gallant child; one that indeed physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh. They that went on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man.
Would they else be content to die?
Yes, if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.
If the king had no son, they would desire to live on crutches till he had one.
No longer stay.
One seve’night longer.
Very sooth, tomorrow.
Tongue-tied, our queen? Speak you.
Well said, Hermione.
No, madam.
Nay, but you will?
I may not, verily.
Is he won yet?
He’ll stay, my lord.
Never?
Never but once.
Ay, my good lord.
Yes, if you will, my lord.
What means Sicilia?
He something seems unsettled.
No, my lord, I’ll fight.
Gone already! Inch-thick, knee-deep, o’er head and ears a fork’d one!— Go, play, boy, play. Thy mother plays, and I Play too; but so disgrac’d a part, whose issue Will hiss me to my grave: contempt and clamour Will be my knell. Go, play, boy, play. There have been, Or I am much deceiv’d, cuckolds ere now; And many a man there is, even at this present, Now while I speak this, holds his wife by th’ arm, That little thinks she has been sluic’d in ’s absence, And his pond fish’d by his next neighbour, by Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there’s comfort in ’t, Whiles other men have gates, and those gates open’d, As mine, against their will. Should all despair That hath revolted wives, the tenth of mankind Would hang themselves. Physic for’t there’s none; It is a bawdy planet, that will strike Where ’tis predominant; and ’tis powerful, think it, From east, west, north, and south. Be it concluded, No barricado for a belly. Know’t; It will let in and out the enemy With bag and baggage. Many thousand of us Have the disease, and feel’t not.—How now, boy!
I am like you, they say.
Ay, my good lord.
Go play, Mamillius; thou’rt an honest man.
Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.
Didst note it?
At the good queen’s entreaty.
Ha?
Stays here longer.
Ay, but why?
Be it forbid, my lord!
Say it be, ’tis true.
No, no, my lord.
Who does infect her?
I’ll do’t, my lord.
I will seem friendly, as thou hast advis’d me.
Hail, most royal sir!
What is the news i’ th’ court?
None rare, my lord.
I dare not know, my lord.
I may not answer.
On, good Camillo.
I am appointed him to murder you.
By whom, Camillo?
By the king.
For what?
How should this grow?
No, I’ll none of you.
Why, my sweet lord?
And why so, my lord?
Who taught this?
Blue, my lord.
Merry or sad shall’t be?
As merry as you will.
There was a man,—
Nay, come, sit down, then on.
Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him?
What is this? sport?
Shall I be heard?
Go, do our bidding. Hence!
Beseech your highness, call the queen again.
Hold your peaces.
Good my lord,—
What! Lack I credit?
Well done, my lord.
Good lady! No court in Europe is too good for thee; What dost thou then in prison?
Now, good sir, You know me, do you not?
Well, be’t so, prithee.
Here’s such ado to make no stain a stain As passes colouring.
Dear gentlewoman, How fares our gracious lady?
A boy?
I do believe it.
My lord.
How does the boy?
Fie, fie! no thought of him. The very thought of my revenges that way Recoil upon me: in himself too mighty, And in his parties, his alliance. Let him be, Until a time may serve. For present vengeance, Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes Laugh at me; make their pastime at my sorrow: They should not laugh if I could reach them, nor Shall she, within my power.
You must not enter.
That’s enough.
What noise there, ho?
What, canst not rule her?
Good queen!
Force her hence.
He dreads his wife.
A nest of traitors!
I am none, by this good light.
Once more, take her hence.
I’ll have thee burnt.
You’re liars all.
I will, my lord.
Read the indictment.
You will not own it.
All this we swear.
Break up the seals and read.
Now blessed be the great Apollo!
Praised!
Hast thou read truth?
My lord the king, the king!
What is the business?
How! gone?
Is dead.
How now there?
Apollo, pardon My great profaneness ’gainst thine oracle! I’ll reconcile me to Polixenes, New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo, Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy; For, being transported by my jealousies To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose Camillo for the minister to poison My friend Polixenes: which had been done, But that the good mind of Camillo tardied My swift command, though I with death and with Reward did threaten and encourage him, Not doing it and being done. He, most humane And fill’d with honour, to my kingly guest Unclasp’d my practice, quit his fortunes here, Which you knew great, and to the certain hazard Of all incertainties himself commended, No richer than his honour. How he glisters Thorough my rust! And how his piety Does my deeds make the blacker!
What fit is this, good lady?
The higher powers forbid!
Which may if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty, And still rest thine. The storm begins: poor wretch, That for thy mother’s fault art thus expos’d To loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot, But my heart bleeds, and most accurs’d am I To be by oath enjoin’d 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.
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 sea-side, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an ’t be thy will, 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 halloed but even now. Whoa-ho-hoa!
Hilloa, loa!
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?
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.
Why, boy, how is it?
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 yest 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-dragon’d 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.
Name of mercy, when was this, boy?
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.
Would I had been by to have helped the old man!
I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her: there your charity would have lacked footing.
Heavy matters, heavy matters! But look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself: thou met’st with things dying, I with things new-born. Here’s a sight for thee. Look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire’s child! 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?
You’re a made old man. If the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you’re well to live. Gold! all gold!
This is fairy gold, boy, and ’twill prove so. Up with it, 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.
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.
That’s a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that which is left of him what he is, fetch me to th’ sight of him.
Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i’ th’ ground.
’Tis a lucky day, boy, and we’ll do good deeds on ’t.
I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: ’tis a sickness denying thee anything; a death to grant this.
It is fifteen 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.
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 call’st 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I willingly obey your command.
My best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves.
I have served Prince Florizel, and in my time wore three-pile, but now I am out of service.
My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who being, I as am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up 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!
Let me see: every ’leven wether tods; every tod yields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?
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.”
I’ th’ name of me!
O, help me, help me! Pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death!
Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off.
O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more than the stripes I have received, which are mighty ones and millions.
Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter.
I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta’en from me, and these detestable things put upon me.
What, by a horseman or a footman?
A footman, sweet sir, a footman.
Indeed, he should be a footman by the garments he has left with thee: if this be a horseman’s coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand, I’ll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.
O, good sir, tenderly, O!
Alas, poor soul!
O, good sir, softly, good sir. I fear, sir, my shoulder blade is out.
How now! canst stand?
Softly, dear sir!
Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.
No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have a kinsman not past three-quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going. I shall there have money or anything I want. Offer me no money, I pray you; that kills my heart.
What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?
A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with troll-my-dames. I knew him once a servant of the prince; I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.
His vices, you would say; there’s no virtue whipped out of the court. They cherish it to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but abide.
Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well. He hath been since an ape-bearer, then a process-server, a bailiff. Then he compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker’s wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue. Some call him Autolycus.
Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings.
Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that’s the rogue that put me into this apparel.
Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia. If you had but looked big and spit at him, he’d have run.
I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter. I am false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant him.
How do you now?
Sweet sir, much better than I was. I can stand and walk: I will even take my leave of you and pace softly towards my kinsman’s.
Shall I bring thee on the way?
No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir.
Then fare thee well. I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing.
Prosper you, sweet sir!
Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I’ll be with you at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat bring out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue!
So it is.
What, like a corse?
I’ll swear for ’em.
Come on, strike up.
Mopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic, to mend her kissing with!
Now, in good time!
She dances featly.
O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you. He sings several tunes faster than you’ll tell money. He utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men’s ears grew to his tunes.
He could never come better: he shall come in. I love a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.
He hath songs for man or woman of all sizes. No milliner can so fit his customers with gloves. He has the prettiest love-songs for maids, so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings, “jump her and thump her”; and where some stretch-mouthed rascal would, as it were, mean mischief and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer “Whoop, do me no harm, good man”; puts him off, slights him, with “Whoop, do me no harm, good man.”
This is a brave fellow.
Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares?
He hath ribbons of all the colours i’ th’ rainbow; points, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by th’ gross; inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns; why he sings ’em over as they were gods or goddesses; you would think a smock were a she-angel, he so chants to the sleeve-hand and the work about the square on ’t.
Prithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.
Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in ’s tunes.
You have of these pedlars that have more in them than you’d think, sister.
Ay, good brother, or go about to think.
If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.
I was promised them against the feast; but they come not too late now.
He hath promised you more than that, or there be liars.
He hath paid you all he promised you. Maybe he has paid you more, which will shame you to give him again.
Is there no manners left among maids? Will they wear their plackets where they should bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle of these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guests? ’Tis well they are whispering. Clamour your tongues, and not a word more.
I have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry lace and a pair of sweet gloves.
Have I not told thee how I was cozened by the way and lost all my money?
And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it behoves men to be wary.
Fear not thou, man. Thou shalt lose nothing here.
I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge.
What hast here? Ballads?
Pray now, buy some. I love a ballad in print alife, for then we are sure they are true.
Here’s one to a very doleful tune. How a usurer’s wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden, and how she longed to eat adders’ heads and toads carbonadoed.
Is it true, think you?
Very true, and but a month old.
Bless me from marrying a usurer!
Here’s the midwife’s name to’t, one Mistress Taleporter, and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I carry lies abroad?
Pray you now, buy it.
Come on, lay it by; and let’s first see more ballads. We’ll buy the other things anon.
Here’s another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids. It was thought she was a woman, and was turned into a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her. The ballad is very pitiful, and as true.
Is it true too, think you?
Five justices’ hands at it, and witnesses more than my pack will hold.
Lay it by too: another.
This is a merry ballad; but a very pretty one.
Let’s have some merry ones.
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.
We can both sing it: if thou’lt bear a part, thou shalt hear; ’tis in three parts.
We had the tune on ’t a month ago.
I can bear my part; you must know ’tis my occupation: have at it with you.
SONG.
Or thou goest to th’ grange or mill.
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.
SONG.
Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made themselves all men of hair. They call themselves saltiers, and they have dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in ’t; but they themselves are o’ the mind (if it be not too rough for some that know little but bowling) it will please plentifully.
Away! we’ll none on ’t. Here has been too much homely foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.
You weary those that refresh us: pray, let’s see these four threes of herdsmen.
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.
Leave your prating: since these good men are pleased, let them come in; but quickly now.
Why, they stay at door, sir.
Do, and be witness to ’t.
And this my neighbour, too?
Fairly offer’d.
This shows a sound affection.
I have; but what of him?
Knows he of this?
He neither does nor shall.
Let him know ’t.
He shall not.
Prithee let him.
No, he must not.
O, my heart!
Even he, my lord.
Be advis’d.
This is desperate, sir.
Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery. Not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting. They throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer: by which means I saw whose purse was best in picture; and what I saw, to my good use I remembered. My clown (who wants but something to be a reasonable man) grew so in love with the wenches’ song that he would not stir his pettitoes till he had both tune and words; which so drew the rest of the herd to me that all their other senses stuck in ears: you might have pinched a placket, it was senseless; ’twas nothing to geld a codpiece of a purse; I would have filed keys off that hung in chains: no hearing, no feeling, but my sir’s song, and admiring the nothing of it. So that in this time of lethargy I picked and cut most of their festival purses; and had not the old man come in with a whoobub against his daughter and the king’s son, and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army.
And those that you’ll procure from king Leontes?
Shall satisfy your father.
How now, good fellow! why shakest thou so? Fear not, man; here’s no harm intended to thee.
I am a poor fellow, sir.
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 instantly,—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, there’s some boot.
I am a poor fellow, sir:
Nay, prithee dispatch: the gentleman is half flayed already.
Are you in earnest, sir?
Dispatch, I prithee.
Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with conscience take it.
Unbuckle, unbuckle.
Fortunate mistress,—let my prophecy Come home to you!—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.
Adieu, sir.
The swifter speed the better.
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 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.
Aside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain: every lane’s end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man work.
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.
Nay, but hear me.
Nay, but hear me.
Go to, then.
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.
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.
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 how much an ounce.
Well, let us to the king: there is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard.
Pray heartily he be at’ palace.
To the palace, an it like your worship.
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!
We are but plain fellows, sir.
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.
Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the manner.
Are you a courtier, an ’t like you, sir?
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? Think’st thou, for that I insinuate, or toaze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier
My business, sir, is to the king.
What advocate hast thou to him?
I know not, an ’t like you.
Advocate’s the court-word for a pheasant. Say you have none.
None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.
This cannot be but a great courtier.
His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.
He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical: a great man, I’ll warrant; I know by the picking on’s teeth.
The fardel there? What’s i’ th’ fardel? Wherefore that box?
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.
Age, thou hast lost thy labour.
Why, sir?
The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy and air himself: for, if thou beest capable of things serious, thou must know the king is full of grief.
So ’tis said, sir; about his son, that should have married a shepherd’s daughter.
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.
Think you so, sir?
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; but that death is too soft for him, say I. Draw our throne into a sheepcote! All deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.
Has the old man e’er a son, sir, do you hear, an ’t like you, sir?
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.
He seems to be of great authority: close 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: “ston’d” and “flayed alive”.
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.
After I have done what I promised?
Ay, sir.
Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this business?
In some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.
O, that’s the case of the shepherd’s son. Hang him, he’ll be made an example.
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 man does when the business is performed, and remain, as he says, your pawn till it be brought you.
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.
We are blessed in this man, as I may say, even blessed.
Let’s before, as he bids us. He was provided to do us good.
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 him 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.
Never, Paulina; so be bless’d my spirit!
Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.
You tempt him over-much.
Good madam,—
His princess, say you, with him?
How! not women?
Still, ’tis strange He thus should steal upon us.
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 on him.
Where’s Bohemia? speak.
Who? Camillo?
You are married?
Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?
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.
I would most gladly know the issue of it.
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 th’ importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be. Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more.
The news, Rogero?
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. 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 verity of it is in strong suspicion. Has the king found his heir?
Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance. That which you hear you’ll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione’s, her jewel about the neck of it, the letters of Antigonus found with it, which they know to be his character; the majesty of the creature in resemblance of the mother, the affection of nobleness which nature shows above her breeding, and many other evidences proclaim her with all certainty to be the king’s daughter. Did you see the meeting of the two kings?
No.
Then you have lost a sight which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave 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 “O, thy mother, thy mother!” then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces his son-in-law; 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.
What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child?
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.
What became of his bark and his followers?
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.
The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted.
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.
Are they returned to the court?
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.
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?
Who would be thence that has the benefit of access? Every wink of an eye some new grace will be born. Our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let’s along.
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 undiscover’d. But ’tis all one to me; for had I been the finder-out of this secret, it would not have relish’d among my other discredits.
Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.
Come, boy; I am past more children, but thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born.
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.
I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.
Ay, and have been so any time these four hours.
And so have I, boy!
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.
We may live, son, to shed many more.
Ay; or else ’twere hard luck, being in so preposterous estate as we are.
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.
Prithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are gentlemen.
Thou wilt amend thy life?
Ay, an it like your good worship.
Give me thy hand: I will swear to the prince thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.
You may say it, but not swear it.
Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins say it, I’ll swear it.
How if it be false, son?
If it be ne’er so false, a true gentleman may swear it in the behalf of his friend. And I’ll 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 wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands.
I will prove so, sir, to my power.
Ay, by any means, prove a tall fellow: if I do not wonder how thou dar’st venture to be drunk, not being a tall fellow, trust me not. Hark! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are going to see the queen’s picture. Come, follow us: we’ll be thy good masters.
I like your silence, it the more shows off Your wonder: but yet speak. First you, my liege. Comes it not something near?
O, not by much!
Do not draw the curtain.
No, not these twenty years.
Start not; her actions shall be holy as You hear my spell is lawful. Do not shun her Until you see her die again; for then You kill her double. Nay, present your hand: When she was young you woo’d her; now in age Is she become the suitor?
She embraces him.