Where no priest shovels in wretch !

That knew'st this was the prince, and would'st | adventure

To mingle faith with him.-Undone ! undone i If I might die within this hour, I have liv'd To die when I desire.

Flo. Why look you so upon me?

I am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd,
But nothing alter'd: What I was, I am :

[Exit.

which is

lowing

My leash unwillingly.

Cam. Gracious my lord,

You know your father's temper: at this time He will allow no speech,-which, I do guess, You do not purpose to him;-and as hardly Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear: Then, till the fury of his highness settle, Come not before him.

Flo. I not purpose it.

I think, Camillo.

Cum. Even be, my lord.

As heavens forefend! your ruin :) marry her; And (with my best endeavours, in your absence,)

Your discontenting

father strive to qualify,

And bring him up to liking.

Flo. How, Camillo,

May this, almost a miracle, be done?

That I may call thee something more than man,

And, after that, trust to thee.

Cum. Have you thought on

A place, whereto you'll go ?
Flo. Not any yet:

thus ?

How often said, my dignity would last

But till 'twere known?

Flo. It cannot fail, but by

The violation of my faith; And then

Let nature crush the sides o'the earth together,
And mar the seeds within!-Lift up thy looks:
From my succession wipe me, father! 1
Am heir to my affection.

Cam. Be advis'd.

Flo. I am; and by my fancy:+ if my reason Will thereto be obedient, I bave reason; If not, my senses, better pleased with madness, Do bid it welcome.

Cam. This is desperate, Sir.

Flo. So call it but it does fulfil my vow;
I needs must think it honesty. Camillo,
Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may
Be thereat glean'd; for all the sun sees, or
The close earth wombs, or the profound seas
bide

In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath
To this my fair belov'd: Therefore, I pray you,
As you have e'er been my father's bouour'd
friend,

When he shall miss me, (as, in faith, I mean not
To see him any more,) cast your good counsels
Upon his passion; Let myself and fortune,
Tug for the time to come. This you may know,
And so deliver,-I am put to sea
With her, whom here I cannot hold on shore;
And, most opportune to our need, I have
A vessel rides fast by, but not prepar'd

For this design. What course I mean to hold,
Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor
Concern me the reporting.

Cam. O my lord,

To what we wildly do; so we profess Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies Of every wind that blows.

Cam. Then list to me: [pose, This follows,-if you will not change your purBut undergo this flight ;-Make for Sicília; And there present yourself, and your fair prin

cess,

(Fo so, I see, she must be,) 'fore Leontes;
She shall be habited, as it becomes

The partner of your bed. Methinks, I see
Leontes, opening his free arms, and weeping
His welcomes forth: asks thee, the sou, forgive-

ness,

As 'twere i'the father's person: kisses the hands
Of your fresh princess: o'er and o'er divides bim
'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness; the oue
He chides to hell, and bids the other grow,
Faster than thought, or time.

Flo. Worthy Camillo,
What colour for my visitation shall I
Hold up before him?

Cam. Sent by the king your father
To greet him, and to give him comforts. Sir,
The manner of your bearing towards him, with
What you, as from your father, shall deliver,
Things known betwixt us three, I'll write you
down:

The which shall point you forth at every sitting, What you must say; that he shall not perceive, But that you have your father's bosom there, And speak his very heart.

Flo. I am bound to you: There is some sap in this.

Cam. A course more promising Than a wild dedication of yourselves

To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores; most certain,

To miseries enough: no hope to help you;
But, as you shake off one, to take another:
Nothing so certain as your anchors: who
Do their best office, if they can but stay you
Where you'll be loath to be: Besides, you know,
Prosperity's the very bond of love :

Whose fresh complexion and whose beart to-
Affliction alters.

Per. One of these is true:

I think, affliction may subdue the cheek,
But not take in the mind.

Cam. Yea, say you so ?

[gether

There shall not, at your father's house, these

seven years,

Be born another such.

Flo. My good Camillo,

She is as forward of her breeding, as

I'the rear of birth.

For discontented.

This unthought-on accident is the unexpected dis

covery made by Poiixenes.

The council-days were called the sittings,

+ Love.

6 Conquer.

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. Clo. 'Pray heartily be be at palace. Aut. Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance :-Let me pocket up my pediar's excrement. +-[Takes off his false beard.] How now, rustics? whither are you bound? 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 haying, I 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 stab. bing steel; therefore 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 ine, or no, I am a courtier. See'st thou not the air of the court, in these enfoldings? bath 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 toze ¶ from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier, capa-pe; and one that will either push on, or pluck back thy business there: whereupon 1 cominaud 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.

soft for him, say 1: Draw our throne into a sheep-cote ! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.

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 bead of a wasp's nest; then stand, till he be three quarters and a drain 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 suu 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 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.

Shep. An't please you, Sir, to undertake the business for us, here is that gold I have: I'l make it as much more and leave this young man ia pawn, till I bring it you.

Aut. After I have done what I promised?
Shep. Ay, Sir.

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

Clo. In soine sort, Sir: but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it."

Aut. How bless'd are we, that are not simple men I

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 handsoinely.

Clo. He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical; a great man, P'il warrant; I know, by the picking on's teeth.

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

Clo. Comfort, good comfort: we must to the king, and show our strauge sights; he must know, 'tis none of your daughter nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much 2, this old man 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 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 pro

[Exeunt SHEPHERD and CLOWN. Aut. If I had a mind to be hon st, 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 bin will I present them, there may be matter in it. [Exit.

An

ACT V.

of LLONTES.

and others.

• Bundle, parcel

1 Estate, property.

Cleo. Sir, you have done enough, and have

The stately tread of courtiers.

I cajole or force.

.. Related.

↑ Being handsomely bribed.

The hottest day foretold in the almanack.

A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make, Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down

More penitence, than done trespass : At the last, Do, as the heavens have done; forget your evil; With them, forgive yourself.

Leon. Whilst I remember

Her, and ber virtues, I cannot forget

My blemishes in them; and so still think of The wrong I did myself: which was so much, That heirless it hath made my kingdom; and Destroy'd the sweet'st companion, that e'er man Bred his hopes out of.

Paul. True, too true, my lord:

If, one by one, you wedded all the world,

Or, from the all that are, took something good, To make a perfect woman; she, you kill'd, Would be unparallel'd.

Leon. I think so. Kill'd!

She I kill'd? I did so: but thou strik 'st me
Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter

Upon my tongue, as in my thought: Now, good
Say so but seldom.

Cleo. Not at all, good lady:

[now,

You might have spoken a thousand things that would

Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd
Your kindness better.

Paul. You are one of those,

Would have him wed again.

Dion. If you would not so,

You pity not the state, nor the remembrance
Of his most sovereign dame; consider little,
What dangers, by his Highness' fail of issue,
May drop upon his kingdom, and devour
Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy,
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 ber 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.

Leon. 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, 1) 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 crea ture,

Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal of all professors else: make proselytes Of who she but bid follow.

Paul. How? not women?

Gent. Women will love her, that she is a wo

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, PER-
DITA, and Attendants.

Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince;
For she did print your royal father off,
Conceiving you: Were 1 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 you fair princess, goddess !-Oh! 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

Lord. Here in the city; I now came from bim.

I speak amazedly; and it becomes

My marvel, and my message. To your court
Whiles he was hast'ning, (in the chase, it seems,
Of this fair couple,) meets he on the way
The father of this seeming lady, and
Her brother, having both their country quitted
With this young prince.

Flo. Camillo has betray'd me;

Whose honour, and whose honesty, till now,
Endur'd all weathers.

Lord. Lay't so, to his charge;
He's with the king your father.
Leon. Who? Camillo ?

Lord. Camillo, Sir; I spake with him; who

now

Has these poor men in question. Never saw I Wretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth;

Forswear themselves as often as they speak:
Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them
With divers deaths in death.

Per. O my poor father I

The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have
Our contract celebrated.

Leon. You are married?

Flo. We are not, Sir, nor are we like to be; The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first :The odds for high and low's alike.t

Leon. My lord,

Is this the daughter of a king?
Flo. She is,

When once she is my wife.

Leon. That once, I see, by your good father's speed,

Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,
Most sorry, you have broken from his liking,
Where you were tied in duty and as sorry,
Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,
That you might well enjoy her.

Flo. Dear, look up:

:

Though fortune, visible an enemy

Should chase us, with my father; power no jot
Hath she, to change our loves.-'Beseech you,
Sir,

Remember since you ow'd no more to time
Than I do now: with thought of such affections,
Step forth mine advocate; at your request,
My father will grant precious things, as trifles.
Leon. Would he do so, I'd beg your precious

Even in these looks I made.-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: Coine, 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 be 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.

it.

Aut. I would most gladly know the issue of

+ Seize, arrest.

1 Descent or wealth.