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.
Shepherd Nay, but hear me.
Clown Nay, but hear me.
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.
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 how much an ounce.
AUTOLYCUS [Aside]
Very wisely, puppies!
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.
Takes off his false beard
How now, rustics! whither are you bound?
Shepherd To the 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 any
thing 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.
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-odor from me? reflect I
not on thy baseness court-contempt? Thinkest thou,
for that I insinuate, or toaze from thee thy
business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier
cap-a-pe; and one that will either push on or pluck
back thy business there: whereupon I command thee to
open thy affair.
Shepherd My business, sir, is to the king.
AUTOLYCUS What advocate hast thou to him?
Shepherd I know not, an’t like you.
Clown Advocate’s the court-word for a pheasant: say you
have none.
Shepherd None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.
AUTOLYCUS 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.
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’ the fardel?
Wherefore that box?
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 the
speech of him.
AUTOLYCUS Age, thou hast lost thy labour.
Shepherd Why, sir?
AUTOLYCUS 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.
Shepard So ’tis said, sir; about his son, that should have
married a shepherd’s daughter.
AUTOLYCUS 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.
Clown Think you so, sir?
AUTOLYCUS 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
sheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.
Clown Has the old man e’er a son, sir, do you hear. an’t
like you, sir?
AUTOLYCUS 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-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as
he is, and in the hottest day prognostication
proclaims, shall be 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.
Clown 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.’
Shepherd 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.
AUTOLYCUS After I have done what I promised?
Shepherd Ay, sir.
AUTOLYCUS Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this business?
Clown In some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful
one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.
AUTOLYCUS O, that’s the case of the shepherd’s son: hang him,
he’ll be made an example.
Clown 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.
AUTOLYCUS 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.
Clown We are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest.
Shepherd Let’s before as he bids us: he was provided to do us good.
Exeunt Shepherd and Clown
AUTOLYCUS 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.
Exit
Act 5
Scene 1
A room in LEONTES’ palace.
Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and Servants
CLEOMENES Sir, you have done enough, and have perform’d
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.
LEONTES Whilst I remember
Her and her 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.
PAULINA True, too true, my lord:
If, one by one, you wedded all the world,