The medicin of our house!-How shall we do? Cam. My lord, Fear none of this: I think, you know, my fortunes Do all lie there: it shall be so my care To have you royally appointed, as if The scene you play were mine. For instance, Sir, That you may know you shall not want,-one word. [They talk aside. Enter AUTOLYCUS. Aut. 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 riband, glass, pomander*, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, hornring, 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 remember'd. 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 pinch'd 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 pick'd 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 hole army. [Camillo, Florizel, and Perdita come forward. Cam. Nay, but my letters by this means being there So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt. Cam. Shall satisfy your father,- All that you speak, shews fair. * A little ball made of perfumes, and worn to prevent infection in times of plague. + Birds. Cam. Who have we here? [Seeing Autolycus: We'll make an instrument of this; omit Nothing, may give us aid. Aut. If they have overheard me now,-why hanging. [Aside. Cam. How now, good fellow? Why shakest thou so? Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee. Aut. I am a poor fellow, Sir. Cam. 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 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 *. Aut. I am a poor fellow, Sir:-I know ye well enough. [Aside. Cam. Nay, pr'ythee, despatch: the gentleman is half-flay'd already. Aut. Are you in earnest, Sir ?-I smell the trick of it.[Aside. Aut. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with conscience take it. Flo. Despatch, I pr'ythee. Cam. Unbuckle, unbuckle. [Flo. and Autol. exchange Garments. Fortunate mistress,-let my prophecy Come home to you!-You inust retire yourself The truth of your own seeming; that you may, Get undescried, Per. I see, the play so lies, That must bear a part. Cam. No remedy Have you done there? Flo. Should I now meet my father, He would not call me son. Cam. Nay you shall have No hat:-Come, lady, come.-Farewell, my friend. Aut. Adieu, Sir. Flo. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot? Pray you, a word. [They converse apart. + Stripped. • Something over and above. Cam. What I do next, shall be, to tell the king Of this escape, and whither they are bound; I shall review Sicilia; for whose sight" Flo. Fortune speed us! Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side. [Aside. [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. 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 change ling, and none of your flesh and blood. Shep. Nay, but hear me. Clown. Nay, but hear me. 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 punish'd by him. Shew 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. 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. 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. 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. Clown. Pray heartily he be at palace. Aut. Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance :-Let me pocket up my pedler'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 having t, breeding, and any thing that is fitting to be known, discover. Clown. 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 stamp'd 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 6. 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 fromme ? 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, cap-a-pé; 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. Clown. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say, you have none. Shep. None, Sir; I have no pheasant, cock, nor hen. Bundle, parcel. Estate, property. + His false beard. In the fact. The stately tread of courtiers. Aut. How bless'd are we, that are not simple men! Yet nature might have made me as these are, Clown. This cannot be but a great courtier. Shep. 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. 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. Aut. 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? 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 sheepwhistling 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? Aut. He has a son, who shall be flay'd 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 recover'd again with aqua-vitæ, or some other hot infusion: then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication • Related. |