The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  FLORIZEL Why look you so upon me?

  I am but sorry, not afeard; delay’d,

  465

  But nothing alter’d: what I was, I am;

  More straining on for plucking back; not following

  My leash unwillingly.

  CAMILLO Gracious my lord,

  You know your father’s temper: at this time

  He will allow no speech (which, I do guess,

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  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.

  FLORIZEL I not purpose it.

  I think – Camillo?

  CAMILLO Even he, my lord.

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  PERDITA How often have I told you ’twould be thus!

  How often said, my dignity would last

  But till ’twere known!

  FLORIZEL It cannot fail, but by

  The violation of my faith; and then

  Let nature crush the sides o’th’ earth together,

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  And mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks:

  From my succession wipe me, father; I

  Am heir to my affection.

  CAMILLO Be advis’d.

  FLORIZEL I am: and by my fancy. If my reason

  Will thereto be obedient, I have reason;

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  If not, my senses, better pleas’d with madness,

  Do bid it welcome.

  CAMILLO This is desperate, sir.

  FLORIZEL So call it: but it does fulfill my vow;

  I needs must think it honesty. Camillo,

  Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may

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  Be thereat glean’d: for all the sun sees, or

  The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hides

  In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath

  To this my fair belov’d. Therefore, I pray you,

  As you have ever been my father’s honour’d friend,

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  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

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  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

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  Concern me the reporting.

  CAMILLO O my lord,

  I would your spirit were easier for advice,

  Or stronger for your need.

  FLORIZEL Hark, Perdita. [drawing her aside]

  [to Camillo] I’ll hear you by and by.

  CAMILLO He’s irremoveable,

  Resolv’d for flight. Now were I happy, if

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  His going I could frame to serve my turn,

  Save him from danger, do him love and honour,

  Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia

  And that unhappy king, my master, whom

  I so much thirst to see.

  FLORIZEL Now good Camillo;

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  I am so fraught with curious business that

  I leave out ceremony.

  CAMILLO Sir, I think

  You have heard of my poor services, i’th’ love

  That I have borne your father?

  FLORIZEL Very nobly

  Have you deserv’d: it is my father’s music

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  To speak your deeds, not little of his care

  To have them recompens’d as thought on.

  CAMILLO Well, my lord,

  If you may please to think I love the king,

  And through him what’s nearest to him, which is

  Your gracious self, embrace but my direction,

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  If your more ponderous and settled project

  May suffer alteration. On mine honour,

  I’ll point you where you shall have such receiving

  As shall become your highness; where you may

  Enjoy your mistress; from the whom, I see,

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  There’s no disjunction to be made, but by –

  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.

  FLORIZEL How, Camillo,

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  May this, almost a miracle, be done?

  That I may call thee something more than man

  And after that trust to thee.

  CAMILLO Have you thought on

  A place whereto you’ll go?

  FLORIZEL Not any yet:

  But as th’ unthought-on accident is guilty

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  To what we wildly do, so we profess

  Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies

  Of every wind that blows.

  CAMILLO Then list to me:

  This follows, if you will not change your purpose,

  But undergo this flight; make for Sicilia,

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  And there present yourself and your fair princess

  (For 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

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  His welcomes forth; asks thee there ‘Son, forgiveness!’

  As ’twere i’th’ father’s person; kisses the hands

  Of your fresh princess; o’er and o’er divides him

  ’Twixt his unkindness and his kindness; th’one

  He chides to hell, and bids the other grow

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  Faster than thought or time.

  FLORIZEL Worthy Camillo,

  What colour for my visitation shall I

  Hold up before him?

  CAMILLO Sent by the king your father

  To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,

  The manner of your bearing towards him, with

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  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

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  And speak his very heart.

  FLORIZEL I am bound to you:

  There is some sap in this.

  CAMILLO 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,

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  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,

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  Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together

  Affliction alters.

  PERDITA One of these is true:

  I think affliction may subdue the cheek,

  But not take in the mind.

  CAMILLO Yea? say you so?

  There shall not, at your father’s house, these seven years

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  Be born another such.

  FLORIZEL My good Camillo,

  She is as forward of her breeding as

  She is i’th’ rear ’our birth.

  CAMILLO I cannot say ’tis pity

  She lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress

  To m
ost that teach.

  PERDITA Your pardon, sir; for this

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  I’ll blush you thanks.

  FLORIZEL My prettiest Perdita!

  But O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo,

  Preserver of my father, now of me,

  The medicine of our house, how shall we do?

  We are not furnish’d like Bohemia’s son,

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  Nor shall appear in Sicilia.

  CAMILLO 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,

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  That you may know you shall not want, – one word.

  [They talk aside.]

  Enter AUTOLYCUS.

  AUTOLYCUS 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,

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  picked and cut most of their festival purses; and had

  not the old man come in with a whoo-bub 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.

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  [Camillo, Florizel and Perdita come forward.]

  CAMILLO

  Nay, but my letters, by this means being there

  So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.

  FLORIZEL

  And those that you’ll procure from King Leontes?

  CAMILLO Shall satisfy your father.

  PERDITA Happy be you!

  All that you speak shows fair.

  CAMILLO [seeing Autolycus] Who have we here?

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  We’ll make an instrument of this; omit

  Nothing may give us aid.

  AUTOLYCUS If they have overheard me now, – why,

  hanging.

  CAMILLO How now, good fellow! why shakest thou so?

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  Fear not, man; here’s no harm intended to thee.

  AUTOLYCUS I am a poor fellow, sir.

  CAMILLO 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,

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  – 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.

  AUTOLYCUS I am a poor fellow, sir. [aside] I know ye

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  well enough.

  CAMILLO Nay, prithee, dispatch: the gentleman is half

  flayed already.

  AUTOLYCUS Are you in earnest, sir? [aside] I smell the

  trick on’t.

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  FLORIZEL Dispatch, I prithee.

  AUTOLYCUS Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot

  with conscience take it.

  CAMILLO Unbuckle, unbuckle.

  [Florizel and Autolycus exchange garments.]

  Fortunate mistress, – let my prophecy

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  Come home to ye! – 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

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  (For I do fear eyes over) to shipboard