The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

This is desperate, sir.

  FLORIZEL

  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 gleaned; 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 beloved. Therefore, I pray you,

  As you have ever been my father’s honoured 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 who here I cannot hold on shore;

  And most opportune to her need, I have

  A vessel rides fast by, but not prepared

  For this design. What course I mean to hold

  Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor

  Concern me the reporting.

  CAMILLO

  O my lord,

  I would your spirit were easier for advice,

  Or stronger for your need.

  FLORIZEL

  Hark, Perdita—

  (To Camillo) I’ll hear you by and by.

  CAMILLO (aside) He’s irremovable,

  Resolved for flight. Now were I happy if

  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,

  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 deserved. It is my father’s music

  To speak your deeds, not little of his care

  To have them recompensed 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,

  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

  There’s no disjunction to be made but by,

  As heavens forfend, 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,

  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

  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,

  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

  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

  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

  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.

  FLORIZEL

  I am bound to you.

  There is some sap in this.

  CAMILLO

  A course more promising

  Than a wild dedication of yourselves

  To unpathed waters, undreamed 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 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

  Be born another such.

  FLORIZEL

  My good Camillo,

  She’s 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 most that teach.

  PERDITA

  Your pardon, sir. For this

  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 furnished like Bohemia’s son,

  Nor shall appear so 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,

  That you may know you shall not want—one word.

  They speak apart.

  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, 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 could have filed keys off that hung in chains. No hearing, no feelin
g 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 hubbub 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.

  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?

  We’ll make an instrument of this, omit Nothing may give us aid.

  AUTOLYCUS (aside) If they have overheard me now—why, hanging!

  CAMILLO How now, good fellow? Why shakest thou so? 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 instantty—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, (giving him money) there’s some boot.

  AUTOLYCUS I am a poor fellow, sir. (Aside) I know ye 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.

  FLORIZEL Dispatch, I prithee.

  AUTOLYCUS Indeed, I have had earnest, but I cannot with conscience take it.

  CAMILLO Unbuckle, unbuckle.

  Florizel and Autolycus exchange clothes

  (To Perdita) Fortunate mistress—let my prophecy

  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—

  For I do fear eyes—over to shipboard

  Get undescried.

  PERDITA

  I see the play so lies

  That I must bear a part.

  CAMILLO

  No remedy.

  (To Florizel) Have you done there?

  FLORIZEL

  Should I now meet my father

  He would not call me son.

  CAMILLO

  Nay, you shall have no hat.

  He gives the hat to Perdita

  Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.

  AUTOLYCUS Adieu, sir.

  FLORIZEL

  O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!

  Pray you, a word.

  They speak aside

  CAMILLO (aside)

  What I do next shall be to tell the King

  Of this escape, and whither they are bound;

  Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail

  To force him after, in whose company

  I shall re-view Sicilia, for whose sight

  I have a woman’s longing.

  FLORIZEL

  Fortune speed us!

  Thus we set on, Camillo, to th’ seaside.

  CAMILLO The swifter speed the better.

  Exeunt Florizel, Perdita, and Camillo

  AUTOLYCUS I understand the business, I hear it. To have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand is necessary for a cutpurse. A good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for th’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.

  Enter the Clown and the Old Shepherd, carrying a fardel and a box

  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 changeling, and none of your flesh and blood.

  OLD SHEPHERD Nay, but hear me.

  CLOWN Nay, but hear me.

  OLD 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.

  OLD 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 not how much an ounce. AUTOLYCUS (aside) Very wisely, puppies.

  OLD 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.

  He removes his false beard

  —How now, rustics, whither are you bound?

  OLD SHEPHERD To th’ 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 anything 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.

  OLD 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-odour from me? Reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Thinkest thou, for that I insinuate to toze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-à-pie, and one that will either push on or pluck back thy business there. Whereupon I command thee to open thy affair.

  OLD SHEPHERD My business, sir, is to the King.

  AUTOLYCUS What advocate hast thou to him?

  OLD SHEPHERD I know not, an’t like you.

  CLOWN (aside to the Old Shepherd) ’Advocate’ ’s the court word for a pheasant. Say you have none.

  OLD SHEPHERD

  None, sir. I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.

  AUTOLYCUS (aside)

  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.

  OLD 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’th’ fardel? Wherefore that box?

  OLD 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 th’ speech of him.


  AUTOLYCUS Age, thou hast lost thy labour. OLD 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.

  OLD SHEPHERD So ’tis said, sir; about his son, that should have married a shepherd’s daughter.

  AUTOLYCUS If that shepherd be not in handfast, 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 sheepcote? 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 wasps’ 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 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.

  CLOWN (to the Old Shepherd) 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’.

  OLD 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?

  OLD SHEPHERD Ay, sir.

  AUTOLYCUS Well, give me the moiety. (To the Clown) 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.