And then for the land-service,-to see how the bear tor out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said his name was Antigonus, a nobleman : but to make an end of the ship,- to see how the sea flap-dragoned it. -but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them; and how the poor gentleman roared, and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than the sea or weather.

Shep. Name of mercy, when was this, boy?

Clo. Now, now; I have not winked since I saw these sights the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman,- he's at it now.

Shep. Would I had been by, to have helped the old man! Clo. I would you had been by the ship-side, to have helped her there your charity would have lacked footing. Shep. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself: thou mettest with things dying, I with things new-born. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's child! look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open't. So, let's see:· it was told me I should be rich by the fairies; this is some changeling: open't. What's within, boy?

Clo. You're a made old man: if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!

We

Shep. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so; up with't, keep it close: home, home, the next way. are lucky, boy; and to be so still, requires nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go: --come, good boy, the next way home.

Clo. Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten they are never curst, but when they are hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury it.

Shep. That's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that which is left of him what he is, fetch me to the sight of him.

Clo. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him the ground.

Shep. 'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds on't.

[Exeunt.

ACT IV.

Enter TIME, as Chorus.

Time. I,— that please some, try all; both joy and terror
Of good and bad; that make and unfold error,-
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
To me or my swift passage, that I slide
O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap; since it is in my power
To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour
To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass
The same I am, ere ancient'st order was,
Or what is now receiv'd: I witness to

The times that brought them in; so shall I do
To the freshest things now reigning, and make stale
The glistering of this present, as my tale

Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,
I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing
As you had slept between. Leontes leaving,
Th'effects of his fond jealousies so grieving
That he shuts up himself,-imagine me,
Gentle spectators, that I now may be
In fair Bohemia; and remember well;
I mention'd a son o' the king's, which Florizel
I now name to you; and with speed so pace
To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace
Equal with wondering: what of her ensues,
I list not prophesy; but let Time's news
Be known when 'tis brought forth:

daughter,

a shepherd's

And what to her adheres, which follows after,
Is th' argument of Time. Of this allow,
If ever you have spent time worse ere now;
If never, yet that Time himself doth say
He wishes earnestly you never may.

(Exit.

SCENE I. Bohemia. A room in the palace of

POLIXENES.

Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO.

Pol. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importu

hate: 'tis a sickness denying thee any thing; a death to grant this.

Cam. It is sixteen years since I saw my country: though I have, for the most part, been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to think so,— which is another spur to my departure.

Pol. As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy services by leaving me now: the need I have of thee, thine own goodness hath made; better not to have had thee than thus to want thee: thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I have not enough considered,— as too much I cannot, to be more thankful to thee shall be my study; and my profit therein, the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country Sicilia, prithee speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou callest him, and reconciled king, my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved their virtues.

Cam. Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I have missingly noted, he is of late much retired from court, and is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.

Pol. I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care; so far, that I have eyes under my service which look upon his removedness; from whom I have this intelligence: - that he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbors, is grown into an unspeakable estate,

Cam. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note: the report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage. Pol. That's likewise part of my intelligence; but I fear

the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt ac< company us to the place: where we will, not appearing what we are, have some question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Prithee, be my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

Cam. I willingly obey your command.

Pol. My best Camillo !- We must disguise ourselves.

[Exeunt. SCENE II. The same. A road near the Shepherd's cottage. Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.

When daffodils begin to peer,

With, hey! the doxy over the dale,—
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year,
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,―
With, hey! the sweet birds, O how they sing!-
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;

For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

The lark, that tirra-lirra chants.

With, hey! with, hey! the thrush and the jay,—
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay.

I have served Prince Florizel, and, in my time, wore three-pile; but now I am out of service:

But shall I go mourn for that, my dear? [Singing.
The pale moon shines by night :
And when I wander here and there,
I then do most go right.

If tinkers may have leave to live,

And bear the sow-skin budget,
Then my account I well may give,
And in the stocks avouch it.

My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of

unconsidered trifles. With die and drab I purchased this caparison; and my revenue is the silly-cheat: galows and knock are too powerful on the highway; beating and hanging are terrors to me; for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it.— A prize! a prize! Enter Clown.

Clo. Let me see; every 'leven wether tods; every tod yields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?

Aut. [aside] If the springe hold, the cock's mine.
Clo. I cannot do't without counters.

Let me see;

what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar; five pound of currants; rice what will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers, three-man songmen all, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases; but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron, to color the warden-pies; mace; dates,-- none, that's out of my note; nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I may beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' the sun.

Aut. O that ever I was born!

Clo. I' the name of me,—

[Groveling on the ground.

Aut. O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death!

Clo. Alack, poor soul! thou has need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off.

Aut. O, sir, the loathsomeness of them offend me more than the stripes I have received, which are mighty ones and millions.

Clo. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter.

Aut. I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon

me.

Clo. What, by a horseman or a footman?

Aut. A footman, sweet sir, a footman.

Clo. Indeed, he should be a footman by the garments