Leon. You are liars all.

1 Lord. 'Beseech your highness, give us
better credit:

We have always truly serv'd you; and beseech
So to esteem of us: And on our knees we beg,
(As recompense of our dear services,
Past, and to come,) that you do change this
purpose;

Which, being so horrible, so bloody, must
Lead on to some foul issue: We all kneel.

Leon. I am a feather for each wind that
blows:-

Shall I live on, to see this bastard kneel
And call me father? Better burn it now,
Than curse it then. But, be it; let it live:
It shall not neither.-You, Sir, come you
hither;
[To ANTIGONUS.
You, that have been so tenderly officious
With lady Margery, your midwife, there,
To save this bastard's life :-for 'tis a bastard,
So sure as this beard's grey,-what will you
adventure

To save this brat's life?

Ant. Any thing, my lord,
That my ability may undergo,

And nobleness impose: at least, thus much;
I'll pawn the little blood which I have left,
To save the innocent: any thing possible.
Leon. It shall be possible: Swear by this

sword*

Thou wilt perform my bidding.

Ant. I will, my lord.

287

Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice!
How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly
It was i'the offering!

Cleo. But, of all, the burst

And the ear-deafening voice o'the oracle,
Kin to Jove's thunder, so surpris'd my sense,
That I was nothing.

Prove as successful to the queen,--O, be't so!-
Dion. If the event o'the journey,
As it hath been to us, rare, pleasant, speedy,
The time is worth the use on't."

Cleo. Great Apollo,

Leon. Mark, and perform it; (seest thou?) Turn all to the best! These proclamations,

for the fail

Of any point in't shall not only be
Death to thyself, but to thy lewd-tongu'd wife;
Whom, for this time, we pardon. We enjoin

thee,

As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry
This female bastard hence; and that thou bear

it

up.

Ant. I swear to do this, though a present
death

Had been more merciful.-Come on, poor babe:
Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and
ravens,
[say,
To be thy nurses! Wolves, and bears, they
Casting their savageness aside, have done
Like offices of pity.-Sir, be prosperous [ing,
In more than this deed doth require! and bless-
Against this cruelty, fight on thy side,
Poor thing, condemn'd to loss!
[Exit, with the Child.
Leon. No, I'll not rear

Another's issue.

1 Atten. Please your highness, posts, From those you sent to the oracle, are come An hour since: Cleomenes and Dion, Being well arriv'd from Delphos, are both Hasting to the court. [landed

1 Lord. So please you, Sir, their speed Hath been beyond account. Leon. Twenty-three days [tels, They have been absent: "Tis good speed; fore

It was anciently a practice to swear by the cross at the hilt of a sword.

+I. e. Commit it to some place as a stranger.

So forcing faults upon Hermione,
I little like.

[oracle,

Will clear, or end, the business: When the
Dion. The violent carriage of it
(Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up,)
Event then will rush to knowledge.Go,—
Shall the contents discover, something rare,

fresh horses;

And gracious be the issue!

[Exeunt.

Even pushes 'gainst our heart: The party tried,
The daughter of a king; our wife; and one
Of us too much belov'd.-Let us be clear'd
Of being tyrannous, since we so openly
Proceed in justice; which shall have due

Leon. Read the indictment.

Offi. Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes, king of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in committing adultery with Polixenes, king of Bohemia; and conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign lord the king, thy royal husband; the pretence; whereof being by circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of a true subject, didst counsel and aid them, for their better safety, to fly away by night.

* L. e. Our journey has recompensed us the time we spent in it. + Equal + Scheme laid.

Her. Since what I am to say, must be but | For as Which contradicts my accusation; and [that The testimony on my part, no other But what comes from myself; it shall scarce boot me

May walk again: if such thing be, thy mother
Appear'd to me last night; for ne'er was dream
So like a waking. To me comes a creature,
Sometimes her head on one side, some another;
I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,
So fill'd, and so becoming: in pure white robes,
Like very sanctity, she did approach
My cabin where I lay: thrice bow'd before me;
And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes
Became two spouts: the fury spent, anon
Did this break from her: Good Antigonus,
Since fute, against thy better disposition,
Hath made thy person for the thrower-out
Of my poor habe, according to thine oath,-
Places remote enough are in Bohemia,
There weep, and leave it crying; and, for the babe
Is counted lost for ever, Perdita,

I pr'ythee, call't; for this ungentle business,
Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see
Thy wife Paulina more:-and so, with shrieks,
She melted into air. Affrighted much,
I did in time collect myself; and thought
This was so, and no slumber. Dreams are toys:
Yet, for this once, yea, superstitiously,
I will be squar'd by this. I do believe,
Hermione hath suffer'd death; and that
Apollo would, this being indeed the issue
Of king Polixenes, it should here be laid,
Either for life, or death, upon the earth
Of its right father.-Blossom, speed thee well!
[Laying down the Child.
There lie; and there thy character: there
these;
[Laying down a Bundle.
Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee,
pretty,
And still rest thine.- -The storm begins:-
Poor wretch,

That, for thy mother's fault, art thus expos'd
To loss, and what may follow!-Weep I can-

not,

But my heart bleeds: and most accurs'd am I,
To be by oath enjoin'd to this.-Farewell!
The day frowns more and more; thou art like

to have

A lullaby too rough: I never saw [mour?-
The heavens so dim by day. A savage cla-
Well may I get aboard!- This is the chase;
I am gone for ever. [Exit, pursued by a Bear.

Enter an old SHEPHERD.

Shep. I would, there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty; or that youth would sleep out the rest: for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, Wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.Hark you now!-Would any but these boiled

brains of nineteen, and two-and-twenty, hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep; which, I fear, the wolf will sooner find, than the master: if any where I have them, 'tis by the sea side, browzing on

The writing afterward discovered with Perdita.

ivy. Good luck, an't be thy will! what have we here? [Taking up the Child.] Mercy on's, a barne; a very pretty barne! A boy, or a child,t I wonder? A pretty one; a very pretty one: Sure, some scape: though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door-work: they were warmer that got this, than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he hallaed but even now. Whoa, ho hoa!

Enter CLOWN.

Clo. Hilloa, loa!

thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, Shep. What, art so near? If thou'lt see a

come hither. What ailest thou, man?

Clo. I have seen two such sights, by sea, and it is now the sky; betwixt the firmament and by land;-but I am not to say, it is a sea, for it, you cannot thrust a bodkin's point.

Shep. Why, boy, how is it?

Clo. I would, you did but see how it chases, how it rages, how it takes up the shore! but that's not to the point: O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em: now the ship boring the moon with her main-mast; and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land service,-To how he cried to me for help, and said, his name see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone; was Antigonus, a nobleman:-But to make an dragoned; it:-but, first, how the poor souls end of the ship:-to see how the sea flaproared, 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?
. Now, now; I have not winked since I
under water, nor the bear half dined on the
saw these sights: the men are not yet cold
gentleman; he's at it now.

the old man!
Shep. Would I had been by, to have helped

to have helped her; there your charity would
Clo. I would you had been by the ship side,
have lacked footing.
[Aside.

look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself; thou
Shep. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but
born.
met'st with things dying, I with things new
Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a
bearing-cloths 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
What's within boy?
fairies: this is some changeling :-open't:

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

Shep. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up with it, keep it close; home, home, the next way. We are lucky, boy; and to be so still, requires nothing but secrecy.-Let my sheep go:-Come, good boy, the next way

home.

I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleClo. Go you the next way with your findings; man, and how much he hath eaten: they are

* Child. + Female infant. + Swallowed. The mantle in which a child was carried to be baptized. Some child left behind by the fairies, in the room of one which they had stolen. ¶ Nearest.

make stale

and

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 grow
ing,

As you had slept between. Leontes leaving
The 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 mentioned 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 wond'ring: What of her ensues,
I list not prophecy; but let Time's news
Be known, when 'tis brought forth :-a shep-
herd's daughter,

And what to her adheres, which follows after,
Is the arguments 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.
SCENE I.-The same.-A Room in the Palace
of POLIXENES.

[Exit.

Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO. Pol. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 'tis a sickness, denying thee any thing; a death, to grant this.

Cam. It is fifteen 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, pr'ythee speak no more: whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou call'st 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 saw'st thou the prince Florizel my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue pot 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 neighbours, is grown into an unspeak

able 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 accompany 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. Pr'ythee, 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
[Exeunt.

ourselves.

SCENE II.-The same.-A Road near the
Shepherd's Cottage.

Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.

peer,
When daffodils begin to
With, heigh! the doxy over the dale,-
Why, then comes in the sweet o'the year;

For the red blood reigns in the winter's pule.§
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, tirra-lirra chants,

I

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

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?
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;

Friendly offices. + Observed at intervals. 1 Talk
I. e. The spring blood reigns over the parts lately un-
der the dominion of winter.

|| Thievish.

Doxics.

** Rich velvet.