Part 6

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.

SHEPHERD. Nay, but hear me.

CLOWN. Nay, but hear me.

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.

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 how much an ounce.

AUTOLYCUS. [_Aside._] Very wisely, puppies!

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. [_Takes off his false beard._] How now, rustics! whither are you bound?

SHEPHERD. To the 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.

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? Think’st thou, for that I insinuate, or toaze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier _cap-a-pe_, and one that will either push on or pluck back thy business there. Whereupon I command thee to open thy affair.

SHEPHERD. My business, sir, is to the king.

AUTOLYCUS. What advocate hast thou to him?

SHEPHERD. I know not, an ’t like you.

CLOWN. Advocate’s the court-word for a pheasant. Say you have none.

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

AUTOLYCUS. How bless’d 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.

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?

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.

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.

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

AUTOLYCUS. 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?

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 wasp’s nest; then stand till he be three quarters and a dram dead; then recovered again with aqua-vitæ 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. 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: “ston’d” and “flayed alive”.

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?

SHEPHERD. Ay, sir.

AUTOLYCUS. Well, give me the moiety. 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.

AUTOLYCUS. O, that’s the case of the shepherd’s son. Hang him, he’ll be made an example.

CLOWN. Comfort, good comfort! We must to the king and show our strange sights. He must know ’tis none of your daughter nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does when the business is performed, and remain, as he says, your pawn till it be brought you.

AUTOLYCUS. I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on the right-hand. I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you.

CLOWN. We are blessed in this man, as I may say, even blessed.

SHEPHERD. Let’s before, as he bids us. He was provided to do us good.

[_Exeunt Shepherd and Clown._]

AUTOLYCUS. If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would not suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occasion: gold, and a means to do the prince my master good; which who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him. If he think it fit to shore them again and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far officious; for I am proof against that title and what shame else belongs to ’t. To him will I present them. There may be matter in it.

[_Exit._]

## ACT V

## SCENE I. Sicilia. A Room in the palace of Leontes.

Enter Leontes, Cleomenes, Dion, Paulina and others.

CLEOMENES Sir, you have done enough, and have perform’d A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make Which you have not redeem’d; indeed, paid down More penitence than done trespass: at the last, Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil; With them, forgive yourself.

LEONTES. Whilst I remember Her and her virtues, I cannot forget My blemishes in them; and so still think of The wrong I did myself: which was so much That heirless it hath made my kingdom, and Destroy’d the sweet’st companion that e’er man Bred his hopes out of.

PAULINA. True, too true, my lord. If, one by one, you wedded all the world, Or from the all that are took something good, To make a perfect woman, she you kill’d Would be unparallel’d.

LEONTES. I think so. Kill’d! She I kill’d! I did so: but thou strik’st me Sorely, to say I did: it is as bitter Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now, Say so but seldom.

CLEOMENES Not at all, good lady. You might have spoken a thousand things that would Have done the time more benefit and grac’d Your kindness better.

PAULINA. You are one of those Would have him wed again.

DION. If you would not so, You pity not the state, nor the remembrance Of his most sovereign name; consider little What dangers, by his highness’ fail of issue, May drop upon his kingdom, and devour Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy Than to rejoice the former queen is well? What holier than, for royalty’s repair, For present comfort, and for future good, To bless the bed of majesty again With a sweet fellow to ’t?

PAULINA. There is none worthy, Respecting her that’s gone. Besides, the gods Will have fulfill’d their secret purposes; For has not the divine Apollo said, Is ’t not the tenor of his oracle, That king Leontes shall not have an heir Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall, Is all as monstrous to our human reason As my Antigonus to break his grave And come again to me; who, on my life, Did perish with the infant. ’Tis your counsel My lord should to the heavens be contrary, Oppose against their wills. [_To Leontes._] Care not for issue; The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander Left his to th’ worthiest; so his successor Was like to be the best.

LEONTES. Good Paulina, Who hast the memory of Hermione, I know, in honour, O that ever I Had squar’d me to thy counsel! Then, even now, I might have look’d upon my queen’s full eyes, Have taken treasure from her lips,—

PAULINA. And left them More rich for what they yielded.

LEONTES. Thou speak’st truth. No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse, And better us’d, would make her sainted spirit Again possess her corpse, and on this stage, (Where we offenders now appear) soul-vexed, And begin “Why to me?”

PAULINA. Had she such power, She had just cause.

LEONTES. She had; and would incense me To murder her I married.

PAULINA. I should so. Were I the ghost that walk’d, I’d bid you mark Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in ’t You chose her: then I’d shriek, that even your ears Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow’d Should be “Remember mine.”

LEONTES. Stars, stars, And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife; I’ll have no wife, Paulina.

PAULINA. Will you swear Never to marry but by my free leave?

LEONTES. Never, Paulina; so be bless’d my spirit!

PAULINA. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.

CLEOMENES You tempt him over-much.

PAULINA. Unless another, As like Hermione as is her picture, Affront his eye.

CLEOMENES Good madam,—

PAULINA. I have done. Yet, if my lord will marry,—if you will, sir, No remedy but you will,—give me the office To choose you a queen: she shall not be so young As was your former, but she shall be such As, walk’d your first queen’s ghost, it should take joy To see her in your arms.

LEONTES. My true Paulina, We shall not marry till thou bid’st us.

PAULINA. That Shall be when your first queen’s again in breath; Never till then.

Enter a Servant.

SERVANT. One that gives out himself Prince Florizel, Son of Polixenes, with his princess (she The fairest I have yet beheld) desires access To your high presence.

LEONTES. What with him? he comes not Like to his father’s greatness: his approach, So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us ’Tis not a visitation fram’d, but forc’d By need and accident. What train?

SERVANT. But few, And those but mean.

LEONTES. His princess, say you, with him?

SERVANT. Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think, That e’er the sun shone bright on.

PAULINA. O Hermione, As every present time doth boast itself Above a better gone, so must thy grave Give way to what’s seen now! Sir, you yourself Have said and writ so,—but your writing now Is colder than that theme,—‘She had not been, Nor was not to be equall’d’; thus your verse Flow’d with her beauty once; ’tis shrewdly ebb’d, To say you have seen a better.

SERVANT. Pardon, madam: The one I have almost forgot,—your pardon;— The other, when she has obtain’d your eye, Will have your tongue too. This is a creature, Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal Of all professors else; make proselytes Of who she but bid follow.

PAULINA. How! not women?

SERVANT. Women will love her that she is a woman More worth than any man; men, that she is The rarest of all women.

LEONTES. Go, Cleomenes; Yourself, assisted with your honour’d friends, Bring them to our embracement.

[_Exeunt Cleomenes and others._]

Still, ’tis strange He thus should steal upon us.

PAULINA. Had our prince, Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair’d Well with this lord. There was not full a month Between their births.

LEONTES. Prithee no more; cease; Thou know’st He dies to me again when talk’d of: sure, When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches Will bring me to consider that which may Unfurnish me of reason. They are come.

Enter Florizel, Perdita, Cleomenes and others.

Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince; For she did print your royal father off, Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one, Your father’s image is so hit in you, His very air, that I should call you brother, As I did him, and speak of something wildly By us perform’d before. Most dearly welcome! And your fair princess,—goddess! O, alas! I lost a couple that ’twixt heaven and earth Might thus have stood, begetting wonder, as You, gracious couple, do! And then I lost,— All mine own folly,—the society, Amity too, of your brave father, whom, Though bearing misery, I desire my life Once more to look on him.

FLORIZEL. By his command Have I here touch’d Sicilia, and from him Give you all greetings that a king, at friend, Can send his brother: and, but infirmity, Which waits upon worn times, hath something seiz’d His wish’d ability, he had himself The lands and waters ’twixt your throne and his Measur’d, to look upon you; whom he loves, He bade me say so,—more than all the sceptres And those that bear them living.

LEONTES. O my brother,— Good gentleman!—the wrongs I have done thee stir Afresh within me; and these thy offices, So rarely kind, are as interpreters Of my behind-hand slackness! Welcome hither, As is the spring to the earth. And hath he too Expos’d this paragon to the fearful usage, At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune, To greet a man not worth her pains, much less Th’ adventure of her person?

FLORIZEL. Good, my lord, She came from Libya.

LEONTES. Where the warlike Smalus, That noble honour’d lord, is fear’d and lov’d?

FLORIZEL. Most royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter His tears proclaim’d his, parting with her: thence, A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross’d, To execute the charge my father gave me For visiting your highness: my best train I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss’d; Who for Bohemia bend, to signify Not only my success in Libya, sir, But my arrival, and my wife’s, in safety Here, where we are.

LEONTES. The blessed gods Purge all infection from our air whilst you Do climate here! You have a holy father, A graceful gentleman; against whose person, So sacred as it is, I have done sin, For which the heavens, taking angry note, Have left me issueless. And your father’s bless’d, As he from heaven merits it, with you, Worthy his goodness. What might I have been, Might I a son and daughter now have look’d on, Such goodly things as you!

Enter a Lord.

LORD. Most noble sir, That which I shall report will bear no credit, Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir, Bohemia greets you from himself by me; Desires you to attach his son, who has— His dignity and duty both cast off— Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with A shepherd’s daughter.

LEONTES. Where’s Bohemia? speak.

LORD. Here in your city; I now came from him. I speak amazedly, and it becomes My marvel and my message. To your court Whiles he was hast’ning—in the chase, it seems, Of this fair couple—meets he on the way The father of this seeming lady and Her brother, having both their country quitted With this young prince.

FLORIZEL. Camillo has betray’d me; Whose honour and whose honesty till now, Endur’d all weathers.

LORD. Lay ’t so to his charge. He’s with the king your father.

LEONTES. Who? Camillo?

LORD. Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now Has these poor men in question. Never saw I Wretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth; Forswear themselves as often as they speak. Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them With divers deaths in death.

PERDITA. O my poor father! The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have Our contract celebrated.

LEONTES. You are married?

FLORIZEL. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be. The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first. The odds for high and low’s alike.

LEONTES. My lord, Is this the daughter of a king?

FLORIZEL. She is, When once she is my wife.

LEONTES. That “once”, I see by your good father’s speed, Will come on very slowly. I am sorry, Most sorry, you have broken from his liking, Where you were tied in duty; and as sorry Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty, That you might well enjoy her.

FLORIZEL. Dear, look up: Though Fortune, visible an enemy, Should chase us with my father, power no jot Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir, Remember since you ow’d no more to time Than I do now: with thought of such affections, Step forth mine advocate. At your request My father will grant precious things as trifles.

LEONTES. Would he do so, I’d beg your precious mistress, Which he counts but a trifle.

PAULINA. Sir, my liege, Your eye hath too much youth in ’t: not a month ’Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes Than what you look on now.

LEONTES. I thought of her Even in these looks I made. [_To Florizel._] But your petition Is yet unanswer’d. I will to your father. Your honour not o’erthrown by your desires, I am friend to them and you: upon which errand I now go toward him; therefore follow me, And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord.

[_Exeunt._]

## SCENE II. The same. Before the Palace.

Enter Autolycus and a Gentleman.

AUTOLYCUS. Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?

FIRST GENTLEMAN. I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it: whereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber; only this, methought I heard the shepherd say he found the child.

AUTOLYCUS. I would most gladly know the issue of it.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. I make a broken delivery of the business; but the changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were very notes of admiration. They seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes. There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture; they looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed. A notable passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing could not say if th’ importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be. Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more.

Enter a Gentleman.

The news, Rogero?

SECOND GENTLEMAN. Nothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled: the king’s daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is broken out within this hour that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it. Here comes the Lady Paulina’s steward: he can deliver you more.

Enter a third Gentleman.

How goes it now, sir? This news, which is called true, is so like an old tale that the verity of it is in strong suspicion. Has the king found his heir?

THIRD GENTLEMAN. Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance. That which you hear you’ll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione’s, her jewel about the neck of it, the letters of Antigonus found with it, which they know to be his character; the majesty of the creature in resemblance of the mother, the affection of nobleness which nature shows above her breeding, and many other evidences proclaim her with all certainty to be the king’s daughter. Did you see the meeting of the two kings?

SECOND GENTLEMAN. No.

THIRD GENTLEMAN. Then you have lost a sight which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenance of such distraction that they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries “O, thy mother, thy mother!” then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his daughter with clipping her; now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings’ reigns. I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it, and undoes description to do it.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child?

THIRD GENTLEMAN. Like an old tale still, which will have matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear open. He was torn to pieces with a bear: this avouches the shepherd’s son, who has not only his innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. What became of his bark and his followers?