The Winter's Tale (The Unabridged Play) + The Classic Biography (eBook)

[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 received: 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
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 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:—a shepherd’s daughter,
And what to her adheres, which follows after,
Is the 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.]

[Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO.]
POLIXENES
I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: ‘tis a sickness denying thee anything; a death to grant this.

CAMILLO
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.

POLIXENES
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 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.

CAMILLO
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.

POLIXENES
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 unspeakable estate.

CAMILLO
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.

POLIXENES
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.

CAMILLO
I willingly obey your command.

POLIXENES
My best Camillo!—We must disguise ourselves.
[Exeunt.]

[Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.]
AUTOLYCUS
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 serv’d 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,
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, I as 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: gallows 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.]
CLOWN
Let me see:—every ‘leven wether tods; every tod yields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?

AUTOLYCUS
[Aside.] If the springe hold, the cock’s mine.

CLOWN
I cannot do’t without counters.—Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheepshearing 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 song-men 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 colour 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.’

AUTOLYCUS
[Grovelling on the ground.] O that ever I was born!

CLOWN
I’ the name of me,—

AUTOLYCUS
O, help me, help me! Pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death!

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

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

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

AUTOLYCUS
I am robb’d, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta’en from me, and these detestable things put upon me.

CLOWN
What, by a horseman or a footman?

AUTOLYCUS
A footman, sweet sir, a footman.

CLOWN
Indeed, he should be a footman, by the garments he has left with thee: if this be a horseman’s coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand, I’ll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.
[Helping him up.]
AUTOLYCUS
O, good sir, tenderly, O!

CLOWN
Alas, poor soul!

AUTOLYCUS
O, good sir, softly, good sir: I fear, sir, my shoulder blade is out.

CLOWN
How now! canst stand?

AUTOLYCUS
Softly, dear sir! [Picks his pocket.] good sir, softly; you ha’ done me a charitable office.

CLOWN
Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.

AUTOLYCUS
No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going; I shall there have money or anything I want: offer me no money, I pray you; that kills my heart.

CLOWN
What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?

AUTOLYCUS
A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with troll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the prince; I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.

CLOWN
His vices, you would say; there’s no virtue whipped out of the court: they cherish it, to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but abide.

AUTOLYCUS
Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he hath been...