And so deliver,-I am put to sea With her, whom here I cannot hold on shore; For this design. What course I mean to hold, Cam. O, my lord, I would your spirit were easier for advice, Flo. Hark, Perdita.[Takes her aside. I'll hear you by and by. Cam. [To Camillo. He's irremovable, Resolv'd for flight: Now were I happy, if His going I could frame to serve my turn; And that unhappy king, my master, whom Flo. I am so fraught with curious business, that I leave out ceremony. Cam. Now, good Camillo, [Going. Sir, I think, You have heard of my poor services, i'the love Flo. Well, my lord, If you may please to think I love the king; And, through him, what is nearest to him, which is Your gracious self; embrace but my direction (If your more ponderous and settled project I'll point you where you shall have such receiving Aud (with my best endeavours, in your absence), Flo. How, Camillo, May this, almost a miracle, be done? That I may call thee something more than man, Cam. A place whereto you'll go? Flo. Have you thought on Not any yet: But as the unthought-on accident + is guilty Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flics Cam. 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 The partner of your bed. Methinks, I see Flo. Hold up before him? Cam. 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: For discontented. + This unthought-on accident is the unexpected discovery made by Polixenes, The which shall point you forth at every sitting*, Flo. There is some sap in this. Cam. I am bound to you: A course more promising Than a wild dedication of yourselves To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores; most certain, To miseries enough: no hope to help you; Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together Per. One of these is true: I think, affiction may subdue the cheek, : Cum. Yea, say you so? There shall not, at your father's house, these seven years, Be born another such. Flo. My good Camillo, She is as forward of her breeding, as I'the rear of birth. Flo. My prettiest Perdita. But, O, the thorus we stand upon !-Camillo,- The medicin of our house!-how shall we do? * The council-days were called the sittings. We are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son ; Cam. My lord, Fear none of this: I think, you know, my fortunes To have you royally appointed, as if Enter Autolycus. Aut. 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 riband, glass, pomander*, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tye, 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 pie. ture; and, what I saw, to my good use, I remem bered. 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 cod-piece of a purse; I would have filed keys off, that hung in chains: no hearing, no feeling, 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 whoobub against his daughter and the king's son, and scared my choughst from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army. A little ball made of perfumes, and worn to prevent infection in times of plague. t Birds. [Camillo, Florizel, and Perdita, come forward. Cam. Nay, but my letters by this means being there So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt. Cam. Shall satisfy your father. Per. All, that you speak, shows fair. Cam. Happy be you! Who have we here? [Seeing Autolycus. We'll make an instrument of this; omit Aut. If they have overheard me now,hanging. -why [Aside. Cam. How now, good fellow? Why shakest thou so? Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee. Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir. Cam. 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 instantly (thou must think there's necessity in't), and change garments with this gentleman: Though the pennyworth, on his side, be the worst, yet hold thee, there's some boot*. Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir:-I know ye well enough. [Aside. Cam. Nay, pr'ythee, despatch: the gentleman is half flayedt already. Aut. Are you in earnest, sir?-I smell the trick of it. Flo. Despatch, I pr'ythee. [Aside Aut. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with conscience take it. Cam. Unbuckle, unbuckle. [Flo. and Autol. exchange garments. Fortunate mistress,-let my prophecy * Something over and above. ↑ Stripped. |