I am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd,
But nothing alter'd: What I was, I am :
More straining on, for plucking back; not fol-
My leash unwillingly.
[lowing

Cam. Gracious my lord,

You know your father's temper: at this time
He will allow no speech,-which, I do guess,
You do not purpose to him;-and as hardly
Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear:
Then, till the fury of his highness settle,
Come not before him.

Flo. I not purpose it.

I think, Camillo.

Cum. Even he, my lord.

Per. How often have I told you, 'twould be How often said, my dignity would last [thus? But till 'twere known?

Flo. It cannot fail, but by

The violation of my faith; And then

Let nature crush the sides o'the earth together, And mar the seeds within!-Lift up thy looks:

From my succession wipe me, father! I
Am heir to my affection.

Cam. Be advis'd.

Flo. I am; and by my fancy: if my reason Will thereto be obedient, I have reason; If not, my senses, better pleas'd with madness, Do bid it welcome.

Cam. This is desperate, Sir.

Flo. So call it: but it does fulfil my vow; I needs must think it honesty. Camillo, Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may Be thereat glean'd; for all the sun sees, or The close earth wombs, or the profound seas

hide

In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath
To this my fair belov'd: Therefore, I pray you,
As you have e'er been my father's honour'd
friend,
[not
When he shall miss me, (as, in faith, I mean
To see him any more,) cast your good counsels
Upon his passion; Let myself and fortune,
Tug for the time to come. This you may know,
And so deliver,-I am put to sea
With her, whom here I cannot hold on shore;
And, most opportune to our need, I have
A vessel rides fast by, but not prepar'd
For this design. What course I mean to hold,
Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor
Concern me the reporting.
Cam. O, my lord,

I would your spirit were easier for advice,
Or stronger for your need.
Flo. Hark, Perdita.-

I'll hear you by and by.

Cam. He's irremovable,

[Takes her aside. [To CAMILLO.

Resolv'd for flight: Now were I happy, if
His going I could frame to serve my turn;
Save him from danger, do him love and honour;
Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia,
And that unhappy king, my master, whom
I so much thirst to see.

Flo. Now, good Camillo,

I am so fraught with curious business, that I leave out ceremony.

Cam. Sir, I think,

[Going.

You have heard of my poor services, i'the love That I have borne your father?

Flo. Very nobly

Have you deserv'd: it is my father's music, To speak your deeds; not little of his care To have them recompens'd as thought on. Cam. 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 May suffer alteration,) on mine honour I'll point you where you shall have such receiving [may As shall become your highness; where you Enjoy your mistress; (from the whom, I see, There's no disjunction to be made, but by, As heavens forefend! your ruin:) marry her; And (with my best endeavours, in your absence,)

Your discontenting* father strive to qualify, And bring him up to liking.

Flo. How, Camillo,

May this, almost a miracle, be done?
That I may call thee something more than man,
And, after that, trust to thee.

Cam. Have you thought on
A place, whereto you'll go?
Flo. Not any yet:

But as the unthought-on accident is guilty
To what we wildly do; so we profess
Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies
Of every wind that blows.

Cam. Then list to me:
[purpose,
This follows, if you will not change your
But undergo this flight;-Make for Sicilia;
And there present yourself, and your fair

princess,

(For so, I see, she must be,) 'fore Leontes; She shall be habited, as it becomes The partner of your bed. Methinks, I see Leontes, opening his free arms, and weeping His welcomes forth: asks thee, the son, forgiveness, [hands 'twere i'the father's person: kisses the Of your fresh princess: o'er and o'er divides [one Twixt his unkindness and his kindness; the He chides to hell, and bids the other grow, Faster than thought, or time.

As

him

Flo. Worthy Camillo,
What colour for my visitation shall I
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: [ting,t

The which shall point you forth at every sitWhat you must say; that he shall not perceive,

But that you have your father's bosom there, And speak his very heart.

Flo. I am bound to you: There is some sap in this.

Cam. A course more promising

Than a wild dedication of yourselves [certain,
To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores; most
To miseries enough: no hope to help you;
But, as you shake off one, to take another:
Nothing so certain as your anchors: who
Do their best office, if they can but stay you
Where you'll be loath to be: Besides, you
Prosperity's the very bond of love; [know,
Whose fresh complexion and whose heart to-
Affliction alters.

Per. One of these is true:

[gether

Shep. Nay, but hear me. Clo. Nay, but hear me. Shep. Go to then.

Clo. 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 sacred things, all but what she has with her: This being done, let the law go whistle; I warrant you.

Shep. 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 brotherin-law.

Clo. Indeed, brother-in-law was the furthest off you could have been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer, by I know how much an ounce.

Aut. Very wisely; puppies! [Aside. Shep. Well; let us to the king; there is that in this fardel,* will make him scratch his beard.

Aut. I know not what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master.

Clo. 'Pray heartily he be at palace. Aut. 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?

fantastical; a great man, I'll warrant; I know, by the picking on's teeth.

Aut. The fardel there? what's i'the fardel? Wherefore that box?

Shep. 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 the speech of him. Aut. Age, thou hast lost thy labour.

Shep. Why, Sir?

Aut. The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy, and air himself: For, if thou be'st capable of things serious, thou must know, the king is full of grief.

Shep. So 'tis said, Sir; about his son, that should have married a shepherd's daughter.

Aut. 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.

Clo. Think you so, Sir?

Aut. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy, and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane* to him, though reinoved 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 sheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.

Clo. Has the old man e'er a son, Sir, do you

Clo. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the

manner.

Shep. Are you a courtier, an't like you, Sir? Aut. Whether it like me, or no, I am a courtier. See'st 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 toze¶ from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier, capa-pè; and one that will either push on, or pluck back thy business there: whereupon I command thee to open thy affair.

Shep. My business, Sir, is to the king.
Aut. What advocate hast thou to him?
Shep. I know not, an't like you.

Clo. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say, you have none.

Shep. None, Sir? I have no pheasant, cock, nor hen.

Aut. How bless'd are we, that are not simple men!

Yet nature might have made me as these are, Therefore I'll not disdain.

Clo. This cannot be but a great courtier. Shep. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.

Clo. He seems to be the more noble in being

Clo. 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 stoned, and flayed alive.

Shep. 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 till I bring it you. Aut. After I have done what I promised? Shep. Ay, Sir.

man in

pawn,

Aut. Well give me the moiety :-Are you a party in this business?

Clo. In some sort, Sir: but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.

Aut. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son: -Hang him, he'll be made an example. Clo. Comfort, good comfort: we must to the * Related.

+ The hottest day foretold in the alınanack. Being handsomely bribed,

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.

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

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

Shep. Let's before, as he bids us: he was provided to do us good.

[Exeunt SHEPHERD and CLOWN. Aut. 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 oflicious; for I am proof against that title, and what shame else belongs to't: To him will I present them, there may be mat[Exit.

ter in it.

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
With them, forgive yourself.
[evil;

Leon. 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
Bred his hopes out of.
[man

Paul. 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.

Leon. 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 my tongue, as in my thought: Now, good
Say so but seldom.

Cleo. Not at all, good lady:

[now,

You might have spoken a thousand things that

would

Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd Your kindness better.

Paul. 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 dame; 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,-

* At rest, dead.

To bless the bed of majesty again With a sweet fellow to't?

Paul. There is none wortny,
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 tenour 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.-Care not for
issue;
[To LEONTES.
The crown will find an heir: Great Alexan-
der

Left his to the worthiest; so his successor
Was like to be the best.

Leon. Good Paulina,-
Who hast the memory of Hermione,
I know, in honour,-O, that ever I [now,
Had squar'd me to thy counsel!-then, even
I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes;
Have taken treasure from her lips,-
Paul. And left them
More rich, for what they yielded.
Leon. Thou speak'st truth.

[worse, No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one And better us'd, would make her sainted spirit Again possess her corps; and, on this stage, Where we offenders now appear,) soul-vex'd, Begin, And why to me?

She had just cause.

Paul. Had she such power,

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

Paul. I should so:

Her eye; and tell me, for what dull part in't Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid you mark You chose her: then I'd shriek, that even your

ears

Paul. O Hermione,

[I think,

As every present time doth boast itself
Above a better, gone; so must thy grave
Give way to what's seen now. Sir, you your-
self

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
To say, you have seen a better. [ebb'd,

Gent. 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 such a
creature,

Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
Of all professors else: make proselytes
Of who she but bid follow.

Paul. How? not women?

Gent. Women will love her, that she is

woman

More worth than any man; men, that she is The rarest of all women.

Leon. Go, Cleomenes;

a

Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends, Bring them to our embracement.-Still 'tis strange,

[Exeunt CLEOMENES, LORDS, and GENTLEMEN. He thus should steal upon us.

Paul. Had our prince, [pair'd (Jewel of children,) seen this hour, he had Well with this lord; there was not full a month Between their births.

Leon. Pythee, no more; 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.-
Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA,
and Attendants.

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 you fair princess, goddess!-Ó, 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 upon.

Flo. By his command

Have I here touch'd Sicilia: and from him Give you all greetings, that a king, a friend, Can send his brother: and, but infirmity

I. e. Than the corse of Hermione, the subject of your writing

(Which waits upon worn times,) hath something seiz'd

[his

His wish'd ability, he had himself
The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and
Measur'd, to look upon you; whom he loves
(He bade me say so,) more than all the scep-
And those that bear them, living. [tres,

Leon. 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 [ther,
Of my behind-hand slackness!-Welcome hi
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
The adventure of her person?
[less

Flo. Good my lord, She came from Libya.

Leon. Where the warlike Smalus, That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd, and lov'd? Flo. Most royal Sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter

[thence His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: (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.

Leon. 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 Such goodly things as you?

Enter a LORD.

Lord. Most noble Sir,

[on,

That, which I shall report, will bear no credit,
Were not the proof so uigh. Please you, great
Sir,

Bohemia greets you from himself, by me:
Desires you to attacht his son; who has
Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with
(His dignity and duty both cast off,)
A shepherd's daughter.

[hin.

Leon. Where's Bohemia? speak. Lord. Here in the city; I now came from 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.

Flo. 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. Leon. Who? Camilio?

Lord. Camillo, Sir; I spake with him; who