Flo. And those that you'll procure from King
Leontes—
Cam. Shall satisfy your father.
Per. Happy be you!
All that you speak shows fair.
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We'll make an instrument of this; omit
Nothing may give us aid.
Aut. If they have overheard me now, why,
hanging.
Cam. How now, good fellow!
why shakest thou so?
Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee.
615
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
a 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.
[Aside] I know ye well
enough.
Aut. Are you in earnest, sir? [Aside] I smell the
trick on't.
Flo. Dispatch, I prithee.
Aut. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with
630
conscience take it.
Cam. Unbuckle, unbuckle.
Fortunate mistress,—let my prophecy
Come home to ye!—you must retire yourself
Into some covert: take your sweetheart's hat
635
And pluck it o'er
your brows, muffle your face,
Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken
The truth of your own seeming; that you may—
For I do fear eyes
over—to shipboard
Get undescried.
Per. I see the play so lies
640
That I must bear a part.
Cam. No remedy.
Have you done there?
Flo. Should I now meet my father,
He would not call me son.
Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.
Flo. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!
645
Cam. [Aside] What I do next, shall be to tell the king
Of this escape and whither they are bound;
Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail
To force him after: in
whose company
I shall review Sicilia, for whose sight
I have a woman's longing.
Flo. Fortune speed us!
Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side.
Cam. The swifter speed the better.
[
Exeunt Florizel, Perdita, and Camillo.
Aut. I understand the business, I
hear it: to have an
655
open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a
cut-purse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work
for the other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust
man doth thrive. What an exchange had this been without
boot! What a boot is here with this exchange! Sure the
660
gods do this year connive at us, and we may do any thing
extempore. The prince himself is about a piece of iniquity,
stealing away from his father with his clog at his
king withal, I would not do't: I hold it the more knavery
665
to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my profession.
Aside, aside;
here is more matter for a hot brain: every
lane's end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a
careful man work.
Clo. See, see; what a man you are now! There is no
670
other way but to tell the king she's a changeling and none
of your flesh and blood.
675
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 secret things, all but what she
has with her: this being done, let the law go whistle: I
680
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
brother-in-law.
685
Clo. 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.
Shep. Well, let us to the king: there is that in this
690
fardel will make him scratch his beard.
Aut. [Aside] I know not what impediment this complaint
may be to the flight of my master.
Aut. [Aside] Though I am not naturally honest, I am
695
so sometimes by chance: let me pocket up my pedlar's
excrement.
[Takes off his false beard.] How now, rustics!
whither are you bound?
Shep. To the palace,
an it like your worship.
Aut. Your affairs there, what, with whom, the condition
700
of that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names,
your
ages, of what having, breeding, and any thing that is
fitting
to be known, discover.
Clo. We are but plain fellows, sir.
Aut. A lie; you are rough and hairy. Let me have no
705
lying: it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us
soldiers the lie: but we pay them for it with stamped coin,
Clo. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you
had not taken yourself with the
manner.
710
Shep. Are you a courtier,
an't like you, sir?
Aut. 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
715
court-contempt? Thinkest thou, for that I insinuate,
ortoaze 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.
720
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.
Aut. How
blessed are we that are not simple men!
Yet nature might have made me as these are,
Therefore I will not disdain.
Clo. This cannot
be but a great courtier.
730
Shep. His garments are rich, but he wears them not
handsomely.
Clo. He seems
to be the more noble in being 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
735
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.
Aut. 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.
745
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.
750
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 removed fifty times, shall all come under the hangman:
which though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An
755
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 hear, an't
760
like you, sir?
Ant. 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-vitae or some other hot infusion;
765
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,
770
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
775
suits, here is
man shall do it.
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
780
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 man in pawn till I bring it you.
Aut. After I have done what I promised?
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.
790
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 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
795
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 but
look upon the hedge and
follow you.
Clo. We are
blest in this man, as I may say, even
blest.
Shep. Let's before as he bids us: he was provided to
805
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 officious; for I am proof against that title and
what shame else belongs to't. To him will I present them:
815
there may be matter in it.
[Exit.