Preserver of my father, now of me;
The medicin of our house!-how shall we do?

We are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son;

Nor shall appear in Sicily

Cam. My lord,

Fear none of this: I think, you know, my fortunes

Do all lie there: it shall be so my care

To have you royally appointed, as if

The scene you play, were mine. For instance, sir,

That you may know you shall not want,-one word.

Enter AUTOLYCUS.

[They talk aside.

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-tie, 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 picture; and, what I saw, to my good use, I remembered. 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 codpiece 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 choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army.

[CAM. FLOR. and PER. come forward.

Cam. Nay, but my letters by this means being there So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.

Flo. And those that you'll procure from king LeontesCam. Shall satisfy your father.

Per. Happy be you!

[5] A pomander was a little ball made of perfumes, and worn in the pocket of about the neck, to prevent infection in times of plague. GREY.

[6] This alludes to beads often sold by the Romanists, as made particularly efficacious by the touch of some relic. JOHNSON.

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[Seeing AUTOLYCUS.

All, that you speak, shews fair.

Cam. Who have we here?

-We'll make an instrument of this; omit
Nothing may give us aid.

Aut. If they have overheard me now, -why, hanging.

[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

flayed 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 Aut. exchange garments.

-Fortunate mistress, -let my prophecy

Come home to you!-you must retire yourself
Into some covert: take your sweetheart's hat,
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 you,) to ship-board
Get undescried.

Per. I see, the play so lies,

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.

Cam. Nay, you shall have no hat :-
Come, lady, come. -Farewell, my friend.

'7] i. e. something over and above, or, as we now say, something to boot. JOHN.

Aut. Adieu, sir.

Flo. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot?

Pray you, a word.

[They converse apart.

Cam. What I do next, shall be, to tell the king [Aside. 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 th' sea-side.
Cam. The swifter speed, the better.

[Exe. FLO. PER. and CAM. Aut. I understand the business, I hear it: To have an 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 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 heels. If I thought it were not a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal, I would do't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my profession.

Enter Clown and Shepherd. 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 other way, but to tell the king she's a changeling, and none of your flesh and blood.

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 secret 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

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neither to his father, nor to me, to go about to make me the king's brother-in-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 pedler'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 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 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. 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. 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 toze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier, cap-a-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,

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

Aut. The fardel there? what's i' th' 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, tho' 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 1: 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 like you, sir?

Aut. 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

[2] It seems that to pick the teeth was, at this time, a mark of some pretension to greatness or elegance. JOHNSON.

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VOL. IV.

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