Which not to have done, I think, had been in Of great Apollo's priest; and that, since then,

Is within the reach.

+ They who have done like you.

Ill-starred; born under an inauspicious planet. 1.e. The degree of strength which it is customary to acquire before women are suffered to go abroad after child-bearing

You have not dar'd to break the holy seal,
Nor read the secrets in't.

Cleo. Dion. All this we swear.

Leon. Break up the seals, and read.

Offi. [Reads.] Hermione is chaste, Polixenes, blameless, Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant, his innocent babe truly begotten; and the king shall live without an heir, if that, which is lost, be not found. Lords. Now blessed be the great Apollo ! Her. Praised!

Leon. Hast thou read truth?

Offi. Ay, my load; even so

As it is here set down.

Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserv'd | Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er their me All tongues to talk their bitterest.

Thy wife Paulina more—and so, with shtické,
She melted into air. Affrighted macb,

Howe'er the business goes, you have made fault | I did in time collect myself; and thought
I'the boldness of your speecb.

Of what you should forget. Now, good my Which may, if fortune please, both breed are, liege,

ten and three-and-twenty; or that youth would sleep out the rest: for there is no hing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.. Hark you now!--Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen, and two-and-twenty, hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep; which, I fear, the wolf will sooner find, than the master: if any where I have them, 'tis by the sea side, browzing on ivy. Good luck, an't be thy will! what have we here? [Taking up the Child.] Mercy on's, a barne; a very pretty barne! A boy, or a child,t I wonder? a pretty one; a very pretty one: Sure, some scape: though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door-work: they were warmer that got this, than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he hallaed but even now. Whoa, họ hoa !

Enter CLOWN.

Clo. Hilloa, loa!

Shep. What, art so near? if thou'lt see a thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ailest thou, man?

Clo. I have seen two such sights, by sea, and by land; but I am not to say, it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the firmament and it, you cannot thrust a bodkin's point.

Shep. Why, boy, bow is it?

never curst but when they are hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury it.

Shep. That's a good deed: If thou may'st dis. cern by that which is left of him, what he is, fetch me to the sight of him.

Clo. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i'the ground.

Shep. 'Tis a lucky day, boy; and we'll do good deeds on't. [Exeunt.

ACT IV.

*Enter TIME, as Chorus.

Time. I,-that please some, try all; both joy, aud terror,

1

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 seif-born hour
To plant and o'erwhelin custom: Let me pass
The same I am, ere ancieut'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
The glistering of this present, as my tale [stale
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,
mentioned a son o'the king's, which Florizel
now name to you; and with speed so pace
To speak of Ferdita, now grown in grace
Equal with wond'ring: What of her ensues,
list not prophecy; but let Time's news
Be known, when 'tis brought forth :-a shepherd's
daughter,

Clo. I would, you did but see how it chases, bow it rages, how it takes up the shore! but that's not to the point: O the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em: now the ship boring the moon! with her main-mast; and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land service,-To see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said, his name was Antigonus, a nobleman-But to make an end of the ship:-to see how the sea flapdragoned it :-but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them;-and how, the poor gentleman roared, and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than the sea or weather.

Shep. 'Name of mercy, when was this, boy? Clo. Now, now; I have not winked since I saw these sights: the meu are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman; he's at it now.

Shep. Would I had been by, to have helped

the old man!

Clo. I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her; There your charity would have lacked footing.

(Aside.

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.
SCENE 1.-The same.-A Room in the Pa-
lace of POLIXENES.

[Exit.

Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO. Pol. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 'tis a sickness, denying thee any thing; a death, to grant this.

Cam. 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, Shep. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but the penitent king, my master, bath sent for me: look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself; thou to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, met'st with things dying, I with things new or I o'erween ¶ to think so which is anothe born. Here's a sight for thee: look thee, a spur to my departure. bearing-cloth for a squire's child! Look thee bere; take up, take up, boy; open't. So, let's see; It was told me, I should be rich by the fairies: this is some changeling: -open't: What's within boy?

Clo. You're a made old man; if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold all gold!

Shep. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up with it, keep it close; home, home, the next way. We are lucky, boy; and to be so still, requires nothing but secrecy.-Let my sheep go:-Come, good boy, the next way home. Clo. Go you the next way with your findings; I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentle man, and how much he hath eaten they are

Pol. 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

• Mischievous.

+ 1. e. Leave unexamined the progress of the inter mediate time which filled up the gap in Rerdita's story. Imagine for me. Subject. ! Approve. Think too highly. ** Friendly offices.

Enter CLOWN

loss of his most precions queen, and children,{ are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, Clo. Let me see:-Every 'leven weatherwhen saw'st thou the prince Florizel my son ? tods; every tod yields-pound and odd shilKings are no less unhappy, their issue not being ling: fifteen hundred shorn,-What comes the gracious, than they are in losing them, when wool to ? they have approved their virtues.

Cam. 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 bath appeared.

Pol. 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.

Cam. 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.

Aut. If the springe hold, the cock's mine.

(4. Clo. I cannot do't without counters. +-Let me see; what I am to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar; five pesat 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-ment all, mi very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases: but one Puritan among them, and he sings psalms to bornpipes. I must have saffron, to colour the warden pes:1 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. Aut. Oh! that ever I was born!

[Grovelling on the ground. Clo. 'the name of me,-Aut. Oh! help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death!

Pol. 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 pre-off. sent partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

Cam. I willingly obey your command.
Pol. My best Camillo !-We must disguise
ourselves.
[Exeunt

SCENE II.-The same.-A Road near the
Shepherd's Cottage.

Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.

When daffodils begin to peer,——

With, heigh the doxy over the dale,-
Why then comes in the sweet o'the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's
pale. t

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, 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 served 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.

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

Aut. O Sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more than the stripes I have received; which are mighty ones and millions.

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

Aut. I am robbed, Sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon me.

Clo. What, by a horse-man, or a foot-man!
Aut. A foot-man, sweet Sir, a foot man.

Clo. Indeed, he should be a foot-man, by the
garments he hath left with thee; if this be a
horse-man's coat, it hath seen very hot service.
Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee: come, lend
【Helping kim up.
Aut. Oh! good Sir, tenderly, oh 1
Clo. Alas, poor soul.
Aut. Oh! good Sir, softly, good Sir: 1 fear,
Sir, my shoulder-blade is out.

me thy hand.

Clo. How now ? canst stand?

Aut. Softly, dear Sir; [Picks his pocket. good Sir, softly: you ha' done me a charitable

office.

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

Aut. No, good sweet Sir; no, I beseech you, Sir: I have a kinsman not past three quarter of a mile hence, unto whom I was going; I shall there bave money, or any thing I want: Offer me no money, I pray you; that kills my heart.

Clo. What manner of fellow was he that rob bed you?

Aut. A fellow, Sir, that I have known to go about with trol-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.

virtue whipped out of the court: they cherish Clo. His vices, you would say; there's no it, to make it stay there; and yet it will no

more but abide. **

My traffic is sheets: when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me, Autolycus; who, being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles; Aut. Vices I would say, Sir. I know this With die, and drab, I purchased this caparison; and my revenue is the silly cheat: Gallows, man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; then a process server, a bailiff; then be com and knock, are too powerful on the highway: beating, and hanging, are terrors to me; for the passed a motion of the prodigal son, and mat life to come, I sleep out the thought of it.-Aried a tinker's wife within a mile where my land prize! a prize!

Every eleven sheep will produce a tod or 2 pounds of wool.

Circular pieces of base metal anciently used by the
illiterate to adjust their reckonings.
Singers of catches in three parts.
Tenors.

A species of pear The machine used in the game of pigec a-hātes. •• Sojourn * Puppet-abe.