THE WINTER'S TALE. Sidney Lee

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.

       CLOWN

       Go you the next way with your findings. I’ll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten: they are never curst but when they are hungry: if there be any of him left, I’ll bury it.

       SHEPHERD

       That’s a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that which is left of him what he is, fetch me to the sight of him.

       CLOWN

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

       SHEPHERD

       ‘Tis a lucky day, boy; and we’ll do good deeds on’t.

       [Exeunt.]

       ACT IV.

       Table of Contents

      SCENE I.

       [Enter Time, as Chorus.]

       TIME

       I,—that please some, try all; both joy and terror

       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 self-born hour

       To plant and o’erwhelm custom. Let me pass

       The same I am, ere ancient’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 stale

       The glistering of this present, as my tale

       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,

       I mention’d a son o’ the king’s, which Florizel

       I now name to you; and with speed so pace

       To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace

       Equal with wondering: what of her ensues,

       I list not prophesy; but let Time’s news

       Be known when ‘tis brought forth:—a shepherd’s daughter,

       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.

       [Exit.]

      SCENE II. Bohemia. A Room in the palace of POLIXENES.

       [Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO.]

       POLIXENES

       I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: ‘tis a sickness denying thee anything; a death to grant this.

       CAMILLO

       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, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o’erween to think so,—which is another spur to my departure.

       POLIXENES

       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 loss of his most precious queen and children are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved their virtues.

       CAMILLO

       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 hath appeared.

       POLIXENES

       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.

       CAMILLO

       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.

       POLIXENES

       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 present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

       CAMILLO

       I willingly obey your command.

       POLIXENES

       My best Camillo!—We must disguise ourselves.

       [Exeunt.]

      SCENE III. The same. A Road near the Shepherd’s cottage.

       [Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.]

       AUTOLYCUS

       When daffodils begin to peer,—

       With, hey! the doxy over the dale,—

       Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year:

       For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.

       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, that 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.