THE WINTER'S TALE. Sidney Lee

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.

       My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who being, I as am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and drab I purchased this caparison; and my revenue is the silly-cheat: gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway; beating and hanging are terrors to me; for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it.—A prize! a prize!

       [Enter CLOWN.]

       CLOWN

       Let me see:—every ‘leven wether tods; every tod yields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?

       AUTOLYCUS

       [Aside.] If the springe hold, the cock’s mine.

       CLOWN

       I cannot do’t without counters.—Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheepshearing feast? ‘Three pound of sugar; five pound 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-men all, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases; but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden pies; ‘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.’

       AUTOLYCUS

       [Grovelling on the ground.] O that ever I was born!

       CLOWN

       I’ the name of me,—

       AUTOLYCUS

       O, help me, help me! Pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death!

       CLOWN

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

       AUTOLYCUS

       O sir, the loathsomeness of them offend me more than the stripes I have received, which are mighty ones and millions.

       CLOWN

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

       AUTOLYCUS

       I am robb’d, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta’en from me, and these detestable things put upon me.

       CLOWN

       What, by a horseman or a footman?

       AUTOLYCUS

       A footman, sweet sir, a footman.

       CLOWN

       Indeed, he should be a footman, by the garments he has left with thee: if this be a horseman’s coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand, I’ll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.

       [Helping him up.]

       AUTOLYCUS

       O, good sir, tenderly, O!

       CLOWN

       Alas, poor soul!

       AUTOLYCUS

       O, good sir, softly, good sir: I fear, sir, my shoulder blade is out.

       CLOWN

       How now! canst stand?

       AUTOLYCUS

       Softly, dear sir! [Picks his pocket.] good sir, softly; you ha’ done me a charitable office.

       CLOWN

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

       AUTOLYCUS

       No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going; I shall there have money or anything I want: offer me no money, I pray you; that kills my heart.

       CLOWN

       What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?

       AUTOLYCUS

       A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with troll-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.

       CLOWN

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

       AUTOLYCUS

       Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker’s wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus.

       CLOWN

       Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings.

       AUTOLYCUS

       Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that’s the rogue that put me into this apparel.

       CLOWN

       Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but looked big and spit at him, he’d have run.

       AUTOLYCUS

       I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant him.

       CLOWN

       How do you now?

       AUTOLYCUS

       Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and walk: I will even take my leave of you and pace softly towards my kinsman’s.

       CLOWN

       Shall I bring thee on the way?

       AUTOLYCUS

       No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir.

       CLOWN

       Then fare thee well: I must go buy spices for our sheepshearing.

       AUTOLYCUS

       Prosper you, sweet sir!

       [Exit CLOWN.]

       Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I’ll be with you at your sheepshearing too. If I make not this cheat bring out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue!

       [Sings.]

       Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,

       And merrily hent the stile-a:

       A merry heart goes all the day,

       Your sad tires in a mile-a.

       [Exit.]

      SCENE IV. The same. A Shepherd’s Cottage.

       [Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA.]

       FLORIZEL

       These your unusual weeds to each part of you

       Do give a life,—no shepherdess, but Flora

       Peering in April’s front. This your sheepshearing

       Is as a meeting of the petty gods,

       And you the queen on’t.