The Winter’s Tale
ACT IV SCENE III | A road near the Shepherd’s cottage. | |
[Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing] | ||
AUTOLYCUS | 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. | ||
The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, | 5 | |
With heigh! 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-lyra chants, | ||
With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay, | 10 | |
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? | 15 | |
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, | 20 | |
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, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise | 25 | |
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 | 30 | |
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] | 35 |
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 sheep-shearing feast? Three pound | ||
of sugar, five pound of currants, rice,–what will | ||
this sister of mine do with rice? But my father | 40 | |
hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it | ||
on. She hath made me four and twenty nose-gays 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 | 45 | |
horn-pipes. 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. | 50 | |
AUTOLYCUS | O that ever I was born! | |
[Grovelling on the ground] | ||
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 | 55 |
on thee, rather than have these off. | ||
AUTOLYCUS | O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends 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 | 60 |
great matter. | ||
AUTOLYCUS | I am robbed, 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? | 65 |
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. | 70 | |
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? | 75 |
AUTOLYCUS | [Picking his pocket] | |
Softly, dear sir; 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 | 80 |
a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, | ||
unto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or | ||
any thing I want: offer me no money, I pray you; | ||
that kills my heart. | ||
Clown | What manner of fellow was he that robbed you? | 85 |
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 | 90 |
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 | 95 | |
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 | 100 |
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’ld have run. | 105 | |
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 | 110 |
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 | 115 |
sheep-shearing. | ||
AUTOLYCUS | Prosper you, sweet sir! | |
[Exit Clown] | ||
Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. | ||
I’ll be with you at your sheep-shearing too: if I | ||
make not this cheat bring out another and the | 120 | |
shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my name | ||
put in the book of virtue! | ||
[Sings] | ||
Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, | ||
And merrily hent the stile-a: | ||
A merry heart goes all the day, | 125 | |
Your sad tires in a mile-a. | ||
[Exit] |
Next: The Winter’s Tale, Act 4, Scene 4