The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare (book club suggestions txt) 📖

Then list to me: This follows, - if you will not change your purpose, But undergo this flight, - make for Sicilia; And there present yourself and your fair princess, - For so, I see, she must be, - 'fore Leontes: She shall be habited as it becomes The partner of your bed. Methinks I see Leontes opening his free arms, and weeping His welcomes forth; asks thee, the son, forgiveness, As 'twere i' the father's person; kisses the hands Of your fresh princess; o'er and o'er divides him 'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness, - the one He chides to hell, and bids the other grow Faster than thought or time.

FLORIZEL.
Worthy Camillo, What colour for my visitation shall I Hold up before him?

CAMILLO.
Sent by the king your father To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir, The manner of your bearing towards him, with What you as from your father, shall deliver, Things known betwixt us three, I'll write you down; The which shall point you forth at every sitting, What you must say; that he shall not perceive But that you have your father's bosom there, And speak his very heart.

FLORIZEL.
I am bound to you: There is some sap in this.

CAMILLO.
A course more promising Than a wild dedication of yourselves To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain To miseries enough: no hope to help you; But as you shake off one to take another: Nothing so certain as your anchors; who Do their best office if they can but stay you Where you'll be loath to be: besides, you know Prosperity's the very bond of love, Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together Affliction alters.

PERDITA.
One of these is true: I think affliction may subdue the cheek, But not take in the mind.

CAMILLO.
Yea, say you so? There shall not at your father's house, these seven years Be born another such.

FLORIZEL.
My good Camillo, She is as forward of her breeding as She is i' the rear our birth.

CAMILLO.
I cannot say 'tis pity She lacks instruction; for she seems a mistress To most that teach.

PERDITA.
Your pardon, sir; for this: I'll blush you thanks.

FLORIZEL.
My prettiest Perdita! - But, O, the thorns we stand upon! - Camillo, - Preserver of my father, now of me; The medicine of our house! - how shall we do? We are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son; Nor shall appear in Sicilia.

CAMILLO.
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. [They talk aside.]

[Re-enter AUTOLYCUS.]

AUTOLYCUS. 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 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.

[CAMILLO, FLORIZEL, and PERDITA come forward.]

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

FLORIZEL. And those that you'll procure from king Leontes, -

CAMILLO. Shall satisfy your father.

PERDITA.
Happy be you! All that you speak shows fair.

CAMILLO. [Seeing AUTOLYCUS.] Who have we here? We'll make an instrument of this; omit Nothing may give us aid.

AUTOLYCUS. [Aside.] If they have overheard me now, - why, hanging.

CAMILLO. How now, good fellow! why shakest thou so? Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee.

AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir.

CAMILLO. 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 a 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. [Giving money.]

AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir: - [Aside.] I know ye well enough.

CAMILLO. Nay, pr'ythee dispatch: the gentleman is half flay'd already.

AUTOLYCUS. Are you in earnest, sir? - [Aside.] I smell the trick on't.

FLORIZEL. Dispatch, I pr'ythee.

AUTOLYCUS. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with conscience take it.

CAMILLO. Unbuckle, unbuckle.

[FLORIZEL and AUTOLYCUS 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, - to shipboard Get undescried.

PERDITA.
I see the play so lies That I must bear a part.

CAMILLO.
No remedy. - Have you done there?

FLORIZEL.
Should I now meet my father, He would not call me son.

CAMILLO. Nay, you shall have no hat. - [Giving it to PERDITA.] Come, lady, come. - Farewell, my friend.

AUTOLYCUS.
Adieu, sir.

FLORIZEL. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot! Pray you a word.

[They converse apart.]

CAMILLO. [Aside.] What I do next, shall be to tell the king 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 re-view Sicilia; for whose sight I have a woman's longing.

FLORIZEL.
Fortune speed us! - Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side.

CAMILLO. The swifter speed the better.

[Exeunt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO.]

AUTOLYCUS. 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 anything 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 a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal, I would not do't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my profession.

[Re-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.

CLOWN. 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.

SHEPHERD. Nay, but hear me.

CLOWN. Nay, but hear me.

SHEPHERD. Go to, then.

CLOWN. 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.

SHEPHERD. I will tell the king all, every word, - yea, and his son's pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man neither to his father nor to me, to go about to make me the king's brother-in-law.

CLOWN. Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer by I know how much an ounce.

AUTOLYCUS. [Aside.] Very wisely, puppies!

SHEPHERD. Well, let us to the king: there is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard!

AUTOLYCUS. [Aside.] I know not what impediment this complaint