The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (book suggestions TXT) 📖

allow no speech-which I do guess You do not purpose to him-and as hardly Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear; Then, till the fury of his Highness settle, Come not before him.

FLORIZEL. I not purpose it.

I think Camillo?

CAMILLO. Even he, my lord.

PERDITA. How often have I told you ‘twould be thus!

How often said my dignity would last

But till ‘twere known!

FLORIZEL. It cannot fail but by

The violation of my faith; and then

Let nature crush the sides o’ th’ earth together And mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks.

From my succession wipe me, father; I Am heir to my affection.

CAMILLO. Be advis’d.

FLORIZEL. I am-and by my fancy; if my reason Will thereto be obedient, I have reason; If not, my senses, better pleas’d with madness, Do bid it welcome.

CAMILLO. This is desperate, sir.

FLORIZEL. So call it; but it does fulfil my vow: I needs must think it honesty. Camillo, Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may Be thereat glean’d, for all the sun sees or The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hides In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath To this my fair belov’d. Therefore, I pray you, As you have ever been my father’s honour’d friend, When he shall miss me-as, in faith, I mean not To see him any more-cast your good counsels Upon his passion. Let myself and Fortune Tug for the time to come. This you may know, And so deliver: I am put to sea

With her who here I cannot hold on shore.

And most opportune to her need I have A vessel rides fast by, but not prepar’d For this design. What course I mean to hold Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor Concern me the reporting.

CAMILLO. O my lord,

I would your spirit were easier for advice.

Or stronger for your need.

FLORIZEL. Hark, Perdita. [Takes her aside]

[To CAMILLO] I’ll hear you by and by.

CAMILLO. He’s irremovable,

Resolv’d for flight. Now were I happy if His going I could frame to serve my turn, Save him from danger, do him love and honour, Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia And that unhappy king, my master, whom I so much thirst to see.

FLORIZEL. Now, good Camillo,

I am so fraught with curious business that I leave out ceremony.

CAMILLO. Sir, I think

You have heard of my poor services i’ th’ love That I have borne your father?

FLORIZEL. Very nobly

Have you deserv’d. It is my father’s music To speak your deeds; not little of his care To have them recompens’d as thought on.

CAMILLO. Well, my lord,

If you may please to think I love the King, And through him what’s nearest to him, which is Your gracious self, embrace but my direction.

If your more ponderous and settled project May suffer alteration, on mine honour, I’ll point you where you shall have such receiving As shall become your Highness; where you may Enjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see, There’s no disjunction to be made but by, As heavens forfend! your ruin-marry her; And with my best endeavours in your absence Your discontenting father strive to qualify, And bring him up to liking.

FLORIZEL. How, Camillo,

May this, almost a miracle, be done?

That I may call thee something more than man, And after that trust to thee.

CAMILLO. Have you thought on

A place whereto you’ll go?

FLORIZEL. Not any yet;

But as th’ unthought-on accident is guilty To what we wildly do, so we profess

Ourselves to be the slaves of chance and flies Of every wind that blows.

CAMILLO. 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 there ‘Son, forgiveness!’

As ‘twere i’ th’ father’s person; kisses the hands Of your fresh princess; o’er and o’er divides him ‘Twixt his unkindness and his kindness-th’ 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’ th’ rear o’ our birth.

CAMILLO. I cannot say ‘tis pity

She lacks instructions, 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 ribbon, 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 rememb’red. 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 pinch’d a placket, it was senseless; ‘twas nothing to geld a codpiece of a purse; I would have fil’d 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 pick’d 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 scar’d 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 shak’st 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, prithee dispatch. The gentleman is half flay’d already.

AUTOLYCUS. Are you in camest, sir? [Aside] I smell the trick on’t.

FLORIZEL. Dispatch, I prithee.

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 ye!- 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 th’ seaside.

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 cutpurse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for th’ 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 punish’d 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