And first-fruits of my body, from his presence,
I am barr'd, like one infectious: my third comfort,
Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast,
The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth,
Haled out to murder: myself on every post
Proclaim'd a strumpet; with immodest hatred
The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs
To women of all fashion :-lastly, hurried
Here to this place, i'the open air, before
I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,
Tell me what blessings I have here alive,
That I should fear to die? Therefore, proceed.
But yet hear this; mistake me not:-No! life,
I prize it not a straw:-but for mine honour,
(Which I would free,) if I shall be condemn'd
Upon surmises; all proofs sleeping else,

But what your jealousies awake; I tell you,
'Tis rigour, and not law. Your honours all,
I do refer me to the oracle;

Apollo be my judge.

1 Lord. This your request Is altogether just: therefore, bring forth, And in Apollo's name, his oracle.

[exeunt certain Officers. Her. The emperor of Russia was my father: O, that he were alive, and here beholding His daughter's trial! that he did but see The flatness of my misery; yet with eyes Of pity, not revenge!

Re-enter Officers, with Cleomenes and Dion. Offi. You here shall swear upon this sword of That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have [justice, Been both at Delphos: and from thence have brought

This seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd
Of great Apollo's priest; and that, since then,
You have not dar'd to break the holy seal,
Nor read the secrets in't.

Cleo & Dion. All this we swear. Leon. Break up the seals, and read. Offi. [reads.] Hermione is chaste, Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant, his innocent babe truly begotten; and the king shall live without an heir, if that, which is lost, be not found.

Lords. Now, blessed be the great Apollo!
Her. Praised!

Leon. Hast thou read truth!

Offi. Ay, my lord; even so

As it is here set down.

Leon. Take her hence;

Her heart is but o'ercharged; she will recover,—
I have too much believ'd mine own suspicion :
'Beseech you, tenderly apply to her
Some remedies for life.-Apollo, pardon

[exeunt Paulina and Ladies, with Herm My great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle!-I'll reconcile me to Polixenes;

New woo my queen; recall the good Camillo;
Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy:
For, being transported by my jealousies
To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose
Camillo for the minister, to poison

My friend Polixenes; which had been done,
But that the good mind of Camillo tardied
Myswift command, though I with death, and with
Reward, did threaten and encourage him,
Not doing it, and being done; he, most humane,
And fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest
Unclasp'd my practice; quit his fortunes here,
Which you knew great; and to the certain hazard
Of all uncertainties himself commended,
No richer than his honour:-How he glisters
Thorough my rust! and how his piety
Does my deeds make the blacker!
Re-enter Paulina.

Paul Woe the while!

O, cut my lace; lest my heart, cracking it, Break too!

me?

1 Lord. What fit is this, good lady?
Paul. What studied torments, tyrant, hast for
[boiling?
What wheels? racks? fires? What flaying,
In leads, or oils? what old or newer torture
Must I receive; whose every word deserves
To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny
Together working with thy jealousies,-
Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle
For girls of nine!-O, think, what they have done,
And then run mad, indeed; stark mad! for all
Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.
That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 'twas nothing;
That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant,
And damnable ungrateful: nor was't much,
Thou would'st have poison'd good Camillo's
honour,

To have him kill a king; poor trespasses,
More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon
The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter,
To be or none, or little; though a devil
Would have shed water out of fire, ere don't:
Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death
Of the young prince; whose honourable thoughts
(Thoughts high for one so tender,) cleft the heart
That could conceive, a gross and foolish sire
Blemish'd his gracious dam: this is not, no,
Laid to thy answer: But the last,—O, lords,
When I have said, cry, woe!-the queen, the

Shep. What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ailest thou, man?

Clo. I have seen two such sights, by sea, and by land: but I am not to say, it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the firmament and it, you cannot thrust a bodkin's point.

Shep. Why, boy, how is it?

Clo. I would, you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up the shore! but that's not to the point: O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em: now the ship boring the moon with her main-mast; and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land service,-To see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said, his name was Antigonus, a nobleman :- -But to make an end of the ship:to see how the sea flap-dragoned it :-but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them; and how the poor gentleman roared, and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than the sea, or weather.

Shep. 'Name of mercy, when was this, boy? Clo. Now, now; I have not winked since I saw these sights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman; he's at it now.

Clo. I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her; there your charity would have lacked footing. [aside.

Shep. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself! thou met'st with things dying, I with things new-born. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearingcloth for a squire's child! Look thee here! take up, take up, boy; open't. So, let's see; it was told me, should be rich by the fairies; this is some changeling :-open't: What's within, boy?

Clo. You're a made old man: if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!

Shep. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up with it, keep it close; home, 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.

Clo. 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.

Shep. That's a good deed: If thou may'st discern by that which is left of him, what he is, fetch me to the sight of him.

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

4

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

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's order was,
Or what is now receiv'd: 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 grow-
ing,

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

[exeunt.

Pol. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate; 'tis a sickness, denying thee any thing; a death, to grant this.

Cam. It is fifteen years, since I saw my coun-、 try: 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 1 might be some allay, or I o'erween to think so; which is another spur to my departure.

Pol. As thou lov'st 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 tako

Clo. What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?

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

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

Aut. Vices I would say, sir, I know this man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; than 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.

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

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

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

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

Clo. How do you now?

Aut. 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.

Clo. Shall I bring thee on the way? Aut. No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir. Clo. Then fare thee well; I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing.

Aut. 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 shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue!

Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:

A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.

[exit.

SCENE III. THE SAME. A SHEPHERD'S COTTAGE.

Enter Florizel and Perdita.

Flo. These your unusual weeds to each part of you

Do give a life: no shepherdess; but Flora, Peering in April's front. This your sheep

shearing

Is as a meeting of the petty gods,

And you the queen on't.

Per. Sir, my gracious lord,

To chide at your extremes, it not becomes me;
O, pardon, that I name them: your high self,
The gracious mark o'the land, you have obscur'd
With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly maid,
Most goddess-like prank'd up: But that our feasts
In every mess have folly, and the feeders
Digest it with a custom, I should blush
'To see you so attired; sworn I think,
To show myself a glass.

lo. I bless the time,

Hath not been us'd to fear. Even now I trembla
To think, your father, by some accident,
Should pass this way, as you did: O, the fates!
How would he look, to see his work so noble,
Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how
Should I, in these my borrow'd flaunts, behold
The sternness of his presence?
Flo. Apprehend
Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,
Humbling their deities to love, have taken
The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter
Became a bull, and bellow'd; the green Neptune
A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god,
Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,
As I seem now: Their transformations
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer;
Nor in a way so chaste: since my desires
Run not before mine honour; nor my lusts
Burn hotter than my faith.

This day, she was both pantler, butler, cook;
Both dame and servant: welcom'd all; serv'd all
Would sing her song, and dance her turn: now
here,

At upper end o'the table, now, i'the middle,
On his shoulder, and his: her face o'fire
With labour; and the thing she took to quench it,
She would to each one sip: you are retir'd,
As if you were a feasted one, and not
The hostess of the meeting: pray you, bid
These unknown friends to us welcome: for it is
A way to make us better friends, more known.
Come, quench your blushes; and present yourecif