The Winter’s Tale

1 Enter Autolycus, singing.
2 AUTOLYCUS.
3 _When daffodils begin to peer,
4 With, hey! the doxy over the dale,
5 Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year,
6 For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale._
7 _The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
8 With, hey! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
9 Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
10 For a quart of ale is a dish for a king._
11 _The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,
12 With, hey! with, hey! the thrush and the jay,
13 Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
14 While we lie tumbling in the hay._
15 I have served Prince Florizel, and in my time wore three-pile, but now
16 I am out of service.
17 _But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
18 The pale moon shines by night:
19 And when I wander here and there,
20 I then do most go right._
21 _If tinkers may have leave to live,
22 And bear the sow-skin budget,
23 Then my account I well may give
24 And in the stocks avouch it._
25 My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My
26 father named me Autolycus; who being, I as am, littered under Mercury,
27 was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and drab I
28 purchased this caparison, and my revenue is the silly cheat. Gallows
29 and knock are too powerful on the highway. Beating and hanging are
30 terrors to me. For the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it. A
31 prize! a prize!
32 Enter Clown.
33 CLOWN.
34 Let me see: every ’leven wether tods; every tod yields pound and odd
35 shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?
36 AUTOLYCUS.
37 [_Aside._] If the springe hold, the cock’s mine.
38 CLOWN.
39 I cannot do’t without counters. Let me see; what am I to buy for our
40 sheep-shearing feast? “Three pound of sugar, five pound of currants,
41 rice”—what will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath
42 made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me
43 four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers, three-man song-men all, and
44 very good ones; but they are most of them means and basses, but one
45 puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have
46 saffron to colour the warden pies; “mace; dates”, none, that’s out of
47 my note; “nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger”, but that I may beg;
48 “four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o’ th’ sun.”
49 AUTOLYCUS.
50 [_Grovelling on the ground._] O that ever I was born!
51 CLOWN.
52 I’ th’ name of me!
53 AUTOLYCUS.
54 O, help me, help me! Pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death!
55 CLOWN.
56 Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather
57 than have these off.
58 AUTOLYCUS.
59 O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more than the stripes I
60 have received, which are mighty ones and millions.
61 CLOWN.
62 Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter.
63 AUTOLYCUS.
64 I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta’en from me, and
65 these detestable things put upon me.
66 CLOWN.
67 What, by a horseman or a footman?
68 AUTOLYCUS.
69 A footman, sweet sir, a footman.
70 CLOWN.
71 Indeed, he should be a footman by the garments he has left with thee:
72 if this be a horseman’s coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me
73 thy hand, I’ll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.
74 [_Helping him up._]
75 AUTOLYCUS.
76 O, good sir, tenderly, O!
77 CLOWN.
78 Alas, poor soul!
79 AUTOLYCUS.
80 O, good sir, softly, good sir. I fear, sir, my shoulder blade is out.
81 CLOWN.
82 How now! canst stand?
83 AUTOLYCUS.
84 Softly, dear sir! [_Picks his pocket._] good sir, softly. You ha’ done
85 me a charitable office.
86 CLOWN.
87 Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.
88 AUTOLYCUS.
89 No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have a kinsman not past
90 three-quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going. I shall there
91 have money or anything I want. Offer me no money, I pray you; that
92 kills my heart.
93 CLOWN.
94 What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?
95 AUTOLYCUS.
96 A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with troll-my-dames. I
97 knew him once a servant of the prince; I cannot tell, good sir, for
98 which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the
99 court.
100 CLOWN.
101 His vices, you would say; there’s no virtue whipped out of the court.
102 They cherish it to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but
103 abide.
104 AUTOLYCUS.
105 Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well. He hath been since an
106 ape-bearer, then a process-server, a bailiff. Then he compassed a
107 motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker’s wife within a mile
108 where my land and living lies; and, having flown over many knavish
109 professions, he settled only in rogue. Some call him Autolycus.
110 CLOWN.
111 Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts wakes, fairs, and
112 bear-baitings.
113 AUTOLYCUS.
114 Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that’s the rogue that put me into this
115 apparel.
116 CLOWN.
117 Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia. If you had but looked big and
118 spit at him, he’d have run.
119 AUTOLYCUS.
120 I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter. I am false of heart that
121 way; and that he knew, I warrant him.
122 CLOWN.
123 How do you now?
124 AUTOLYCUS.
125 Sweet sir, much better than I was. I can stand and walk: I will even
126 take my leave of you and pace softly towards my kinsman’s.
127 CLOWN.
128 Shall I bring thee on the way?
129 AUTOLYCUS.
130 No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir.
131 CLOWN.
132 Then fare thee well. I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing.
133 AUTOLYCUS.
134 Prosper you, sweet sir!
135 [_Exit Clown._]
136 Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I’ll be with you
137 at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat bring out
138 another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled, and my name
139 put in the book of virtue!
140 [_Sings._]
141 _Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
142 And merrily hent the stile-a:
143 A merry heart goes all the day,
144 Your sad tires in a mile-a._
145 [_Exit._]