No More Learning

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' 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
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 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 may
be to the flight of my master.
CLOWN. Pray heartily he be at palace.
AUTOLYCUS.
[Aside] Though I am not naturally honest, I am so
sometimes by chance. Let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement.
[Takes off his false beard] How now, rustics! Whither are you
bound?
SHEPHERD. To th' palace, an it like your worship.
AUTOLYCUS. Your affairs there, what, with whom, the condition of
that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages,
of what having, breeding, and anything that is fitting to be
known- discover.
CLOWN. We are but plain fellows, sir.
AUTOLYCUS. A lie: you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying; it
becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the
lie; but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing
steel; therefore they do not give us the lie.
CLOWN. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not
taken yourself with the manner.
SHEPHERD. Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir?
AUTOLYCUS. Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest thou
not the air of the court in these enfoldings? Hath not my gait in
it the measure of the court? Receives not thy nose court-odour
from me? Reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Think'st
thou, for that I insinuate, that toaze from thee thy business, I
am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-a-pe, and one that
will either push on or pluck back thy business there; whereupon I
command the to open thy affair.
SHEPHERD. My business, sir, is to the King.
AUTOLYCUS. What advocate hast thou to him?
SHEPHERD. I know not, an't like you.
CLOWN. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say you have none.
SHEPHERD. None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.
AUTOLYCUS. How blessed are we that are not simple men!
Yet nature might have made me as these are,
Therefore I will not disdain.
CLOWN. This cannot be but a great courtier.
SHEPHERD. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.
CLOWN. He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical.
A great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking on's teeth.
AUTOLYCUS. The fardel there? What's i' th' fardel? Wherefore that
box?
SHEPHERD. Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box which
none must know but the King; and which he shall know within this
hour, if I may come to th' speech of him.
AUTOLYCUS. Age, thou hast lost thy labour.
SHEPHERD. Why, Sir?
AUTOLYCUS. The King is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new
ship to purge melancholy and air himself; for, if thou be'st
capable of things serious, thou must know the King is full of
grief.
SHEPHERD. So 'tis said, sir- about his son, that should have
married a shepherd's daughter.
AUTOLYCUS. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly; the
curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the
back of man, the heart of monster.
CLOWN. Think you so, sir?
AUTOLYCUS. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy and
vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though
remov'd fifty times, shall all come under the hangman- which,
though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old
sheep-whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his
daughter come into grace! Some say he shall be ston'd; but that
death is too soft for him, say I. Draw our throne into a
sheep-cote! - all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.
CLOWN. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an't like you,
sir?
AUTOLYCUS. He has a son- who shall be flay'd alive; then 'nointed
over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest; then stand
till he be three quarters and a dram dead; then recover'd again
with aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is,
and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set
against a brick wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon
him, where he is to behold him with flies blown to death. But
what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be
smil'd at, their offences being so capital? Tell me, for you seem
to be honest plain men, what you have to the King. Being
something gently consider'd, I'll bring you where he is aboard,
tender your persons to his presence, whisper him in your behalfs;
and if it be in man besides the King to effect your suits, here
is man shall do it.
CLOWN. He seems to be of great authority. Close with him, give him
gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led
by the nose with gold. Show the inside of your purse to the
outside of his hand, and no more ado. Remember- ston'd and flay'd
alive.
SHEPHERD. An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for us,
here is that gold I have. I'll make it as much more, and leave
this young man in pawn till I bring it you.
AUTOLYCUS. After I have done what I promised?
SHEPHERD. Ay, sir.
AUTOLYCUS. Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this
business?
CLOWN. In some sort, sir; but though my case be a pitiful one, I
hope I shall not be flay'd out of it.
AUTOLYCUS. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son! Hang him,
he'll be made an example.
CLOWN. Comfort, good comfort! We must to the King and show our
strange sights. He must know 'tis none of your daughter nor my
sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this
old man does, when the business is performed; and remain, as he
says, your pawn till it be brought you.
AUTOLYCUS. I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on
the right-hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you.
CLOWN. We are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest.
SHEPHERD. Let's before, as he bids us. He was provided to do us
good. Exeunt SHEPHERD and CLOWN
AUTOLYCUS. If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would not
suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a
double occasion- gold, and a means to do the Prince my master
good; which who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I
will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him. If he
think it fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they
have to the King concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for
being so far officious; for I am proof against that title, and
what shame else belongs to't. To him will I present them. There
may be matter in it. Exit




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ACT V. SCENE I.
Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES

Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and OTHERS

CLEOMENES. Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd
A saint-like sorrow. No fault could you make
Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down
More penitence than done trespass. At the last,
Do as the heavens have done: forget your evil;
With them forgive yourself.
LEONTES. Whilst I remember
Her and her virtues, I cannot forget
My blemishes in them, and so still think of
The wrong I did myself; which was so much
That heirless it hath made my kingdom, and
Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man
Bred his hopes out of.
PAULINA. True, too true, my lord.
If, one by one, you wedded all the world,
Or from the all that are took something good
To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd
Would be unparallel'd.
LEONTES. I think so. Kill'd!
She I kill'd! I did so; but thou strik'st me
Sorely, to say I did. It is as bitter
Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,
Say so but seldom.
CLEOMENES. Not at all, good lady.
You might have spoken a thousand things that would
Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd
Your kindness better.
PAULINA. You are one of those
Would have him wed again.
DION. If you would not so,
You pity not the state, nor the remembrance
Of his most sovereign name; consider little
What dangers, by his Highness' fail of issue,
May drop upon his kingdom and devour
Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy
Than to rejoice the former queen is well?
What holier than, for royalty's repair,
For present comfort, and for future good,
To bless the bed of majesty again
With a sweet fellow to't?
PAULINA. There is none worthy,
Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods
Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes;
For has not the divine Apollo said,
Is't not the tenour of his oracle,
That King Leontes shall not have an heir
Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall,
Is all as monstrous to our human reason
As my Antigonus to break his grave
And come again to me; who, on my life,
Did perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel
My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
Oppose against their wills. [To LEONTES] Care not for issue;
The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander
Left his to th' worthiest; so his successor
Was like to be the best.
LEONTES. Good Paulina,
Who hast the memory of Hermione,
I know, in honour, O that ever I
Had squar'd me to thy counsel! Then, even now,
I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes,
Have taken treasure from her lips-
PAULINA. And left them
More rich for what they yielded.
LEONTES. Thou speak'st truth.
No more such wives; therefore, no wife. One worse,
And better us'd, would make her sainted spirit
Again possess her corpse, and on this stage,
Where we offend her now, appear soul-vex'd,
And begin 'Why to me'-
PAULINA. Had she such power,
She had just cause.
LEONTES. She had; and would incense me
To murder her I married.
PAULINA. I should so.
Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid you mark
Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't
You chose her; then I'd shriek, that even your ears
Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd
Should be 'Remember mine. '
LEONTES. Stars, stars,
And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;
I'll have no wife, Paulina.
PAULINA. Will you swear
Never to marry but by my free leave?
LEONTES. Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!
PAULINA. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.
CLEOMENES. You tempt him over-much.
PAULINA. Unless another,
As like Hermione as is her picture,
Affront his eye.
CLEOMENES. Good madam-
PAULINA. I have done.
Yet, if my lord will marry- if you will, sir,
No remedy but you will- give me the office
To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young
As was your former; but she shall be such
As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy
To see her in your arms.
LEONTES. My true Paulina,
We shall not marry till thou bid'st us.
PAULINA. That
Shall be when your first queen's again in breath;
Never till then.

Enter a GENTLEMAN

GENTLEMAN. One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,
Son of Polixenes, with his princess- she
The fairest I have yet beheld- desires access
To your high presence.
LEONTES. What with him? He comes not
Like to his father's greatness. His approach,
So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us
'Tis not a visitation fram'd, but forc'd
By need and accident. What train?
GENTLEMAN. But few,
And those but mean.
LEONTES.