Complete Plays, The (44 page)

Shepherd

Come, your hand;
And, daughter, yours.

Polixenes

Soft, swain, awhile, beseech you;
Have you a father?

Florizel

 
I have: but what of him?

Polixenes

Knows he of this?

Florizel

 
He neither does nor shall.

Polixenes

Methinks a father
Is at the nuptial of his son a guest
That best becomes the table. Pray you once more,
Is not your father grown incapable
Of reasonable affairs? is he not stupid
With age and altering rheums? can he speak? hear?
Know man from man? dispute his own estate?
Lies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing
But what he did being childish?

Florizel

No, good sir;
He has his health and ampler strength indeed
Than most have of his age.

Polixenes

By my white beard,
You offer him, if this be so, a wrong
Something unfilial: reason my son
Should choose himself a wife, but as good reason
The father, all whose joy is nothing else
But fair posterity, should hold some counsel
In such a business.

Florizel

I yield all this;
But for some other reasons, my grave sir,
Which ’tis not fit you know, I not acquaint
My father of this business.

Polixenes

Let him know’t.

Florizel

He shall not.

Polixenes

 
Prithee, let him.

Florizel

No, he must not.

Shepherd

Let him, my son: he shall not need to grieve
At knowing of thy choice.

Florizel

Come, come, he must not.
Mark our contract.

Polixenes

 
Mark your divorce, young sir,

Discovering himself

Whom son I dare not call; thou art too base
To be acknowledged: thou a sceptre’s heir,
That thus affect’st a sheep-hook! Thou old traitor,
I am sorry that by hanging thee I can
But shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece
Of excellent witchcraft, who of force must know
The royal fool thou copest with,—

Shepherd

O, my heart!

Polixenes

I’ll have thy beauty scratch’d with briers, and made
More homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy,
If I may ever know thou dost but sigh
That thou no more shalt see this knack, as never
I mean thou shalt, we’ll bar thee from succession;
Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,
Far than Deucalion off: mark thou my words:
Follow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time,
Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee
From the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment.—
Worthy enough a herdsman: yea, him too,
That makes himself, but for our honour therein,
Unworthy thee,— if ever henceforth thou
These rural latches to his entrance open,
Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,
I will devise a death as cruel for thee
As thou art tender to’t.

Exit

Perdita

Even here undone!
I was not much afeard; for once or twice
I was about to speak and tell him plainly,
The selfsame sun that shines upon his court
Hides not his visage from our cottage but
Looks on alike. Will’t please you, sir, be gone?
I told you what would come of this: beseech you,
Of your own state take care: this dream of mine,—
Being now awake, I’ll queen it no inch farther,
But milk my ewes and weep.

Camillo

Why, how now, father!
Speak ere thou diest.

Shepherd

I cannot speak, nor think
Nor dare to know that which I know. O sir!
You have undone a man of fourscore three,
That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,
To die upon the bed my father died,
To lie close by his honest bones: but now
Some hangman must put on my shroud and lay me
Where no priest shovels in dust. O cursed wretch,
That knew’st this was the prince, and wouldst adventure
To mingle faith with him! Undone! undone!
If I might die within this hour, I have lived
To die when I desire.

Exit

Florizel

Why look you so upon me?
I am but sorry, not afeard; delay’d,
But nothing alter’d: what I was, I am;
More straining on for plucking back, not following
My leash unwillingly.

Camillo

Gracious my lord,
You know your father’s temper: at this time
He will 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’ the 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 advised.

Florizel

I am, and by my fancy: if my reason
Will thereto be obedient, I have reason;
If not, my senses, better pleased 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 sea hides
In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath
To this my fair beloved: 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 whom here I cannot hold on shore;
And most opportune to our need I have
A vessel rides fast by, but not prepared
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

Drawing her aside

I’ll hear you by and by.

Camillo

He’s irremoveable,
Resolved 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’ the love
That I have borne your father?

Florizel

Very nobly
Have you deserved: it is my father’s music
To speak your deeds, not little of his care
To have them recompensed as thought on.

Camillo

Well, my lord,
If you may please to think I love the king
And through him what is 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 forefend!— 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 the 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 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 cause 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 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 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 could 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 a whoo-bub 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

Who have we here?

Seeing Autolycus

We’ll make an instrument of this, omit
Nothing may give us aid.

Autolycus

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.

Autolycus

I am a poor fellow, sir.

Aside

I know ye well enough.

Camillo

Nay, prithee, dispatch: the gentleman is half flayed already.

Autolycus

Are you in earnest, sir?

Aside

I smell the trick on’t.

Florizel

Dispatch, I prithee.

Autolycus