The lark that tirra lyra chaunts,

With hey, with hey the thrush and the jay:

Are fummer fongs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the bay.

I have served prince Florizel, and in my time wore three-pile, but now I am out of fervice;

But fhall I go mourn for that, my dear?

The pale moon fhines by night:

And when I wander here and there,

I then do go moft right.

If tinkers may have leave to live,
And bear the fow-skin budget,
Then my account I well may give,
And in the frocks avouch it.

My traffick is sheets; when the kite builds, look to leffer linen. My father nam'd me Autolicus; who being, as I am, litter'd under Mercury, was likewife a fnapper-up of unconfider'd trifles : with die and drab I purchas'd this caparifon; and my revenue is the fly cheat. Gallows and knocks are too powerful on the highway, beating and hanging are terrours to me: for the life to come, I fleep out the thought of it. A prize! a prize!

Enter Clown.

Clo. Let me fee, every eleventh weather tods, every tod yields a pound and one odd fhilling; fifteen hundred fhorn, what comes the wooll to?

Aut. If the fprindge hold, the cock's mine.

[afide.

Clo. I cannot do't without counters. Let me fee; what am I to buy for our sheepfhearing feast? three pound of fugar, five pound of currants, rice-what will this fifter of mine do with rice? but my father hath made her miftress of the feast, and she Meaning the ragged cloths he lad on. Aaaa

VOL. II.

lays

a

lays it on. She hath made me four and twenty nosegays for the fhearers; three-man fongmen all, and very good ones, but they are most of them means, and bases; but one puritan among them, and he fings pfalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden-pipes; mace dates that's out of my note: nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger; but that I beg; four pound of prunes, and as many raifins o' th' fun. Aut. O, that ever I was born! Clo. I' th' name of me

none

may

[groveling on the ground.

Aut. O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and then death, death

Clo. Alack, poor foul, thou haft need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off.

Aut. O, fir, the loathfomness of them offends me, more than the stripes I have receiv'd; which are mighty ones, and millions. Clo. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great

matter.

Aut. I am robb'd, fir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me, and these deteftable things put upon me.. Clo. What, by a horseman, or a footman?

Aut. A footman, fweet fir, a footman.

Clo. Indeed, he should be a footman, by the garments he has left with thee; if this be a horseman's coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand. [helping him up.

Aut. O good fir, tenderly, oh !

Clo. Alas, poor foul!

Aut. O, good fir, foftly, good fir: I fear, fir, my shoulderblade

is out.

Clo. How now? canft ftand?

Aut. Softly, dear fir; good fir, softly: you ha' done me a charitable office.

Clo. Doft lack any money? I have a little money for thee. Aut. No, good fweet fir: no, I befeech you, fir; I have a kinfman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I

was going; I shall there have money, or any thing I want: offer me no money, I pray you; that kills my heart.

Clo. What manner of fellow was he that robb'd you?

Aut. A fellow, fir, that I have known to go about with trollmadams: I knew him once a fervant of the prince; I cannot tell, good fir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipp'd out of the court.

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

Aut. Vices I would fay, fir. I know this man well; then he hath been fince an ape-bearer, then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compass'd 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 profeffions, he fettled only in rogue: fome call him Autolicus.

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

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

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

Aut. I must confefs to you, fir, I am no fighter; I am false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant him. Clo. How do you do now?

Aut. Sweet fir, much better than I was; I can fstand, and walk: I will even take my leave of you, and pace foftly towards my kinfman's.

Clo. Shall I bring thee on thy way?

Aut. No, good-fac'd fir; no, fweet fir.

Clo. Then farewel; I must go to buy spices for our sheepfhearing.

[Exit. Aut. Profper you, fweet fir! Your purfe is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you at your fheepfhearing too : if I make not this cheat bring out another, and the hearers prove * A motion is a word for a puppet-show.

Aaa 2

sheep,

a

fheep, let me be unroll'd, and my name put into the book of virtue.

Song.

Fog on, jog on, the footpath way,
And merrily bend the ftile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your fad tires in a mile-a.

SCENE IV.

The old fhepherd's house.

Enter Florizel, and Perdita.

Flo. These your unufual weeds to each part of you
Do give a life: no fhepherdefs, but Flora

Peering in april's front. This your fheepshearing
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'th' land, you have obfcur'd
With a fwain's wearing; and me, poor lowly maid,
Moft goddess-like prank'd up. But that our feafts
In every mefs have folly, and the feeders
Digest it with a cuftom; I fhould blush
To fee you so attired; fwoon, I think,
To fhow myself a glass.

Flo. I blefs the time

When my good falcon made her flight across
Thy father's ground.

Per. Now Jove afford you cause!

To me the difference forges dread; your greatness
Hath not been us'd to fear: even now I tremble

[Exit.

Alluding to the focieties into which the notorious cheats and gipfies enroll themselves.

Το

0

To think, your father, by fome accident,
Should pass this way, as you did: o the fates!
How would he look to fee his work, fo noble,
Vilely bound up! what would he fay! or how
Should I, in these my borrow'd flaunts, behold
The fternness of his prefence!

Flo. Apprehend

Nothing but jollity: the gods themselves,
Humbling their deities to love, have taken
The shapes of beafts 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 fwain,

As I seem now. Their transformations
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,
Nor in a way so chafte; fince my defires
Run not before mine honour, nor my lufts
Burn hotter than my faith.

Per. O but, dear fir,

Your refolution cannot hold, when 'tis

Oppos'd, as it must be, by th' pow'r o' th' king:

One of these two neceflities must be,

Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose,
Or I my life.

Flo. Thou deareft Perdita,

With these forc'd thoughts, I pr'ythee, 'darken not
The mirth o'th' feaft: or I'll be thine, my fair,
Or not my father's: for I cannot be

Mine own, nor any thing to any, if

I be not thine: to this I am most constant,
Though destiny say, no. Be merry, gentlest !
Strangle fuch thoughts as these with any thing

That you behold the while. Your guests are coming:

Lift

up your countenance, as 'twere the day Of celebration of that nuptial, which

We two have fworn fhall come.

Per.

1