Yet nature might have inade me as these are,
Therefore I'll not disdain.

CLO. This cannot be but a great courtier. SHEP. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.

CLO. He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical: a great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking on's teeth.

AUT. The fardel there? what's i' the fardel? Wherefore that box?

SHEP. 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 the speech of him.

AUT. Age, thou hast lost thy labour.
SHEP. Why, sir?

AUT. 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.

SHEP. So 't is said, sir,-about his son, that should have married a shepherd's daughter.

AUT. 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.

CLO. Think you so, sir?

AUT. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy, and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though removed 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 stoned; 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.

CLO. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an 't like you, sir?

AUT. He has a son,-who shall be flayed 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 recovered again with aquavitæ, or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall 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 smiled 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 considered, 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.

CLO. 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

If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly:] The only critic who has noticed the term "hand-fast" is Mr. R. G. White; and he quite mistakes its meaning. To be in "hand-fast "mainprize, is to be at large only on security given.

of his hand, and no more ado. Remember,stoned, and flayed alive!

SHEP. 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.

AUT. After I have done what I promised?
SHEP. Ay, sir.

AUT. Well, give me the moiety.-Are you a party in this business?

CLO. In some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it. AUT. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son ; hang him, he'll be made an example.

CLO. Comfort, good comfort! We must to the king, and show our strange sights: he must know 't is 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.

AUT. 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.

CLO. We are blessed in this man, as I may say, even blessed.

SHEP. Let's before, as he bids us: he was provided to do us good. [Exeunt Shepherd and Clown.

AUT. 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.

b- prognostication proclaims,-] The hottest day predicted by the almanac. "Almanacks were in Shakespeare's time published under this title, An Almanack and Prognostication made for the year of our Lord God 1595.'"-MALONE.

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?

PAUL. 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 tenor 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. T is your counsel
My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
Oppose against their wills.-Care not for issue;
[TO LEONTES.
The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander
Left his to the worthiest; so his successor
Was like to be the best.

My true Paulina, We shall not marry till thou bidd'st us.

That

PAUL. Shall be when your first queen's again in breath; Never till then.

"Grave" has been changed by some editors to grace, by others to graces; to the destruction of a very fine idea.

More worth than any man; men, that she is
The rarest of all women.

LEON.
Go, Cleomenes;
Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,
Bring them to our embracement.-Still 't is
strange,

[Exeunt CLEOMENES, Lords, and Gentleman. He thus should steal upon us.

PAUL. Had our prince (Jewel of children) seen this hour, he had pair'd Well with this lord; there was not full a month Between their births.

LEON. Pr'ythee, no more; cease; thou know'st, He dies to me again when talk'd of: sure, When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches Will bring me to consider that which may Unfurnish me of reason.-They are come.

Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL and PERDITA.

Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince ;
For she did print your royal father off,
Conceiving you were I but twenty-one,
Your father's image is so hit in you,
His very air, that I should call you brother,
As I did him; and speak of something, wildly
By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!
And your fair princess,-goddess!-O, alas!
I lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth
Might thus have stood, begetting wonder, as
You, gracious couple, do! and then I lost
(All mine own folly) the society,
Amity too, of your brave father, whom,
Though bearing misery, I desire my life
Once more to look on him.
FLO.

By his command

Have I here touch'd Sicilia; and from him Give you all greetings, that a king, at friend," Can send his brother: and, but infirmity (Which waits upon worn times) hath something seiz'd

His wish'd ability, he had himself

The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
Measur'd to look upon you; whom he loves
(He bade me say so) more than all the sceptres,
And those that bear them, living.

LEON. O, my brother, (Good gentleman!) the wrongs I have done thee stir

Afresh within me; and these thy offices,
So rarely kind, are as interpreters

Of my behind-hand slackness !-Welcome hither,
As is the spring to the earth. And hath he too
Expos'd this paragon to the fearful usage,
At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,
To greet a man not worth her pains, much less
The adventure of her person?

FLO. She came from Libya. LEON.

Good my lord,

Where the warlike Smalus,
That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and lov'd?
FLO. Most royal sir, from thence; from him,
whose daughter

His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence
(A prosperous south-wind friendly) we have cross'd,
To execute the charge my father gave me,
For visiting your highness. My best train
I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;
Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
Not only my success in Libya, sir,
But my arrival, and my wife's, in safety
Here where we are.

LEON.
The blessed gods
Purge all infection from our air, whilst you
Do climate here! You have a holy father,
A graceful gentleman; against whose person,
So sacred as it is, I have done sin,

For which the heavens, taking angry note,
Have left me issueless; and your father's bless'd
(As he from heaven merits it) with you,
Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,
Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on,
Such goodly things as you!