lucky, boy; and to be so still, requires nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go: come, good boy, the next way home.

Clo. Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten they are never curst,15 but when they are hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury it.

Shep. That's a good deed. which is left of him what he is,

If thou mayst discern by that fetch me to the sight of him.

Clo. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground.

Shep. 'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds on't.

[Exeunt.

ACT IV.

Enter TIME, as Chorus.

Time. I-that please some, try all; both joy and terror

Of good and bad; that make and unfold error

Now take upon me, in the name of Time,

To use my wings. Impute it not a crime

To me or my swift passage, that I slide

O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap; 1 since it is in my power

"

15 Curst here signifies mischievous. An old adage says, Curst cows

have short horns."

1 Leave unexamined the progress of the time which filled up the gap in Perdita's story. The reasoning of Time is not very clear; he seems to mean, that he who overthrows every thing, and makes as well as overwhelms custom, may surely infringe the laws of his own making.

To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour
To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass
The same I am, ere ancient'st order was,

Or what is now received: I witness'd too

The times that brought them in; so shall I do
To th' freshest things now reigning, and make stale
The glistering of this present, as my tale

Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,
I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing
As you had slept between. Leontes leaving, -
Th' effects of his fond2 jealousies so grieving
That he shuts up himself, — imagine me,3

Gentle spectators, that I now may be
In fair Bohemia; and remember well
A mention'd son o' the King's, which Florizel
I now name to you; and with speed so pace
To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace
Equal with wondering: 4 what of her ensues,

I list not prophesy; but let Time's news

Be known when 'tis brought forth a shepherd's daughter, And what to her adheres, which follows after,

Is th' argument of Time. Of this allow,

If ever you have spent time worse ere now;
If never, yet that Time himself doth say
He wishes earnestly you never may.

2 Shakespeare continually uses fond in the sense of foolish.

[Exit.

3 The order, according to the sense, appears to be something thus: "Imagine me leaving Leontes, who so grieves th' effects of his fond jealousies that he shuts up himself," &c.

4 That is, grown so beautiful, or so far in beauty, as to be a proper object of wonder or admiration.

SCENE I.

Bohemia. A Room in the Palace of POLIXENES.

Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO.

Polix. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate : 'tis a sickness denying thee any thing; a death to grant this. Cam. It is sixteen years since I saw my country: though I have, for the most part, been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent King, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to think so; which is another spur to my departure.

Polix. As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy services by leaving me now: the need I have of thee thine own goodness hath made; better not to have had thee than thus to want thee: thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I have not enough considered, as too much I cannot,

to be more thankful to thee shall be my study; and my profit therein, the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country Sicilia, pr'ythee speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou call'st him, and reconciled King, my brother; whose loss of his most precious Queen and children are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when saw'st thou the Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious,1 than they are in losing them when they have approved their virtues.

Cam. Sir, it is three days since I saw the Prince. What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I have

1 Gracious here means in a state of heavenly grace or favour. So in ii, 3, of this play: "A gracious innocent soul, more free than he is jealous."

musingly noted,2 he is of late much retired from Court, and is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.

Polix. I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care; so far, that I have eyes under my service which look upon his removedness; from whom I have this intelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.

Cam. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note: the report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage.

Polix. That's likewise part of my intelligence; and I fear the angle 3 that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not appearing what we are, have some question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Pr'ythee, be my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

Cam. I willingly obey your command.

Polix. My best Camillo ! We must disguise ourselves.

[Exeunt.

2 To muse is old language for to wonder: so that to note musingly is to observe with wonder or surprise.

3 Angle for the bait, or hook and line, that draws his son away, as an angler draws a fish. To pluck for to pull occurs frequently.

4 Here, as often, question is talk or conversation.

SCENE II.- The Same. A Road near the Shepherd's Cottage.

Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.

When daffodils begin to peer,

With, hey! the doxy over the dale,—

Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the Winter's pale.1

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,

With, hey! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
Doth set my pugging 2 tooth on edge;

For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,

With, hey! with, hey! the thrush and the jay,—
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,3

While we lie tumbling in the hay.

I have served Prince Florizel, and, in my time, wore threepile; but now I am out of service :

[Sings.] But shall I go mourn for that, my dear? The pale Moon shines by night:

1 Pale is used here in a double sense, as referring to the pale colours of Winter, and as we still say "the pale of fashion," and "the pale of the Church." "English pale" and "Irish pale" were common expressions in the Poet's time. The meaning in the text is well explained by Heath: "For, though the Winter is not quite over, the red blood resumes its genial vigour. The first appearance of the daffodil in the fields is at the latter end of Winter, where it joins the Spring."

2 A puggard was a cant name for some kind of thief. In The Roaring Girl, 1611, we have, "Cheaters, lifters, nips, foists, puggards." Pugging is used by Greene in one of his pieces.

8 Aunt was sometimes used as a cant term for a loose woman.

▲ Velvet was valued according to the pile, three-pile being the richest.