For this design. What course I mean to hold, Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor Concern me the reporting.

Cam.

O, my lord,

I would your spirit were easier for advice,
Or stronger for your need.

Flo.

Hark, Perdita.- -[Takes her aside.

I'll hear you by and by.

[To CAMILLO.

Cam. 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.

Flo. Now, good Camillo, I am so fraught with curious business, that I leave out ceremony.

Sir, I think,

[Going.

Cam. You have heard of my poor services, i' the love That I have borne your father?

Clo. Very nobly Have you deserv'd: it is my father's musick, To speak your deeds; not little of his care To have them recompens'd as thought on. Well, my lord, If you may please to think I love the king; And, through him, what is nearest to him, which

Cam.

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.

Flo.

How, Camillo, May this, almost a miracle, be done?

That I may call thee something more than man,

And, after that, trust to thee.

Cam.

Have you thought on

A place, whereto you'll go?

Flo.

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.
Then list to me:

Cam.

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, forgive-

ness,

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.

Flo.

Worthy Camillo, What colour for my visitation shall I Hold up before him?

Cam. 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.

Flo.

There is some sap in this.
Cam.

I am bound to you:

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 to

gether

Affliction alters.

Per.

One of these is true :

I think, affliction may subdue the cheek,
But not take in the mind.

Cam.

Yea, say you so? There shall not, at your father's house, these

She is as forward of her breeding, as

She is i' the rear of birth.

Cam.

My good Camillo,

I cannot say, 'tis pity

She lacks instructions; for she seems a mistress To most that teach.

Per.

I'll blush you thanks.

Your pardon, sir, for this;

Flo. 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-

Cam.

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.

Enter AUTOLYCUS.

Aut. 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 riband, 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 pinch'd a placket, it was senseless; 'twas nothing, to geld a codpiece of a purse; I would 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 whoobub 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.

[CAM. FLO. and PER. come forward. Cam. Nay, but my letters by this means being there

So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt. Flo. And those that you'll procure from king Leontes

Cam. Shall satisfy your father.

Per.

All, that you speak, shows fair.

Cam.

Happy be you!

Who have we here?

[Seeing AUTOLYCUS.

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

Aut. If they have overheard me now,-why hanging.

[Aside. Cam. How now, good fellow? Why shakest thou so? Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee.

Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir.

Cam. 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 necessity in 't), and change garments with this gentleman: Though the penny worth, on his side, be the worst, yet hold thee, there's some boot. Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir:-I know ye well enough.

[Aside. Cam. Nay, pr'ythee, despatch: the gentleman ia half flayed already.

Aut. Are you in earnest, sir ?-I smell the trick of it. [Aside.

Flo. Despatch, I pr'ythee.

Aut. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with conscience take it.

Cam. Unbuckle, unbuckle.

[FLO. and AUTOL. exchange garments. Fortunate mistress, let my prophecy Come home to you!-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 you) to shipboard Get undescried.

Per.

I see, the play so lies,

He would not call me son.

Cam.

Nay, you shall have No hat-Come, lady, come.-Farewell, my

friend.

Aut. Adieu, sir.

Flo. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot? Pray you, a word. [They converse apart. Cam. What I do next, shall be to tell the king [Aside. 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 review Sicilia; for whose sight I have a woman's longing.

Flo. Fortune speed us!Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side. Cam. The swifter speed, the better.

[Exeunt FLO. PER. and CAM. Aut. 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 the 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 any thing extempore.