Tug for the time to come. This you may know,
And so deliver.-I am put to sea

1

With her whom here I cannot hold on shore;
And, most opportune to our 1 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.

Cam.

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

Flo.

Hark, Perdita.-[Takes her aside. [TO CAMILLO.

He's irremovable;

I'll hear you by-and-by.
Cam.
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 honor;
Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia,

And that unhappy king, my master, whom
I so much thirst to see.

Flo.

I am so fraught with curious business, that

I leave out ceremony.

Cam.

Now, good Camillo,

[Going.

Sir, I think

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

Flo.

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. Cam.

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 honor

I'll point you where you shall have such receiving

1 "Our need." The old copy reads her. The emendation is Theobald's.

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 endeavors, 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.

A place, whereto you'll go?

Flo.

Have you thought on

Not any yet.

But as the unthought-on accident' is guilty

2

To what we wildly do, so we profess

Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies

Of every wind that blows.

Cam.

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 3 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.

Flo.

Worthy Camillo, What color for my visitation shall I

Hold up before him?

1 This unthought-on accident is the unexpected discovery made by Polixenes.

2 Guilty to, though it sound harsh to our ears, was the phraseology of Shakspeare.

3 The old copy reads, "thee there son." The correction was made in the third folio.

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,1
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 unpathed waters, undreamed 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.

Per.

One of these is true.

I think affliction may subdue the cheek,

But not take in 2 the mind. 2

Cam.

Yea, say you so?

There shall not, at your father's house, these seven

years,

Be born another such.

Flo.

My good Camillo,

She is as forward of her breeding, as

She is i' the rear of birth.

1 The council-days were called sittings, in Shakspeare's time.

2 To take in, is to conquer, to get the better of.

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 furnished like Bohemia's son ;

Nor shall appear in Sicilia

Cam.

Fear none of this.
Do all lie there: it

I think

My lord,

I think you know my fortunes 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 pinched 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,

1 Pomanders were little balls of perfumed paste, worn in the pocket, or hung about the neck, and even sometimes suspended to the wrist. The name is derived from pomme d'ambre.

and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army.

[CAMILLO, FLORIZEL, and PERDITA 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

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

Aut. If they have overheard me now,

hanging.

-why, [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 pennyworth, 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 is half flayed1 already.

Aut. Are you in earnest, sir?—I smell the trick of it.

Flo. Despatch, I pr'ythee.

[Aside.

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

1 Stripped.