Cam. Nay, pr'ythee, despatch: the gentleman is half flay'd already. Aut. Are you in earnest, Sir? of it. Flo. Despatch, I pr'ythee. - I smell the trick [Aside. Aut. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot Into some covert: take your sweetheart's hat, The truth of your own seeming; that you may, Per. I see, the play so lies, That I must bear a part. Cam. No remedy. Have you done there?. Flo. Should I now meet my father, He would not call me son. Cam. Nay, you shall have No hat: Come, lady, come. - Farewell, my friend. Aut. Adieu, Sir. Pray you, a word. Flo. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot? [They converse apart. Cam. What I do next, shall be, to tell the King Of this escape, and whither they are bound; [Aside. Flo. Fortune speed us! Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side. [Exeunt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO. 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. The Prince himself is about a piece of iniquity; stealing away from his father, with his clog at his heels: If I thought it were not a piece of honesty to acquaint, the King withal, I would do't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my profession. Enter Clown and Shepherd. Aside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain: Every lane's end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man work. Clown. See, see; what a man you are now! there is no other way, but to tell the King she's a change. ling, and none of your flesh and blood. Shep. Nay, but hear me. Clown. Nay, but hear me. Clown. She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the King; and, so, your flesh and blood is not to be punish'd by him. Show those things you found about her; those secret things, all but what she has with her: This being done, let the law go whistle; I warrant you. Shep. I will tell the King all, every word, yea, and his son's pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man neither to his father, nor to me, to go about to make me the King's brother-in-law. Clown. Indeed, brother-in-law was the furthest off you could have been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer, by I know much an ounce. Aut. Very wisely; puppies! [Aside. Shep, Well; let us to the King; there is that in this fardel, will make him scratch his beard, Aut. I know not, what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master. Clown. Pray heartily he be at palace. Aut. Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance: Let me pocket up my pedler's excrement. [Takes off his false beard.] How now, rusticks? whither are you bound? Shep. To the palace, an it like your Worship. Aut. Your affairs there? what? with whom? the condition of that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages, of what having, breeding, and any thing that is fitting to be know, discover. Clown. We are but plain fellows, Sir. Aut. A lie; you are rough and hairy: Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie: but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel; therefore they do not give us the lie. one, Clown. Your Worship had like to have given us if you had not taken yourself with the manner. Shep. Are you a courtier, an't like you, Sir? Aut. Whether it like me, or no, I am courtier. See'st thou not the air of the court, in these unfold, ings? hath not my gait in it, the measure of the court? receives not thy nose court-odour from me? relect I not on thy baseness, court-contempt? Think'st thou, for that I insinuate, or toze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am cour tier, cap-a-pcè; and one that will either push ou, or pluck back thy business there: whereupon I com mand thee to open thy affair. Shep. My business, Sir, is to the King. Aut. What advocate hast thou to him? Clown. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say you have none. Shep. None, Sir; I have no pheasant, cock, nor hen. Aut. How bless'd are we, that are not simple men! Yet nature might have made me as these are, Clown. This cannot be but a great courtier. Shep. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely. Clown. 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 'tis 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. Clown. Think you so, Sir? Aut. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy, and vengeance bitter; but those that are ger mane 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. Clown. 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 flay'd 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 aquavitae, or some other hot infusion: then raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he 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 smil'd 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 con sidered, 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 affect your suits, here is man sh'll do it. Clown. He seems to be of great authority: close |
