The Same. A Road near the Shepherd's Cottage. |
| |
Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing. |
| | When daffodils begin to peer, |
| With heigh! the doxy, over the dale, |
| Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; |
| For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. |
| |
| The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, |
| With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing! |
| Doth set my pugging tooth on edge; |
| For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. |
| |
| The lark, that tirra-lirra chants, |
| With, heigh! with, heigh! the thrush and the jay, |
| Are summer songs for me and my aunts, |
| While we lie tumbling in the hay. |
|
| I have served Prince Florizel, and in my time wore three-pile; but now I am out of service: |
| | But shall I go mourn for that, my dear? |
| The pale moon shines by night; |
| And when I wander here and there, |
| I then do most go right. |
| |
| If tinkers may have leave to live, |
| And bear the sow-skin bowget, |
| Then my account I well may give, |
| And in the stocks avouch it. |
|
| My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and drab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is the silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway: beating and hanging are terrors to me: for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it. A prize! a prize! |
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Enter Clown. |
| Clo. Let me see: Every 'leven wether tods; every tod yields pound and odd shilling: fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to? |
| Aut. [Aside.] If the springe hold, the cock's mine. |
| Clo. I cannot do't without compters. Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? 'Three pound of sugar; five pound of currants; rice,' what will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers, three-man song-men all, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases: but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron, to colour the warden pies; mace, dates,—none; that's out of my note:—nutmegs seven; a race or two of ginger,—but that I may beg;—four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' the sun. |
| Aut. O! that ever I was born! [Grovelling on the ground. |
| Clo. I' the name of me!— |
| Aut. O! help me, help me! pluck but off these rags, and then death, death! |
| Clo. Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off. |
| Aut. O, sir! the loathsomeness of them offends me more than the stripes I have received, which are mighty ones and millions. |
| Clo. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter. |
| Aut. I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon me. |
| Clo. What, by a horseman or a footman? |
| Aut. A footman, sweet sir, a footman. |
| Clo. Indeed, he should be a footman, by the garments he hath left with thee: if this be a horseman's coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand. [Helping him up. |
| Aut. O! good sir, tenderly, O! |
| Clo. Alas, poor soul! |
| Aut. O! good sir; softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my shoulder-blade is out. |
| Clo. How now! canst stand? |
| Aut. Softly, dear sir; [Picks his pocket.] good sir, softly. You ha' done me a charitable office. |
| Clo. Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee. |
| Aut. No, good sweet sir: no, I beseech you, sir. I have a kinsman not past three-quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going: I shall there have money, or anything I want: offer me no money, I pray you! that kills my heart. |
| Clo. What manner of fellow was he that robbed you? |
| Aut. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with trol-my-dames: I knew him once a servant of the prince. I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court. |
| Clo. His vices, you would say: there's no virtue whipped out of the court: they cherish it, to make it stay there, and yet it will no more but abide. |
| Aut. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus. |
| Clo. Out upon him! Prig, for my life, prig: he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings. |
| Aut. Very true, sir; he, sir, he: that's the rogue that put me into this apparel. |
| Clo. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia: if you had but looked big and spit at him, he'd have run. |
| Aut. I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am false of heart that way, and that he knew, I warrant him. |
| Clo. How do you now? |
| Aut. Sweet sir, much better than I was: I can stand and walk. I will even take my leave of you, and pace softly towards my kinsman's. |
| Clo. Shall I bring thee on the way? |
| Aut. No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir. |
| Clo. Then fare thee well: I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing. |
Aut. Prosper you, sweet sir!—[Exit Clown.] Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat bring out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue.| | Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, |
| And merrily hent the stile-a: |
| A merry heart goes all the day, |
| Your sad tires in a mile-a. [Exit. |
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