The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
Act 4 - Scene 3
A road near the Shepherd’s cottage.
Autolycus : When daffodils begin to peer,
[p]With heigh! the doxy over the
dale,
[p]Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
[p]For the red
blood reigns in the winter's pale.
[p]The white sheet bleaching on the
hedge,
[p]With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
[p]Doth set
my pugging tooth on edge;
[p]For a quart of ale is a dish for a
king.
[p]The lark, that tirra-lyra chants,
[p]With heigh! with heigh!
the thrush and the jay,
[p]Are summer songs for me and my
aunts,
[p]While we lie tumbling in the hay.
[p]I have served Prince
Florizel and in my time
[p]wore three-pile; but now I am out of
service:
[p]But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
[p]The pale moon
shines by night:
[p]And when I wander here and there,
[p]I then do
most go right.
[p]If tinkers may have leave to live,
[p]And bear the
sow-skin budget,
[p]Then my account I well may, give,
[p]And in the
stocks avouch it.
[p]My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look
to
[p]lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who
[p]being, as I
am, littered under Mercury, was likewise
[p]a snapper-up of
unconsidered trifles. With die and
[p]drab I purchased this caparison,
and my revenue is
[p]the silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too
powerful
[p]on the highway: beating and hanging are terrors to
[p]me:
for the life to come, I sleep out the thought
[p]of it. A prize! a
prize!
Clown : Let me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod
[p]yields pound and
odd shilling; fifteen hundred
[p]shorn. what comes the wool to?
Autolycus : [Aside]
[p]If the springe hold, the cock's mine.
Clown : I cannot do't without counters. Let me see; what am
[p]I to buy for
our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound
[p]of sugar, five pound of
currants, rice,--what will
[p]this sister of mine do with rice? But my
father
[p]hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it
[p]on.
She hath made me four and twenty nose-gays for
[p]the shearers,
three-man-song-men all, and very good
[p]ones; but they are most of
them means and bases; but
[p]one puritan amongst them, and he sings
psalms to
[p]horn-pipes. I must have saffron to colour the
warden
[p]pies; mace; dates?--none, that's out of my note;
[p]nutmegs,
seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I
[p]may beg; four pound of
prunes, and as many of
[p]raisins o' the sun.
Autolycus : O that ever I was born!
Clown : I' the name of me--
Autolycus : O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and
[p]then, death,
death!
Clown : Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay
[p]on thee,
rather than have these off.
Autolycus : O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more
[p]than the stripes I
have received, which are mighty
[p]ones and millions.
Clown : Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a
[p]great matter.
Autolycus : I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel
[p]ta'en from me,
and these detestable things put upon
[p]me.
Clown : What, by a horseman, or a footman?
Autolycus : A footman, sweet sir, a footman.
Clown : Indeed, he should be a footman by the garments he
[p]has left with
thee: if this be a horseman's coat,
[p]it hath seen very hot service.
Lend me thy hand,
[p]I'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.
Autolycus : O, good sir, tenderly, O!
Clown : Alas, poor soul!
Autolycus : O, good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my
[p]shoulder-blade is
out.
Clown : How now! canst stand?
Autolycus : [Picking his pocket]
[p]Softly, dear sir; good sir, softly. You ha'
done me
[p]a charitable office.
Clown : Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.
Autolycus : No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have
[p]a kinsman not
past three quarters of a mile hence,
[p]unto whom I was going; I shall
there have money, or
[p]any thing I want: offer me no money, I pray
you;
[p]that kills my heart.
Clown : What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?
Autolycus : A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with
[p]troll-my-dames; I
knew him once a servant of the
[p]prince: I cannot tell, good sir, for
which of his
[p]virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of
the court.
Clown : His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped
[p]out of the
court: they cherish it to make it stay
[p]there; and yet it will no
more but abide.
Autolycus : Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he
[p]hath been since
an ape-bearer; then a
[p]process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed
a
[p]motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's
[p]wife within
a mile where my land and living lies;
[p]and, having flown over many
knavish professions, he
[p]settled only in rogue: some call him
Autolycus.
Clown : Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts
[p]wakes, fairs and
bear-baitings.
Autolycus : Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that
[p]put me into this
apparel.
Clown : Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia: if you had
[p]but looked big
and spit at him, he'ld have run.
Autolycus : I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am
[p]false of heart
that way; and that he knew, I warrant
[p]him.
Clown : How do you now?
Autolycus : Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and
[p]walk: I will
even take my leave of you, and pace
[p]softly towards my kinsman's.
Clown : Shall I bring thee on the way?
Autolycus : No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir.
Clown : Then fare thee well: I must go buy spices for our
[p]sheep-shearing.
Autolycus : Prosper you, sweet sir!
[p][Exit Clown]
[p]Your purse is not hot
enough to purchase your spice.
[p]I'll be with you at your
sheep-shearing too: if I
[p]make not this cheat bring out another and
the
[p]shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my name
[p]put in
the book of virtue!
[p][Sings]
[p]Jog on, jog on, the foot-path
way,
[p]And merrily hent the stile-a:
[p]A merry heart goes all the
day,
[p]Your sad tires in a mile-a.
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Next: Act 4 - Scene 4
