Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO. POL. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 't is a sickness denying thee anything; a death to grant this. CAM. It is fifteen years since I saw my country: though I have, for the most part, been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to think so,-which is another spur to my departure. POL. As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy services by leaving me now: the need I have of thee, thine own goodness hath made; better not to have had thee, than thus to want thee: thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I have not enough considered, (as too much I cannot) to be more thankful to thee shall be my study; and my profit therein, the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country Sicilia, pr'ythee speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou a- but I have missingly noted,-] Hanmer, with some plausibility, reads,-"musingly noted," and Mr. Collier's annotator proposes the same substitution. b- but I fear the angle that plucks our son thither.] "But," in VOL. III. 225 Polixenes. callest him, and reconciled king, my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved their virtues. CAM. Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown; but I have missingly noted, he is of late much retired from court, and is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared. POL. I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care; so far, that I have eyes under my service which look upon his removedness, from whom I have this intelligence;-that he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate. CAM. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note: the report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage. POL. That's likewise part of my intelligence; but I fear the angle that plucks our son thither. this place, is the Saxon Botan to boot, and the King's meaning, -The attractions of that girl form part of my intelligence, and they are, I apprehend, the angle which draws the prince there. CLO. I cannot do 't without counters.-Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? [Reads.] 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 wardens pies; mace,-dates,—none, that's out of my note; [Reads.] nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger; but that I may beg ; 3- - pugging tooth-] Pugging was a cant term equivalent to prigging. b With hey! with hey!] The second "with hey!" was added in the folio of 1632. C- three-pile;] That is, three-piled velvet. d the silly cheat:] A technical phrase in rogues' parlance, meaning petty theft. 227 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 meAUT. 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 offend 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 horse-man or a foot-man? CLO. Indeed, he should be a foot-man by the garments he has left with thee; if this be a horse-man'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: (1) 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; (2) then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son, (3) and married e-every 'leven wether tods;] He means, every eleven wethers yields a tod, i. e. twenty-eight pounds of wool. f-three-man song-men-] Singers of songs in three parts. g — warden pies;] Wardens was the old name for a species of pears. h- and yet it will no more but abide.] Equivalent to,- And yet it will barely, or with difficulty, remain. ♦ 2 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? Hath not been us'd to fear. Even now I tremble FLO. swoon, I think, To show myself a glass.] So Hanmer; and to our mind the emendation is so convincingly true, that we are astonished it should ever have been questioned. At upper end o' the table, now, i' the middle; |