The lark that tirra lyra chaunts,

With bey, with hey the thrush and the jay :
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,

While we lie tumbling in the bay.

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 go most right.

If tinkers may have leave to live,

And bear the fow-skin budget,
Then my account I well may give,

And in the stocks avouch it.

My traffick is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father nam’d me Autolicus; who being, as I am, litter'd under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsider’d trifles : with die and drab I purchas’d this caparison ; ' and my revenue is the fly cheat. Gallows and knocks are too powerful on the highway, beating and hanging are terrours to me: for the life to come, í leep out the thought of it. A prize! a prize!

Enter Clown. Clo. Let me see, every eleventh weather tods, every tod yields a pound and one odd Niilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wooll to?

Aut. If the sprindge hold, the cock's mine. [afide.

Clo. I cannot do't without counters. Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheepshearing 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

· Meaning the ragged cloths he lad on. Vol. II.

Аааа

lays

none

lays it on. She hath made me four and twenty nosegays for the shearers ; *three-man songmen all, and very good ones, but they are most of them means, and bases; but one puritan among them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden-pipes; mace

dates

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 raisins o’th' fun.

Aut. O, that ever I was born! [groveling on the ground.
Clo. I'th' 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 loathsomness of them offends me, more than the stripes I have receiv’d; which are mighty ones, and millions.

Clo. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter.

Aut. I am robb’d, 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 has 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, oh! Clo. Alas, poor soul !

Aut. O, good fir, softly, good sir: I fear, sir, my shoulderblade is out.

Clo. How now? canst stand?

Aut. Softly, dear fir; good fir, softly: you ha' done me a charitable office.

Clo. Doft lack any money? I have a little money for thee.

Aut. No, good sweet fir: no, I beseech you, sir; I have a kinfman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I

Meaning, those who fing catches which are generally in three parts.

was

1

was going ; I shall there have money, or any thing I want: offer me no money, I pray you; that kills my heart.

Clo. What manner of fellow was he that robb’d you?

Aut. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with trollmadams: I knew him once a servant of the prince; I cannot tell, good fir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipp'd out of the court. Clo

. His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipp'd 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; then he hath been since an ape-bearer, then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compass’d 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 : fome call him Autolicus.

Clo. Out upon him, prig! for my life, prig! he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings. Aut. Very true, fir; he, fir, he; that's the

rogue

that put me into this apparel. Clo. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bithynia; if you

had but look’d 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 do now?

Aut. Sweet fir, much better than I was; I can stand, and walk: I will even take leave of you, and pace softly towards my kinsman's.

Clo. Shall I bring thee on thy way?
Aut. No, good-fac'd fir; no, sweet fir.

Clo. Then farewel; I must go to buy spices for our sheepshearing

[Exit. Aut. Prosper you, sweet fir! Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you at your sheepshearing too: if I make not this cheat bring out another, and the Thearers

prove • A motion is a word for a puppet-show, A a a 2

sheep,

my

Theep, let me be unroll’d, and my name put into the book of
virtue.

Song.
Fog. on, jog on, the footpath way,

And merrily bend the file-a :
A

goes

all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a.

[Exit.

1

merry heart

you

queen on't.

The old shepherd's house.

Enter Florizel, and Perdita.
Flo. These your unusual weeds to each part of you
Do give a life: no shepherdess, but Flora
Peering in april's front. This your sheepshearing
Is as a meeting of the petty gods,
And

the
Per. Sir, my gracious lord,
To chide at your extremes it not becomes me;
O, pardon, that I name them: your high self,
The gracious mark o'th' land, you have obscur’d
With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly maid,
Most goddess-like prank'd up. But that our feasts
In every mess have folly, and the feeders
Digest it with a custom; I should blush
To see

you fo attired; swoon, I think, To show myself a glass.

Flo. I blefs the time
When my good falcon made her Aight across
Thy father's ground.
Per. Now Jove afford

you

cause! To me the difference forges dread; your greatness Hath not been us'd to fear: even now I tremble

To think, your father, by some accident,
Should pass this way, as you did: o the fates !
How would he look to see his work, so noble,
Vilely bound up! what would he say! or how
Should I, in these my borrow'd faunts, behold
The sternness of his presence! .

Flo. Apprehend
Nothing but jollity: the gods themselves,
Humbling their deities to love, have taken
The shapes of beasts upon them. Jupiter
Became a bull, and bellow'd; the green Neptune
A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob’d god,
Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,
As I seem now. Their transformations
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,
Nor in a way so chaste; since my

desires Run not before mine honour, nor my lufts Burn hotter than my faith.

Per. O but, dear fir,
Your resolution cannot hold, when 'tis
Oppos’d, as it must be, by th' pow'r o'th'king:
One of these two neceslities must be,
Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose,
Or I my life.

Flo. Thou dearest Perdita,
With these forc'd thoughts, I pr’ythee, 'darken not
The mirth o'th' feast: or I'll be thine, my fair,
Or not my father's: for I cannot be
Mine own, nor any thing to any, if
I be not thine: to this I am most constant,
Though destiny fay, no. Be merry, gentlest !
Strangle such thoughts as these with any thing
That
you

behold the while. Your guests are coming:
Lift up your countenance, as ’twere the day
Of celebration of that nuptial, which
We two have sworn shall come.

Per.