AUTOLYCUS The King is not at the palace, he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy and air himself; for if thou beest capable of things serious, thou must know the King is full of grief.

OLD SHEPHERD So ’tis said, sir; about his son, that should have married a shepherd’s daughter.

AUTOLYCUS If that shepherd be not in handfast, 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?

AUTOLYCUS Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy and vengeance bitter, but those that are germane 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 sheepcote? 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?

AUTOLYCUS He has a son, who shall be flayed alive, then ’nointed over with honey, set on the head of a wasps’ nest, then stand till he be three-quarters-and-a-dram dead, then recovered again with aqua-vitae, 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 smiled 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 considered, 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 effect your suits, here is man shall do it.

CLOWN (to the Old Shepherd) He seems to be of great authority. Close with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold. Show the inside of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado. Remember—‘stoned’, and ‘flayed alive’.

OLD SHEPHERD An’t please you, sir, to undertake the business for us, here is that gold I have. I’ll make it as much more, and leave this young man in pawn till I bring it you.

AUTOLYCUS After I have done what I promised?

OLD SHEPHERD Ay, sir.

AUTOLYCUS Well, give me the moiety. (To the Clown) Are you a party in this business?

CLOWN In some sort, sir. But though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.

AUTOLYCUS O, that’s the case of the shepherd’s son. Hang him, he’ll be made an example.

CLOWN (to the Old Shepherd) Comfort, good comfort. We must to the King, and show our strange sights. He must know ’tis none of your daughter, nor my sister. We are gone else. (To Autolycus) Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does when the business is performed, and remain, as he says, your pawn till it be brought you.

AUTOLYCUS I will trust you. Walk before toward the seaside. Go on the right hand. I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you.

CLOWN (to the Old Shepherd) We are blessed in this man, as I may say, even blessed.

OLD SHEPHERD Let’s before, as he bids us. He was provided to do us good. Exit with the Clown

AUTOLYCUS If I had a mind to be honest, I see fortune would not suffer me. She drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occasion: gold, and a means to do the Prince my master good, which who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him. If he think it fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they have to the King concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far officious, for I am proof against that title, and what shame else belongs to’t. To him will I present them. There may be matter in it.

Exit

5.1 Enter Leontes, Cleomenes, Dion, and Paulina

CLEOMENES (to Leontes)

Sir, you have done enough, and have performed

A saint-like sorrow. No fault could you make

Which you have not redeemed, indeed, paid down

More penitence than done trespass. At the last

Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil.

With them, forgive yourself.

LEONTES

Whilst I remember

Her and her virtues I cannot forget

My blemishes in them, and so still think of

The wrong I did myself, which was so much

That heirless it hath made my kingdom, and

Destroyed the sweet‘st companion that e’er man

Bred his hopes out of. True?

PAULINA

Too true, my lord.

If one by one you wedded all the world,

Or from the all that are took something good

To make a perfect woman, she you killed

Would be unparalleled.

LEONTES

I think so. Killed?

She I killed? I did so. But thou strik’st me

Sorely to say I did; it is as bitter

Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,

Say so but seldom.

CLEOMENES

Not at all, good lady.

You might have spoke a thousand things that would

Have done the time more benefit, and graced

Your kindness better.

PAULINA

You are one of those

Would have him wed again.

DION

If you would not so

You pity not the state, nor the remembrance

Of his most sovereign name, consider little

What dangers, by his highness’ fail of issue,

May drop upon his kingdom and devour

Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy

Than to rejoice the former queen is well?

What holier, than for royalty’s repair,

For present comfort and for future good,

To bless the bed of majesty again

With a sweet fellow to’t?

PAULINA

There is none worthy

Respecting her that’s gone. Besides, the gods

Will have fulfilled their secret purposes.

For has not the divine Apollo said?

Is’t not the tenor of his oracle

That King Leontes shall not have an heir

Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall

Is all as monstrous to our human reason

As my Antigonus to break his grave

And come again to me, who, on my life,

Did perish with the infant. ’Tis your counsel

My lord should to the heavens be contrary,