| ACT IV SCENE III | A road near the Shepherd's cottage. | |
| [Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing] |
| AUTOLYCUS | 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, | 5 |
| 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-lyra chants, |
| With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay, | 10 |
| 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? | 15 |
| 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 budget, | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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 | 30 |
| of it. A prize! a prize! |
| [Enter Clown] |
| Clown | Let me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod |
| yields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred |
| shorn. what comes the wool to? |
| AUTOLYCUS | [Aside] | 35 |
| If the springe hold, the cock's mine. |
| Clown | I cannot do't without counters. 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 | 40 |
| hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it |
| on. She hath made me four and twenty nose-gays 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 | 45 |
| horn-pipes. 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. | 50 |
| AUTOLYCUS | O that ever I was born! |
| [Grovelling on the ground] |
| Clown | I' the name of me-- |
| AUTOLYCUS | O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and |
| then, death, death! |
| Clown | Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay | 55 |
| on thee, rather than have these off. |
| AUTOLYCUS | O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more |
| than the stripes I have received, which are mighty |
| ones and millions. |
| Clown | Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a | 60 |
| great matter. |
| AUTOLYCUS | I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel |
| ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon |
| me. |
| Clown | What, by a horseman, or a footman? | 65 |
| AUTOLYCUS | A footman, sweet sir, a footman. |
| Clown | 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. | 70 |
| AUTOLYCUS | O, good sir, tenderly, O! |
| Clown | Alas, poor soul! |
| AUTOLYCUS | O, good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my |
| shoulder-blade is out. |
| Clown | How now! canst stand? | 75 |
| AUTOLYCUS | [Picking his pocket] |
| Softly, dear sir; good sir, softly. You ha' done me |
| 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 | 80 |
| a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, |
| unto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or |
| any thing I want: offer me no money, I pray you; |
| that kills my heart. |
| Clown | What manner of fellow was he that robbed you? | 85 |
| AUTOLYCUS | A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with |
| troll-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. |
| Clown | His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped | 90 |
| out of the court: they cherish it to make it stay |
| there; and yet it will no more but abide. |
| AUTOLYCUS | 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 | 95 |
| 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. |
| Clown | Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts | 100 |
| wakes, fairs and bear-baitings. |
| AUTOLYCUS | Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that |
| put me into this apparel. |
| Clown | Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia: if you had |
| but looked big and spit at him, he'ld have run. | 105 |
| AUTOLYCUS | I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am |
| false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant |
| him. |
| Clown | How do you now? |
| AUTOLYCUS | Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and | 110 |
| walk: I will even take my leave of you, and pace |
| 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 | 115 |
| sheep-shearing. |
| AUTOLYCUS | 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 | 120 |
| shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my name |
| put in the book of virtue! |
[Sings] |
| Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, |
| And merrily hent the stile-a: |
| A merry heart goes all the day, | 125 |
| Your sad tires in a mile-a. |
| [Exit] |
The Winter's Tale: Plot Summary