The Winter’s Tale

wind that blows. Camillo

Then list to me:
This follows, if you will not change your purpose
But undergo this flight, make for Sicilia,
And there present yourself and your fair princess,
For so I see she must be, ’fore Leontes:
She shall be habited as it becomes
The partner of your bed. Methinks I see
Leontes opening his free arms and weeping
His welcomes forth; asks thee the son forgiveness,
As ’twere i’ the father’s person; kisses the hands
Of your fresh princess; o’er and o’er divides him
’Twixt his unkindness and his kindness; the one
He chides to hell and bids the other grow
Faster than thought or time.

Florizel

Worthy Camillo,
What colour for my visitation shall I
Hold up before him?

Camillo

Sent by the king your father
To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,
The manner of your bearing towards him, with
What you as from your father shall deliver,
Things known betwixt us three, I’ll write you down:
The which shall point you forth at every sitting
What you must say; that he shall not perceive
But that you have your father’s bosom there
And speak his very heart.

Florizel

I am bound to you:
There is some sap in this.

Camillo

A cause more promising
Than a wild dedication of yourselves
To unpath’d waters, undream’d shores, most certain
To miseries enough; no hope to help you,
But as you shake off one to take another;
Nothing so certain as your anchors, who
Do their best office, if they can but stay you
Where you’ll be loath to be: besides you know
Prosperity’s the very bond of love,
Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together
Affliction alters.

Perdita

One of these is true:
I think affliction may subdue the cheek,
But not take in the mind.

Camillo

Yea, say you so?
There shall not at your father’s house these seven years
Be born another such.

Florizel

My good Camillo,
She is as forward of her breeding as
She is i’ the rear our birth.

Camillo

I cannot say ’tis pity
She lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress
To most that teach.

Perdita

Your pardon, sir; for this
I’ll blush you thanks.

Florizel

My prettiest Perdita!
But O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo,
Preserver of my father, now of me,
The medicine of our house, how shall we do?
We are not furnish’d like Bohemia’s son,
Nor shall appear in Sicilia.

Camillo

My lord,
Fear none of this: I think you know my fortunes
Do all lie there: it shall be so my care
To have you royally appointed as if
The scene you play were mine. For instance, sir,
That you may know you shall not want, one word. They talk aside.

Re-enter Autolycus. Autolycus Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting: they throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer: by which means I saw whose purse was best in picture; and what I saw, to my good use I remembered. My clown, who wants but something to be a reasonable man, grew so in love with the wenches’ song, that he would not stir his pettitoes till he had both tune and words; which so drew the rest of the herd to me that all their other senses stuck in ears: you might have pinched a placket, it was senseless; ’twas nothing to geld a codpiece of a purse; I could have filed keys off that hung in chains: no hearing, no feeling, but my sir’s song, and admiring the nothing of it. So that in this time of lethargy I picked and cut most of their festival purses; and had not the old man come in with a whoo-bub against his daughter and the king’s son and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army. Camillo, Florizel, and Perdita come forward. Camillo

Nay, but my letters, by this means being there
So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.

Florizel And those that you’ll procure from King Leontes⁠— Camillo Shall satisfy your father. Perdita

Happy be you!
All that you speak shows fair.

Camillo

Who have we here? Seeing Autolycus.
We’ll make an instrument of this, omit
Nothing may give us aid.

Autolycus If they have overheard me now, why, hanging. Camillo How now, good fellow! why shakest thou so? Fear not, man; here’s no harm intended to thee. Autolycus I am a poor fellow, sir. Camillo Why, be so still; here’s nobody will steal that from thee: yet for the outside of thy poverty we must make an exchange; therefore discase thee instantly⁠—thou must think there’s a necessity in’t⁠—and change garments with this gentleman: though the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee, there’s some boot. Autolycus I am a poor fellow, sir. Aside. I know ye well enough. Camillo Nay, prithee, dispatch: the gentleman is half flayed already. Autolycus Are you in earnest, sir? Aside. I smell the trick on’t. Florizel Dispatch, I prithee. Autolycus Indeed, I have had earnest: but I cannot with conscience take it. Camillo

Unbuckle, unbuckle. Florizel and Autolycus exchange garments.
Fortunate mistress⁠—let my prophecy
Come home to ye!⁠—you must retire yourself
Into some covert: take your sweetheart’s hat
And pluck it o’er your brows, muffle your face,
Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken
The truth of your own seeming; that you may⁠—
For I do fear eyes over⁠—to shipboard
Get undescried.

Perdita

I see the play so lies
That I must bear a part.

Camillo

No remedy.
Have you done there?

Florizel

Should I now meet my father,
He would not call me son.

Camillo

Nay, you shall have no hat. Giving it to Perdita.
Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.

Autolycus Adieu, sir. Florizel

O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!
Pray you, a word.

Camillo

Aside. What I do next, shall be to tell the king
Of this escape and whither they are bound;
Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail
To force him after: in whose company
I shall review Sicilia, for whose