Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

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OLD SHEPHERD Away. We’ll none on’t. Here has been too much homely foolery already. (To Polixenes) I know, sir, we weary you.

POLIXENES You weary those that refresh us. Pray, let’s see these four threes of herdsmen.

SERVANT One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the King, and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by th’ square.

OLD SHEPHERD Leave your prating. Since these good men are pleased, let them come in—but quickly, now.

SERVANT Why, they stay at door, sir.

Here a dance of twelve satyrs

POLIXENES (to the Old Shepherd)

O, father, you’ll know more of that hereafter.

(To Camillo) Is it not too far gone? ’Tis time to part

them.

He’s simple, and tells much.

(To Florizel) How now, fair shepherd,

Your heart is full of something that does take

Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young

And handed love as you do, I was wont

To load my she with knacks. I would have ransacked

The pedlar’s silken treasury, and have poured it

To her acceptance. You have let him go,

And nothing marted with him. If your lass

Interpretation should abuse, and call this

Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited

For a reply, at least if you make a care

Of happy holding her.

FLORIZEL

Old sir, I know

She prizes not such trifles as these are.

The gifts she looks from me are packed and locked

Up in my heart, which I have given already,

But not delivered.

(To Perdita) O, hear me breathe my life

Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem,

Hath sometime loved. I take thy hand, this hand

As soft as dove’s down, and as white as it,

Or Ethiopian’s tooth, or the fanned snow that’s bolted

By th’ northern blasts twice o’er.

POLIXENES

What follows this?

How prettily the young swain seems to wash

The hand was fair before! I have put you out.

But to your protestation. Let me hear

What you profess.

FLORIZEL

Do, and be witness to’t.

POLIXENES

And this my neighbour too?

FLORIZEL

And he, and more

Than he; and men, the earth, the heavens, and all,

That were I crowned the most imperial monarch,

Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth

That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge

More than was ever man’s, I would not prize them

Without her love; for her employ them all,

Commend them and condemn them to her service

Or to their own perdition.

POLIXENES

Fairly offered.

CAMILLO

This shows a sound affection.

OLD SHEPHERD

But, my daughter,

Say you the like to him?

PERDITA

I cannot speak

So well, nothing so well, no, nor mean better.

By th’ pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out

The purity of his.

OLD SHEPHERD

Take hands, a bargain;

And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to’t.

I give my daughter to him, and will make

Her portion equal his.

FLORIZEL

O, that must be

I’th’ virtue of your daughter. One being dead,

I shall have more than you can dream of yet,

Enough then for your wonder. But come on,

Contract us fore these witnesses.

OLD SHEPHERD

Come, your hand;

And, daughter, yours.

POLIXENES

Soft, swain, a while, beseech you.

Have you a father?

FLORIZEL I have. But what of him?

POLIXENES Knows he of this?

FLORIZEL He neither does nor shall.

POLIXENES Methinks a father

Is at the nuptial of his son a guest

That best becomes the table. Pray you once more,

Is not your father grown incapable

Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid

With age and alt’ring rheums? Can he speak, hear,

Know man from man? Dispute his own estate?

Lies he not bed-rid, and again does nothing

But what he did being childish?

FLORIZEL

No, good sir.

He has his health, and ampler strength indeed

Than most have of his age.

POLIXENES

By my white beard,

You offer him, if this be so, a wrong

Something unfilial. Reason my son

Should choose himself a wife, but as good reason

The father, all whose joy is nothing else

But fair posterity, should hold some counsel

In such a business.

FLORIZEL

I yield all this;

But for some other reasons, my grave sir,

Which ’tis not fit you know, I not acquaint

My father of this business.

POLIXENES

Let him know’t.

FLORIZEL

He shall not.

POLIXENES

Prithee let him.

FLORIZEL

No, he must not.

OLD SHEPHERD

Let him, my son. He shall not need to grieve

At knowing of thy choice.

FLORIZEL

Come, come, he must not.

Mark our contract.

POLIXENES (removing his disguise)

Mark your divorce, young sir,

Whom son I dare not call. Thou art too base

To be acknowledged. Thou a sceptre’s heir,

That thus affects a sheep-hook?

(To the Old Shepherd) Thou, old traitor,

I am sorry that by hanging thee I can but

Shorten thy life one week.

(To Perdita) And thou, fresh piece

Of excellent witchcraft, who of force must know

The royal fool thou cop’st with—

OLD SHEPHERD O, my heart!

POLIXENES

I’ll have thy beauty scratched with briers and made

More homely than thy state.

(To Florizel) For thee, fond boy,

If I may ever know thou dost but sigh

That thou no more shalt see this knack, as never

I mean thou shalt, we’ll bar thee from succession,

Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,

Farre than Deucalion off. Mark thou my words.

Follow us to the court.

(To the Old Shepherd) Thou churl, for this time,

Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee

From the dead blow of it.

(To Perdita)

And you, enchantment,

Worthy enough a herdsman—yea, him too,

That makes himself, but for our honour therein,

Unworthy thee—if ever henceforth thou

These rural latches to his entrance open,

Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,

I will devise a death as cruel for thee

As thou art tender to’t.

Exit

PERDITA

Even here undone.

I was not much afeard, for once or twice

I was about to speak, and tell him plainly

The selfsame sun that shines upon his court

Hides not his visage from our cottage, but

Looks on alike. Will’t please you, sir, be gone?

I told you what would come of this. Beseech you,

Of your own state take care. This dream of mine

Being now awake, I’ll queen it no inch farther,

But milk my ewes and weep.

CAMILLO (to the Old Shepherd) Why, how now, father?

Speak ere thou diest.

OLD SHEPHERD

I cannot speak, nor think,

Nor dare to know that which I know.

(To Florizel)

O sir, You have undone a man of fourscore-three,

That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,

To die upon the bed my father died,

To lie close by his honest bones. But now

Some hangman must put on my shroud, and lay me

Where no priest shovels in dust.

(To Perdita)

O cursed wretch, That knew’st this was the Prince, and wouldst

adventure

To mingle faith with him. Undone, undone!

If I might die within this hour, I have lived

To die when I desire. Exit

FLORIZEL (to Perdita) Why look you so upon me?

I am but sorry, not afeard; delayed,

But nothing altered. What I was, I am,

More straining on for plucking back, not following

My leash unwillingly.

CAMILLO

Gracious my lord,

You know your father’s temper. At this time

He will allow no speech—which I do guess

You do not purpose to him; and as hardly

Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear.

Then till the fury of his highness settle,

Come not before him.

FLORIZEL

I not purpose it.

I think, Camillo?

CAMILLO

Even he, my lord.

PERDITA (to Florizel)

How often have I told you ‘twould be thus?

How often said my dignity would last

But till ’twere known?

FLORIZEL

It cannot fail but by

The violation of my faith, and then

Let nature crush the sides o’th’ earth together

And mar the seeds within. Lift up thy looks.

From my succession wipe me, father! I

Am heir to my affection.

CAMILLO

Be advised.

FLORIZEL

I am, and by my fancy. If my reason

Will thereto be obedient, I have reason.

If not, my senses, better pleased with madness,

Do bid it welcome.

CAMILLO

This is desperate, sir.

FLORIZEL

So call it. But it does fulfil my vow.

I needs must think it honesty. Camillo,

Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may

Be thereat gleaned; for all the sun sees, or

The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hides

In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath

To this my fair beloved. Therefore, I pray you,

As you have ever been my father’s honoured friend,

When he shall miss me—as, in faith, I mean not

To see him any more—cast your good counsels

Upon his passion. Let myself and fortune

Tug for the time to come. This you may know,

And so deliver: I am put to sea

With her who here I cannot hold on shore;

And most opportune to her need, I have

A vessel rides fast by, but not prepared

For this design. What course I mean to hold

Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor

Concern me the reporting.

CAMILLO

O my lord,

I would your spirit were easier for advice,

Or stronger for your need.

FLORIZEL

Hark, Perdita—

(To Camillo) I’ll hear you by and by.

CAMILLO (aside) He’s irremovable,

Resolved for flight. Now were I happy if

His going I could frame to serve my turn,

Save him from danger, do him love and honour,

Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia

And that unhappy king, my master, whom

I so much thirst to see.

FLORIZEL

Now, good Camillo,

I am so fraught with curious business that

I leave out ceremony.

CAMILLO

Sir, I think

You have heard of my poor services i’th’ love

That I have borne your father?

FLORIZEL

Very nobly

Have you deserved. It is my father’s music

To speak your deeds, not little of his care

To have them recompensed as thought on.

CAMILLO

Well, my lord,

If you may please to think I love the King,

And through him what’s nearest to him, which is

Your gracious self, embrace but my direction,

If your more ponderous and settled project

May suffer alteration. On mine honour,

I’ll point you where you shall have such receiving

As shall become your highness, where you may

Enjoy your mistress—from the whom I see

There’s no disjunction to be made but by,

As heavens forfend, your ruin—marry her,

And with my best endeavours in your absence

Your discontenting father strive to qualify

And bring him up to liking.

FLORIZEL

How, Camillo,

May this, almost a miracle, be done?—

That I may call thee something more than man,

And after that trust to thee.

CAMILLO

Have you thought on

A place whereto you’ll go?

FLORIZEL

Not any yet.

But as th’unthought-on accident is guilty

To what we wildly do, so we profess

Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies

Of every 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 there ‘Son, forgiveness!’

As ‘twere i’th’ father’s person, kisses the hands

Of your fresh princess; o‘er and o’er divides him

‘Twixt his unkindness and his kindness. Th’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 course more promising

Than a wild dedication of yourselves

To unpathed waters, undreamed 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’s as forward of her breeding as

She is i’th’ 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 furnished like Bohemia’s son,

Nor shall appear so 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 speak apart.

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 hubbub 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 (seeing Autolycus) Who have we here?

We’ll make an instrument of this, omit Nothing may give us aid.

AUTOLYCUS (aside) 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 instantty—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, (giving him money) 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 clothes

(To Perdita) 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.

(To Florizel) Have you done there?

FLORIZEL

Should I now meet my father

He would not call me son.

CAMILLO

Nay, you shall have no hat.

He gives the hat to Perdita

Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.

AUTOLYCUS Adieu, sir.

FLORIZEL

O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!

Pray you, a word.

They speak aside

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 re-view Sicilia, for whose sight

I have a woman’s longing.

FLORIZEL

Fortune speed us!

Thus we set on, Camillo, to th’ seaside.

CAMILLO The swifter speed the better.

Exeunt Florizel, Perdita, and Camillo

AUTOLYCUS I understand the business, I hear it. To have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand is necessary for a cutpurse. A good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for th’other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth thrive. What an exchange had this been without boot! What a boot is here with this exchange! Sure the gods do this year connive at us, and we may do anything extempore. The Prince himself is about a piece of iniquity, stealing away from his father with his clog at his heels. If I thought it were a piece of honesty to acquaint the King withal, I would not do’t. I hold it the more knavery to conceal it, and therein am I constant to my profession.

Enter the Clown and the Old Shepherd, carrying a fardel and a box

Aside, aside! Here is more matter for a hot brain. Every lane’s end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man work.

CLOWN See, see, what a man you are now! There is no other way but to tell the King she’s a changeling, and none of your flesh and blood.

OLD SHEPHERD Nay, but hear me.

CLOWN Nay, but hear me.

OLD SHEPHERD Go to, then.

CLOWN She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the King, and so your flesh and blood is not to be punished by him. Show those things you found about her, those secret things, all but what she has with her. This being done, let the law go whistle, I warrant you.

OLD SHEPHERD I will tell the King all, every word, yea, and his son’s pranks, too, who, I may say, is no honest man, neither to his father nor to me, to go about to make me the King’s brother-in-law.

CLOWN Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have been to him, and then your blood had been the dearer by I know not how much an ounce. AUTOLYCUS (aside) Very wisely, puppies.

OLD SHEPHERD Well, let us to the King. There is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard.

AUTOLYCUS (aside) I know not what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master.

CLOWN Pray heartily he be at’ palace.

AUTOLYCUS (aside) Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance. Let me pocket up my pedlar’s excrement.

He removes his false beard

–How now, rustics, whither are you bound?

OLD SHEPHERD To th’ palace, an it like your worship.

AUTOLYCUS Your affairs there? What? With whom? The condition of that fardel? The place of your dwelling? Your names? Your ages? Of what having, breeding, and anything that is fitting to be known, discover.

CLOWN We are but plain fellows, sir.

AUTOLYCUS A lie, you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying. It becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie, but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel, therefore they do not give us the lie.

CLOWN Your worship had like to have given us one if you had not taken yourself with the manner.

OLD SHEPHERD Are you a courtier, an’t like you, sir?

AUTOLYCUS Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings? Hath not my gait in it the measure of the court? Receives not thy nose court-odour from me? Reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Thinkest thou, for that I insinuate to toze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-à-pie, and one that will either push on or pluck back thy business there. Whereupon I command thee to open thy affair.

OLD SHEPHERD My business, sir, is to the King.

AUTOLYCUS What advocate hast thou to him?

OLD SHEPHERD I know not, an’t like you.

CLOWN (aside to the Old Shepherd) ’Advocate’ ’s the court word for a pheasant. Say you have none.

OLD SHEPHERD

None, sir. I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.

AUTOLYCUS (aside)

How blessed are we that are not simple men!

Yet nature might have made me as these are,

Therefore I will not disdain.

CLOWN This cannot be but a great courtier.

OLD SHEPHERD His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.

CLOWN He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical. A great man, I’ll warrant. I know by the picking on’s teeth.

AUTOLYCUS The fardel there, what’s i’th’ fardel? Wherefore that box?

OLD SHEPHERD Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box which none must know but the King, and which he shall know within this hour, if I may come to th’ speech of him.

AUTOLYCUS Age, thou hast lost thy labour. OLD SHEPHERD Why, sir?

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