POLIXENES

Nine Changes of the Watry-Starre hath been The Shepherds Note, since we have left our Throne Without a Burden: Time as long again Would be filled up (my Brother) with our Thanks, And yet we should, for perpetuity, Go hence in debt: And therefore, Like a Cypher (Yet standing in rich place) I multiply With one we thank you, many thousands more, That go before it. Sir, that's to morrow: I am questioned by my fears, of what may chance, Or breed upon our absence, that may blow No sneaping Winds at home, to make us say, This is put forth too truly: beside, I have stayed To Tyre your Royalty. No longer stay. Very sooth, to morrow. Press me not (beseech you) so: There is no Tongue that moves; none, none in the World So soon as yours, could win me: so it should now, Were there necessity in your request, although 'Twere needful I denied it. My Affairs Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder, Were (in your Love) a Whip to me; my stay, To you a Charge, and Trouble: to save both, Farewell (our Brother.) No, Madame. I may not verily. Your Guest then, Madame: To be your Prisoner, should import offending; Which is for me, less easy to commit, Then you to punish. We were (fair Queen) Two Lads, that thought there was no more behind, But such a day to morrow, as to day, And to be Boy eternal. We were as twine Lambs, that did frisk in the Sun, And bleat the one at the other: what we changed, Was Innocence, for Innocence: we knew not The Doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed That any did: Had we pursued that life, And our weak Spirits never been higher reared With stronger blood, we should have answered Heaven Boldly, not guilty; the Imposition cleared, Hereditary ours. Oh my most sacred Lady, Temptations have since then been born to's: for In those unfledged days, was my Wife a Girl; Your precious self had then not crossed the eyes Of my young Play fellow. What means Sicilia ? How? my Lord? If at home (Sir) He's all my Exercise, my Mirth, my Matter; Now my sworn Friend, and then mine Enemy; My Parasite my Soldier: Statesman; all: He makes a July's day, short as December, And with his varying child-nesse, cures in me Thoughts, that would thick my blood. This is strange: Me thinks My favour here begins to warp. Not speak? Good day Camillo. What is the News in the Court? The King hath on him such a countenance, As he had lost some Province, and a Region Loved, as he loves himself: even now I met him With customary compliment, when he Wafting his eyes to the contrary, and falling A Lip of much contempt, speeds from me, and So leaves me, to consider what is breeding, That changes thus his Manners. How, dare not? do not? do you know, and dare not? Be intelligent to me, it's thereabouts: For to your self, what you do know, you must, And cannot say, you dare not. Good Camillo, Your changed complexions are to me a Mirror, Which shows me mine changed too: for I must be A party in this alteration, finding My self thus altered with't. How caught of me? Make me not sighted Like the Basilisque. I have looked on thousands, who have sped the better By my regard, but killed none so: Camillo, As you are certainly a Gentleman, thereto Clerke-like experienced, which no less adorns Our Gentry, then our Parents Noble Names, In whose success we are gentle: I beseech you, If you know ought which do's behoove my knowledge, Thereof to be informed, imprison't not In ignorant concealment. A Sickness caught of me, and yet I well? I must be answered. Dost thou hear Camillo, I conjure thee, by all the parts of man, Which Honour do's acknowledge, whereof the least Is not this Suit of mine, that thou declare What incidency thou dost guess of harm Is creeping towards me; how far off, how near, Which way to be prevented, if to be: If not, how best to bear it. On, good Camillo. By whom, Camillo ? For what? O then, my best blood turn To and infected Jelly, and my Name Be yoked with his, that did betray the Best: Turn then my freshest Reputation to A savour, that may strike the dullest Nosthrill Where I arrive, and my approach be shunned, Nay hated too, worse then the greatest Infection That ere was herd, or read. How should this grow? I do believe thee: I saw his heart in's face. Give me thy hand, Be Pilot to me, and thy places shall Still neighbour mine. My Ships are ready, and My people did expect my hence departure Two days ago. This Jealousy Is for a precious Creature: as she's rare, Must it be great; and, as his Person's mighty, Must it be violent: and, as he do's conceive, He is dishonoured by a man, which ever Professed to him: why his Revenges must In that be made more bitter. Fear overshades me: Good Expedition be my friend, and comfort The gracious Queen, partly of his Theme; but nothing Of his ill-ta'ne suspicion. Come Camillo, I will respect thee as a Father, if Thou bearest my life off, hence: Let us avoid. I pray thee (good Camillo ) be no more importu nate: it's a sickness denying thee any thing: a death to grant this. As thou lovest me (Camillo) wipe not out the rest of thy services, by leaving me now: the need I have of thee, thine own goodness hath made: better not to have had thee, then thus to want thee, thou having made me Businesses, (which none (without thee) can suffici ently manage) must either stay to execute them thy self, or take away with thee the very services thou hast done: which if I have not enough considered (as too much I cannot) to be more thankful to thee, shall be my stum die, and my profit therein, the heaping friendshippes. Of that fatal Country Sicillia, prithee speak no more, whose very naming, punnishes me with the remembrance of that penitent (as thou callest him) and reconciled King my brother, whose lose of his most precious Queen & Children, are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizell my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue, not being gracious, then they are in losing them, when they have approved their Virtues. I have considered so much (Camillo) and with some care, so far, that I have eyes under my service, which look upon his remouednesse: from whom I have this Intelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd: a man (they say) that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into and unspeakable estate. That's likewise partly of my Intelligence: but (I fear) the Angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place, where we will (not ap pearing what we are) have some question with the shep herd; from whose simplicity, I think it not uneasy to get the cause of my sons resort thither. Prithee be my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicillia. My best Camillo, we must disguise our selves. When Daffodils begin to peer, With heigh the Doxy over the dale. Why then comes in the sweet of the year, For the read blood raigns in y e winter's pale. The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, With boy the sweet birds, Oh how they sing: Does set my pugging tooth and edge, For a quart of Ale is a dish for a King. The Lark that tirra Lyram chants, With heigh, the Thrush and the Jay: Are Summer songs for me and my Ants While we lie tumbling in the hay. I have served Prince Florizell, and in my time wore three pile, but now I am out of service. But shall I go mourn for that (my deer) 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 Bowget, Then my account I well may give, and in the Stocks auouch-it. My Traffic is sheets: when the Kite builds, look to lesser Linne . My Father named me Autolicus, who be king (as I am) lytter'd under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-vp of unconsidered trifles: With Die and drab, I purchased this Caparison, and my Reuennew 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 of it. A prize, a prize. Shepherdess, (A fair one are you:) well you fit our ages With flowers of Winter. Wherefore (gentle Maiden) Do you neglect them. Say there be: Yet Nature is made better by no mean, But Nature makes that Mean: so over that Art, (Which you say adds to Nature) is and Art That Nature makes: you see (sweet Maid) we marry A gentler Sien, to the wildest Stock, And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of Nobler raze. This is and Art Which do's mend Nature: change it rather, but The Art it self, is Nature. Then make you Garden rich in Gilly'vors, And do not call them bastards. Pray good Shepherd, what fair Swain is this, Which dances with your daughter? She dances fearly. This is a brave fellow. You weary those that refresh us: pray let's see these foure-threes of Herdsmen. Oh Father, you'll know more of that hereafter: Is it not too far gone? It's time to partly them, He's simple, and tells much. How now (fair shepherd) Your heart is full of something, that do's 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 Pedlars silken Treasury, and have poured it To her acceptance: you have let him go, And nothing matted 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. 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. And this my neighbour too? Fairly offered. I cannot speak So well, (nothing so well) no, nor mean better By the par yearn of mine own thoughts, I cut out The purity of his. Soft Swain awhile, beseech you, Have you a Father? Knows he of this? 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 incapeable Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid With Age, and altering Rheums? Can he speak? hear? Know man, from man? Dispute his own estate? Lies he not bedrid? And again, do's nothing But what he did, being childish? By my white beard, You offer him (if this be so) a wrong Something vnfilliall: 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. Let him know't. Prithee let him. Mark your divorce (young sir) Whom son I dare not call: Thou art too base To be acknowledge. Thou a Sceptres heir, That thus affects a sheephook? Thou, old Traitor, I am sorry, that by hanging thee, I can but shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece Of excellent Witchcraft, whom of force must know The royal Fool thou coap'st with. I'll have thy beauty scratched with briers & made More homely then thy state. For thee (found boy) If I may ever know thou dost but sighs, That thou no more shalt never 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, Far then Deucalion off: (mark thou my words) Follow us to the Court. Thou Churl, for this time (Though full of our displeasure) yet we free thee From the dead blow of it. 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 hope his body more, with thy embraces, I will devise a death, as cruel for thee As thou art tender to't. O, not by much. Dear my Brother, Let him, that was the cause of this, have pour To take-off so much grief from you, as he Will piece up in himself. 'Masterly done: The very Life seems warm upon her Lip. She embraces him. I, and make it manifest where she ha lived, Or how stolen from the dead? This is the prettiest Low-borne Lass, that ever Ran on the greene-sord: Nothing she do's, or seems But smacks of something greater then her self, Too Noble for this place.