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The Winter’s Tale: Act IV, Scene 3

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The Winter’s Tale
Act IV, Scene 3

Bohemia. A road near the shepherd’s cottage.

Songs and sonnets of William Shakespeare

From: Songs and sonnets of William Shakespeare

1916

  1. Enter Autolycus singing.

Autolycus

1 - 30
  1. When daffodils begin to peer,
  2. With heigh, the doxy over the dale!
  3. Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year,
  4. For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.
  5. The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
  6. With hey, the sweet birds, O how they sing!
  7. Doth set my pugging tooth an edge,
  8. For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.
  9. The lark, that tirra-lyra chaunts,
  10. With heigh, with heigh, the thrush and the jay!
  11. Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
  12. While we lie tumbling in the hay.
  13. I have serv’d Prince Florizel, and in my time wore
  14. three-pile, but now I am out of service.
  15. But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
  16. The pale moon shines by night;
  17. And when I wander here and there,
  18. I then do most go right.
  19. If tinkers may have leave to live,
  20. And bear the sow-skin bouget,
  21. Then my account I well may give,
  22. And in the stocks avouch it.
  23. My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser
  24. linen. My father nam’d me Autolycus, who being, as I am,
  25. litter’d under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of
  26. unconsider’d trifles. With die and drab I purchas’d this
  27. caparison, and my revenue is the silly cheat. Gallows and
  28. knock are too powerful on the highway. Beating and hanging
  29. are terrors to me. For the life to come, I sleep out the
  30. thought of it. A prize, a prize!
  1. Enter Clown.

Clown

31 - 33
  1. Let me see: every ’leven wether tods, every tod yields pound
  2. and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool
  3. to?

Autolycus

34
  1. Aside.
  2. If the springe hold, the cock’s mine.

Clown

35 - 46
  1. I cannot do’t without compters. Let me see: what am I to buy
  2. for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar, five
  3. pound of currants, rice—what will this sister of mine do
  4. with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the
  5. feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me four and twenty
  6. nosegays for the shearers (three-man song-men all, and very
  7. good ones), but they are most of them means and bases; but
  8. one Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to horn-pipes.
  9. I must have saffron to color the warden pies; mace; dates,
  10. none—that’s out of my note; nut-megs, seven; a race or two
  11. of ginger, but that I may beg; four pounds of prunes, and as
  12. many of raisins o’ th’ sun.

Autolycus

47
  1. O that ever I was born!
  1. Groveling on the ground.

Clown

48
  1. I’ th’ name of me—

Autolycus

49 - 50
  1. O, help me, help me! Pluck but off these rags; and then,
  2. death, death!

Clown

51 - 52
  1. Alack, poor soul, thou hast need of more rags to lay on
  2. thee, rather than have these off.

Autolycus

53 - 54
  1. O sir, the loathsomeness of them offend me more than the
  2. stripes I have receiv’d, which are mighty ones and millions.

Clown

55 - 56
  1. Alas, poor man, a million of beating may come to a great
  2. matter.

Autolycus

57 - 58
  1. I am robb’d, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta’en
  2. from me, and these detestable things put upon me.

Clown

59
  1. What, by a horseman, or a footman?

Autolycus

60
  1. A footman, sweet sir, a footman.

Clown

61 - 64
  1. Indeed, he should be a footman by the garments he has left
  2. with thee. If this be a horseman’s coat, it hath seen very
  3. hot service. Lend me thy hand, I’ll help thee. Come, lend me
  4. thy hand.
Shakespeare's songs

And merrily hent the stile-a

From: Shakespeare's songs

Henry Ospovat, 1901

Autolycus

65
  1. O good sir, tenderly, O!

Clown

66
  1. Alas, poor soul!

Autolycus

67 - 68
  1. O good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my shoulder-blade
  2. is out.

Clown

69
  1. How now? Canst stand?

Autolycus

70 - 71
  1. Softly, dear sir;
  2. Picking his pocket
  3. good sir, softly. You ha’ done me a charitable office.

Clown

72
  1. Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.

Autolycus

73 - 76
  1. No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir. I have a kinsman
  2. not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was
  3. going. I shall there have money, or any thing I want, Offer
  4. me no money, I pray you, that kills my heart.

Clown

77
  1. What manner of fellow was he that robb’d you?

Autolycus

78 - 81
  1. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with
  2. troll-my-dames. I knew him once a servant of the Prince. I
  3. cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but
  4. he was certainly whipt out of the court.

Clown

82 - 84
  1. His vices, you would say; there’s no virtue whipt out of the
  2. court. They cherish it to make it stay there; and yet it
  3. will no more but abide.

Autolycus

85 - 90
  1. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well; he hath been
  2. since an ape-bearer, then a process-server, a bailiff, then
  3. he compass’d a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a
  4. tinker’s wife within a mile where my land and living lies;
  5. and, having flown over many knavish professions, he settled
  6. only in rogue. Some call him Autolycus.

Clown

91 - 92
  1. Out upon him! Prig, for my life, prig! He haunts wakes,
  2. fairs, and bear-baitings.

Autolycus

93 - 94
  1. Very true, sir; he, sir, he. That’s the rogue that put me
  2. into this apparel.

Clown

95 - 96
  1. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia. If you had but
  2. look’d big, and spit at him, he’ld have run.

Autolycus

97 - 98
  1. I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter. I am false of
  2. heart that way, and that he knew, I warrant him.

Clown

99
  1. How do you now?

Autolycus

100 - 102
  1. Sweet sir, much better than I was: I can stand and walk. I
  2. will even take my leave of you, and pace softly towards my
  3. kinsman’s.

Clown

103
  1. Shall I bring thee on the way?

Autolycus

104
  1. No, good-fac’d sir, no, sweet sir.

Clown

105 - 106
  1. Then fare thee well, I must go buy spices for our
  2. sheep-shearing.
  1. Exit.

Autolycus

107 - 115
  1. Prosper you, sweet sir! Your purse is not hot enough to
  2. purchase your spice. I’ll be with you at your sheep-shearing
  3. too. If I make not this cheat bring out another, and the
  4. shearers prove sheep, let me be unroll’d, and my name put in
  5. the book of virtue!
  6. Song.
  7. Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
  8. And merrily hent the stile-a;
  9. A merry heart goes all the day,
  10. Your sad tires in a mile-a.
  1. Exit.
The plant-lore and garden-craft of Shakespeare

When daffodils begin to peer

From: The plant-lore and garden-craft of Shakespeare

Henry Nicholson Ellacombe, University College Library Services, 1896

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