The Winter's Tale eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 141 pages of information about The Winter's Tale.

[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.] 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 hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on.  She hath made me four and twenty nosegays 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 hornpipes.  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.’

Autolycus.
[Grovelling on the ground.] O that ever I was born!

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 on thee,
rather than have these off.

Autolycus
O sir, the loathsomeness of them offend 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 great matter.

Autolycus
I am robb’d, 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?

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.

[Helping him up.]

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?

Autolycus
Softly, dear sir! [Picks his pocket.] 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 a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going; I shall there have money or anything I want:  offer me no money, I pray you; that kills my heart.

Clown
What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?

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.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Winter's Tale from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.