Clown.  His vices, you would say; there’s no virtue whipped out of the court:  they cherish it, to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but abide.

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

Clown.  Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig:  he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings.

Autolycus.  Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that’s the rogue that put me into this apparel.

Clown.  Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but looked big and spit at him, he’d have run.

Autolycus.  I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter:  I am false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant him.

Clown. 
How do you now?

Autolycus. 
Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and walk:  I will
even take my leave of you and pace softly towards my kinsman’s.

Clown. 
Shall I bring thee on the way?

Autolycus. 
No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir.

Clown. 
Then fare thee well:  I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing.

Autolycus. 
Prosper you, sweet sir!

[Exit clown.]

Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice.  I’ll be with you at your sheep-shearing too.  If I make not this cheat bring out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue!

[Sings.]

    Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
      And merrily hent the stile-a: 
    A merry heart goes all the day,
      Your sad tires in a mile-a.

[Exit.]

Scene IV.  The same.  A Shepherd’s Cottage.

[Enter Florizel and Perdita.]

Florizel. 
These your unusual weeds to each part of you
Do give a life,—­no shepherdess, but Flora
Peering in April’s front.  This your sheep-shearing
Is as a meeting of the petty gods,
And you the queen on’t.

Perdita. 
                        Sir, my gracious lord,
To chide at your extremes it not becomes me,—­
O, pardon that I name them!—­your high self,
The gracious mark o’ the land, you have obscur’d
With a swain’s wearing; and me, poor lowly maid,
Most goddess-like prank’d up.  But that our feasts
In every mess have folly, and the feeders
Digest it with a custom, I should blush
To see you so attir’d; swoon, I think,
To show myself a glass.

Florizel. 
                        I bless the time
When my good falcon made her flight across
Thy father’s ground.