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Camillo, like Polixenes, has come under her "strong toil of grace a grace that wakens a haunting memory of the muchwronged queen. She offers flowers to him also, with words so winning that he says

"I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,

And only live by gazing."

How pretty is her answer!— "Out, alas!

You'd be so lean that blasts of January Would blow you through and through." She has now to think of her friends the shepherdesses, and of Florizel, who are waiting for smiles and posies from their queen. She longs for spring flowers, as more suited to their youth, and bursts into that exquisite enumeration of the gems of an old English garden, which can never be too often read:

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"What you do

When you

Still betters what is done. speak, sweet, I'd have you do it ever; when you sing,

I'd have you buy and sell so, so give alms,

Pray so, and for the ordering of your affairs,

To sing them, too. When you do dance,

I wish you a wave o' the sea, that you might ever do

Nothing but that; move still, still so, And own no other function. Each your doing,

So singular in each particular, Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,

That all your acts are queens."

From her reply we learn that Florizel has called himself Doricles, -although neither his rank nor name were withheld from Per dita, — lest his own name might raise suspicion among her rustic friends, that the handsome stranger was the king's son, whose uncommon name would naturally be known to them. What answer could maiden make to such eloquence as Florizel's? "O Doricles," she says, "your praises are too large," and but for her faith in his honour, she might fear he "woo'd her the false way." For that fear, he smilingly answers, she has no cause, and leads her away to the dance, where they are waited for. Polixenes has from a distance been watching them. "This," he says to Camillo,

"Is the prettiest low-born lass that ever Ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems,

But smacks of something greater than herself,

Too noble for this place.

Cam. He tells her something That makes her blood look out: good sooth, she is

The queen of curds and cream.

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While the dancing is going on, Polixenes sounds the shepherd as to the swain that dances with his daughter, but only learns that he calls himself Doricles, "boasts himself to have a worthy feeding," that he loves the maid, is beloved by her, and that "if young Doricles do light upon her, she shall bring him that which he not dreams of." After this Polixenes could have been in no doubt as to his son's intentions. "Is it not too far gone?" he says to Camillo. ""Tis time to part them." But when Florizel and Perdita approach him, he seems to have desired to learn from his son's own lips how matters stood, "How now," he says, "fair shepherd?"

"Your heart is full of something that But to your protestation! Let me hear What you profess.

does take

Your mind from feasting;"

then telling him, that when he himself was young, and "handled love as you do," he was wont "to load his she with knacks," he asks how it is that Florizel has let the pedlar, Autolycus, go, without buying anything for his mistress?

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Flo. That, were I crown'd the most

were I the

imperial monarch, Thereof most worthy; fairest youth That ever made eye swerve,—had force, More than was ever man's, and knowledge, would not

prize them, Without her love, for her employ them all,

Commend them, and command them, to her service,

Or to their own perdition."

At this avowal Polixenes might have been expected to interfere, but he refrains. In answer to the old shepherd's question, "But, my daughter, say you the like to him?" Perdita replies—

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The purity of his.

Shep. Take hands, a bargain! And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to't."

He is about to join the lovers' hands, when Polixenes interrupts him, and asks Florizel if his father is alive, and knows of this purposed marriage, urging, that in a matter of such grave importance, his counsel should be taken. Florizel admits the force of his reasons. There are others, however, why he cannot make a confidant of his father. In vain Polixenes and the shepherd entreat him to let his father know. "Come, come, he must not," Florizel impatiently rejoins; "mark our contract." "Mark your divorce, young sir!" exclaims Polixenes, throwing off his disguise, and pouring out a vehement invective upon the lovers, and also upon the shepherd, who now learns to his dismay that the king's son is

his daughter's lover. Of Perdita "I am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd, What I was, I Polixenes is especially unsparing. But nothing alter'd. "Thou piece of excellent witchcraft," as he calls her,

"I'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briars, and made

More homely than thy state! .

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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."

With these words he goes away, commanding Florizel to follow him to the Court. Meanwhile his son has maintained a dutiful silence. He does not interrupt his father, and indeed does not speak for some time after he has gone, fully recognising the difficulty of his position, but resolved to remain true to his troth-plight. Perdita, however, resigns herself to lose him. His father's words have stung her, and her princely spirit has nearly made her meet his menaces with the rebuke they merited. She is the first to speak :

"I was not much afeard; for once or twice,

I was about to speak; and tell him plainly,

The self-same sun that shines upon his

court

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am."

Camillo, who has not thrown off his disguise, but whom Florizel now recognises, urges him not to come before his father until "the fury of his highness settle." This Florizel has already resolved. The vow he has given to Perdita shall not be broken. Without her, life would not be life. He tells Camillo

"Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that

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He has a vessel hard by, and he means to put to sea "with her, whom here he cannot hold on

shore." This design, it occurs to Camillo, may also serve his own turn, while saving the prince from danger, by enabling him to see his loved Sicilia again,

"And that unhappy king, my master, whom

I so much thirst to see."

Let Florizel then make for Sicily, and present himself and his "fair princess, for so I see, she must be," to Leontes, who will welcome them with open arms. that he is sent by his father to greet Leontes, "and to give him comforts." Camillo will give him

He is to say,

written instructions what he is to report as from his father, "things known betwixt us three," so

“He shall not perceive, But that you have your father's bosom there,

And speak his very heart."

Other reasons personal to the lovers he urges, concluding with

"Besides, you know, Prosperity's the very bond of love; Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together Affliction alters."

Perdita has hitherto been silent. Now she speaks in words that, in their grave sincerity, remind us of Hermione.

"One of these is true:

makes Florizel exchange garments with Autolycus, who has opportunely come that way. This quick-witted gentleman's first thought is, how he may turn to his own profit his suspicions of "the piece of iniquity" which his former young master Florizel "is about."

But he argues himself into a resolution most appropriate to such an engrained rogue. "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." At this point the shepherd and his son are seen approaching. Aside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain.

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I think affliction may subdue the cheek, Every lane's end, every shop,

But not take in the mind."

How beautiful is what follows!

"Cam. Yea, say you so? There shall not, at your father's house, these seven years

Be born another such.

Flo. My good Camillo, She is as forward of her breeding, as She is i' the rear of our birth.

Cam.
I cannot say, 'tis pity
She lacks instructions, for she seems a
mistress

To most that teach.
Per.
Your pardon, sir;
For this I'll blush you thanks."

There is still the difficulty as to the attire in which the fugitives are to appear at the Sicilian Court. But Camillo assures them that, as his fortunes all lie in Sicily, he will take care that they are "royally appointed." His letters will be there, too, when they arrive, and "shall clear all doubt," while his influence will also be used to procure letters from Leontes which shall secure their pardon from Polixenes. He aids them to get aboard so disguised as to escape observation. For this purpose he

church, session, hanging, yields a careful man work."

And work he quickly finds in the simplicity of the new-comers. They are talking of going to the king and turning aside his wrath against themselves by telling him that Perdita is none of their flesh and blood, and producing the things which were found with her. "There is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard." Autolycus at this pricks up his ears. "I know not," he says, "what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master. Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance." And then in a scene of the rarest humour he frightens the rustics into placing themselves in his hands. He promises to take them to the king, but carries them instead to the prince's ship, where what they have to tell will, he hopes, "do the prince his master good," and at the same time minister to his own advancement.

The scene now returns to the palace of Leontes, where we find

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