CLO. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant;' say, you have none. SHEP. None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock, nor hen.2 AUT. How bless'd are we, that are not simple men! Yet nature might have made me as these are, CLO. This cannot be but a great courtier. SHEP. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely. CLO. He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical; a great man, I'll warrant; I know, by the picking on's teeth.3 AUT. The fardel there? what's i'the fardel? Wherefore that box? 1 Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant;] As he was a suitor from the country, the Clown supposes his father should have brought a present of game, and therefore imagines, when Autolycus asks him what advocate he has, that by the word advocate he means a pheasant. STEEVENS. 2 ? — I have no pheasant, cock, nor hen.] The allusion here was probably more intelligible in the time of Shakspeare than it is at present, though the mode of bribery and influence referred to, has been at all times employed, and as it should seem, with success. Our author might have had in his mind the following, then a recent instance. In the time of Queen Elizabeth there were Justices of the Peace called Basket Justices, who would do nothing without a present; yet, as a member of the House of Commons expressed himself, "for half a dozen of chickens would dispense with a whole dozen of penal statutes." See Sir Simon D'Ewes's Journals of Parliament, in Queen Elizabeth's Reign. REED. 3 —a great man,-by the picking on's teeth.] It seems, that to pick the teeth was, at this time, a mark of some pretension to greatness or elegance. So, the Bastard, in King John, speaking of the traveller, says: "He and his pick-tooth at my worship's mess." JOHNSON, SHEP. Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel, and box, which none must know but the king; and which he shall know within this hour, if I may come to the speech of him. AUT. Age, thou hast lost thy labour. SHEP. Why, sir? AUT. The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy, and air himself: For, if thou be'st capable of things serious, thou must know, the king is full of grief. SHEP. So 'tis said, sir; about his son, that should have married a shepherd's daughter. AUT. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly; the curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster. CLO. Think you so, sir? AUT. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy, and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though removed fifty times, shall all come under the hangman: which though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace! Some say, he shall be stoned; but that death is too soft for him, say I: Draw our throne into a sheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy. CLO. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an't like you, sir? AUT. He has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then, 'nointed over with honey, set on the head then, 'nointed over with honey, &c.] A punishment of this sort is recorded in a book which Shakspeare might have - he caused a cage of yron to be made, and set it in seen :-" VOL. IX. C C of a wasp's nest; then stand, till he be three quarters and a dram dead: then recovered again with aqua-vitæ, or some other hot infusion: then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set against a brick-wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him; where he is to behold him, with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at, their offences being so capital? Tell me, (for you seem to be honest plain men,) what you have to the king: being something gently considered, I'll bring you where he is aboard, the sunne: and, after annointing the pore Prince over with hony, forced him naked to enter into it, where hee long time endured the greatest languor and torment in the worlde, with swarmes of flies that dayly fed on him; and in this sorte, with paine and famine, ended his miserable life." The Stage of Popish Toyes, 1581, p. 33. REED. the hottest day prognostication proclaims,] That is, the hottest day foretold in the almanack. JOHNSON. Almanacks were in Shakspeare's time published under this title: "An Almanack and Prognostication made for the year of our Lord God, 1595." See Herbert's Typograph. Antiq. II. 1029. MAlone. One of the almanacks of Shakspeare's time is now before me. It is entitled, " Buckmynster, 1598. A prognostication for the yeare of our Lorde God MD.XCVIII. Conteyning certaine rules and notes for divers uses, and also a description of the three eclipses, and a declaration of the state of the foure quarters of this yeare, and dayly disposition of the wether for every day in the same. Done by Thomas Buckmynster. Anno etatis suæ 66. Imprinted at London by Richard Watkins and James Roberts." REED. "being something gently considered,] Means, I having a gentlemanlike consideration given me, i. e. a bribe, will bring you,&c. So, in The Three Ladies of London, 1584: 66 sure, sir, I'll consider it hereafter if I can. "What, consider me? dost thou think that I am a bribetaker?" Again, in The Isle of Gulls, 1633: "Thou shalt be well con sidered, there's twenty crowns in earnest." STEEVENS. tender your persons to his presence, whisper him in your behalfs; and, if it be in man, besides the king to effect your suits, here is man shall do it. CLO. He seems to be of great authority: close with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold: show the inside of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado: Remember stoned, and flayed alive. SHEP. An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for us, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much more; and leave this young man in pawn, till I bring it you. AUT. After I have done what I promised? SHEP. Ay, sir. AUT. Well, give me the moiety :-Are you a party in this business? CLO. In some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it. AUT. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son:Hang him, he'll be made an example. CLO. Comfort, good comfort: we must to the king, and show our strange sights: he must know, 'tis none of your daughter nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does, when the business is performed; and remain, as he says, your pawn, till it be brought you. AUT. I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on the right-hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you. CLO. We are blessed in this man, as I may say, even blessed. SHEP. Let's before, as he bids us: he was provided to do us good. [Exeunt Shepherd and Clown. AUT. If I had a mind to be honest, I see, fortune would not suffer me; she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occasion; gold, and a means to do the prince my master good; which, who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he think it fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me, rogue, for being so far officious; for I am proof against that title, and what shame else belongs to't: To him will I present them, there may be matter in it. [Exit. ACT V. SCENE I. Sicilia. A Room in the Palace of Leontes. *Enter LEONTES, Cleomenes, DION, PAULINA, and Others. CLEO. Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make, Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down More penitence, than done trespass: At the last, Do, as the heavens have done; forget your evil; With them, forgive yourself. LEON. Whilst I remember Her, and her virtues, I cannot forget My blemishes in them; and so still think of The wrong I did myself: which was so much, That heirless it hath made my kingdom; and |