Page 844 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

CLOWN

Advocate’s the court-word for a pheasant: say you have none.

SHEPHERD
None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.

AUTOLYCUS
How blessed are we that are not simple men!
Yet nature might have made me as these are; [735]

Therefore I will not disdain.

CLOWN

This cannot be but a great courtier.

SHEPHERD
His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.

CLOWN
He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical: [740] a great man, I’ll
warrant; I know by the picking on’s teeth.

AUTOLYCUS
The fardel there? What’s i’ th’ fardel? Wherefore that box?

SHEPHERD
Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and [745] box, which none must

know but the king; and which he shall know within this hour, if I may come to
th’ speech of him.

AUTOLYCUS
Age, thou hast lost thy labour.

SHEPHERD
Why, sir? [750]

AUTOLYCUS
The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new ship to purge