1    When daffodils begin to peer,
2    With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
3    Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
4    For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
5    The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
6    With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
7    Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
8    For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.
9    The lark, that tirra-lyra chants,
10   With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,
11   Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
12   While we lie tumbling in the hay.
13   I have served Prince Florizel and in my time
14   wore three-pile; but now I am out of service:
15   But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
16   The pale moon shines by night:
17   And when I wander here and there,
18   I then do most go right.
19   If tinkers may have leave to live,
20   And bear the sow-skin budget,
21   Then my account I well may, give,
22   And in the stocks avouch it.
23   My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to
24   lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who
25   being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise
26   a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and
27   drab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is
28   the silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful
29   on the highway: beating and hanging are terrors to
30   me: for the life to come, I sleep out the thought
31   of it. A prize! a prize!

32   Let me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod
33   yields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred
34   shorn. what comes the wool to?

Aside
35   If the springe hold, the cock's mine.

36   I cannot do't without counters. Let me see; what am
37   I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound
38   of sugar, five pound of currants, rice,--what will
39   this sister of mine do with rice? But my father
40   hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it
41   on. She hath made me four and twenty nose-gays for
42   the shearers, three-man-song-men all, and very good
43   ones; but they are most of them means and bases; but
44   one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to
45   horn-pipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden
46   pies; mace; dates?--none, that's out of my note;
47   nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I
48   may beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of
49   raisins o' the sun.

50   O that ever I was born!

51   I' the name of me--

52   O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and
53   then, death, death!

54   Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay
55   on thee, rather than have these off.

56   O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more
57   than the stripes I have received, which are mighty
58   ones and millions.

59   Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a
60   great matter.

61   I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel
62   ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon
63   me.

64   What, by a horseman, or a footman?

65   A footman, sweet sir, a footman.

66   Indeed, he should be a footman by the garments he
67   has left with thee: if this be a horseman's coat,
68   it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand,
69   I'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand.

70   O, good sir, tenderly, O!

71   Alas, poor soul!

72   O, good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my
73   shoulder-blade is out.

74   How now! canst stand?

Picking his pocket
75   Softly, dear sir; good sir, softly. You ha' done me
76   a charitable office.

77   Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.

78   No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have
79   a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence,
80   unto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or
81   any thing I want: offer me no money, I pray you;
82   that kills my heart.

83   What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?

84   A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with
85   troll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the
86   prince: I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his
87   virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.

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

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

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

100  Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that
101  put me into this apparel.

102  Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia: if you had
103  but looked big and spit at him, he'ld have run.

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

107  How do you now?

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

111  Shall I bring thee on the way?

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

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

115  Prosper you, sweet sir!
Exit Clown
116  Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice.
117  I'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too: if I
118  make not this cheat bring out another and the
119  shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my name
120  put in the book of virtue!
Sings
121  Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
122  And merrily hent the stile-a:
123  A merry heart goes all the day,
124  Your sad tires in a mile-a.