Polixenes Audition Piece
Perdita’s Audition Piece
Old Shepherd’s Audition Piece
Camillo’s Audition Piece
Servant of Old Shepherd
Enter a Servant. (this speech is the audition piece for the servant)
Serv. O master! if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you. He sings several tunes faster than you’ll tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads and all men’s ears grew to his tunes.
Florizel
Leontes Auditon Piece
Antigonus Audition Piece
Hermione’s Audition Pieces
Her. For Polixenes,
With whom I am accused, I do confess
I loved him as in honor he required,
With such a kind of love as might become
A lady like me, with a love even such,
So and no other, as yourself commanded,
Which not to have done, I think, had been in me
Both disobedience and ingratitude
To you and toward your friend. Now, for conspiracy,
I know not how it tastes, though it be dished
For me to try how. All I know of it
Is that Camillo was an honest man;
And why he left the court, the gods themselves,
Knowing no more than I, are ignorant.
Her. Sir, spare your threats.
The bug which you would fright me with I seek.
To me can life be no commodity.
The crown and comfort of my life, your favor,
I do give lost, for I do feel it gone,
But know now how it went. Now, my liege,
Tell me what blessings I have here alive,
That I should fear to die? Therefore proceed.
But yet hear this (mistake me not: no life,
I prize it not a straw, but for mine honor,
Which I would free), if I shall be condemned
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you
'Tis rigor, and not law. Your Honors all,
I do refer me to the oracle.
Apollo be my judge.
Time’s Audition Piece
First Lord Audition Piece
Paulina, Emilia and Gaoler’s Audition Piece
Cleomenes and Dion Audition Piece
Autolycus and Clown Audition Piece
Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.
When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy, over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.
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The pale moon shines by night;
And when I wander here and there,
I then do most go right.
My father named me Autolycus; who being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. My revenue is the silly cheat. (Sees clown approaching) A prize! a prize!
Enter Clown.
Clo. Let me see: Every ’leven wether tods; every tod yields pound and odd shilling: fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?
Aut. [Aside.] If the springe hold, the cock’s mine.
Clo. I cannot do’t without compters. Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? ‘Three pound of sugar; five pound of currants; rice,’ what will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers, three-man song-men all, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases: but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.
Aut. O! that ever I was born! [Grovelling on the ground.
Clo. I’ the name of me!—
Aut. O! help me, help me! pluck but off these rags, and then death, death!
Clo. Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off.
Aut. O, sir! the loathsomeness of them offends me more than the stripes I have received, which are mighty ones and millions.
Clo. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter.
Aut. I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta’en from me, and these detestable things put upon me.
Clo. What, by a horseman or a footman?
Aut. A footman, sweet sir, a footman.
Clo. Indeed, he should be a footman, by the garments he hath left with thee: if this be a horseman’s coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand, I’ll help thee: come, lend me thy hand. [Helping him up.
Aut. O! good sir, tenderly, O!
Clo. Alas, poor soul!
Aut. O! good sir; softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my shoulder-blade is out.
Clo. How now! canst stand?
Aut. Softly, dear sir; [Picks his pocket.] good sir, softly. You ha’ done me a charitable office.
Clo. Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.
Aut. No, good sweet sir: no, I beseech you, sir. I have a kinsman not past three-quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going: I shall there have money, or anything I want: offer me no money, I pray you! that kills my heart.
Clo. What manner of fellow was he that robbed you?
Aut. A fellow, sir: I knew him once a servant of the prince. I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.
Clo. 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.
Aut. 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.
Clo. Out upon him! Prig, for my life, prig: he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings.
Aut. Very true, sir; he, sir, he: that’s the rogue that put me into this apparel.
Clo. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia: if you had but looked big and spit at him, he’d have run.
Aut. I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am false of heart that way, and that he knew, I warrant him.
Clo. How do you now?
Aut. 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.
Clo. Shall I bring thee on the way?
Aut. No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir.
Clo. Then fare thee well: I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing.
Aut. 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.
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.
First, Second and Third Gentlemen Auditon Piece