CLOWN.
Hilloa, loa!
SHEPHERD.
What, art so near? If thou’lt see a thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ail’st thou, man?
CLOWN.
I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land! But I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky: betwixt the firmament and it, you cannot thrust a bodkin’s point.
SHEPHERD.
Why, boy, how is it?
CLOWN.
I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up the shore! But that’s not to the point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see ’em, and not to see ’em. Now the ship boring the moon with her mainmast, and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you’d thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land service, to see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone, how he cried to me for help, and said his name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an end of the ship, to see how the sea flap-dragon’d it: but first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them, and how the poor gentleman roared, and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than the sea or weather.
SHEPHERD.
Name of mercy, when was this, boy?
CLOWN.
Now, now. I have not winked since I saw these sights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman. He’s at it now.
SHEPHERD.
Would I had been by to have helped the old man!
CLOWN.
I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her: there your charity would have lacked footing.
SHEPHERD.
Heavy matters, heavy matters! But look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself: thou met’st with things dying, I with things new-born. Here’s a sight for thee. Look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire’s child! Look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open’t. So, let’s see. It was told me I should be rich by the fairies. This is some changeling: open’t. What’s within, boy?