Reading Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale! Time for some comedy (naughty comedy!) as more characters join the already-stuffed act 4 scene 4.

The attention shifts to the shepherd’s son (or the clown, as he’s called in the Pelican and Oxford editions) and a servant. The servant describes a peddler with a tabor (a small drum) at the door who is there to perform ballads. Even though there’s already been plenty of music and dancing in this scene, the shepherd’s son wants to invite the peddler in.

The servant goes into a very R-rated description of the peddler’s songs, which contain a certain word that you’d think was more modern. The footnotes confirm that this word (you’ll know it when you see it) means the same thing in Shakespeare’s time that it did today. Upon hearing all this filthiness, Polixenes interrupts to joke, “This is a brave fellow.” The servant then offers a long list of items the peddler sells, bragging him up as something amazing. The shepherd’s son says to invite the peddler in, with Perdita chiming in to tell the peddler not to use “scurrilous words” in his songs.

Okay, how to portray all this? An unnamed servant is suddenly a main character. It’d be easy enough to have this character travel alongside the other Bohemians throughout the play. But then, everyone in the scene, from the king to the young lovers, steps aside and pays attention to the servant’s announcement. Therefore, the servant must go big and broad in this moment, to command the attention of the entire group. I’m picture some sort of head-of-the-house butler type, who makes fancy announcements upon entering a room. Or, if this is a far-out epic fantasy version I’ve been imagining, the servant could be some sort of crazy creature, to come in and get the audience’s attention quick.

The peddler enters, and of course it’s Autolycus (the king of thieves!), here to enact his sneaky plot from act 4 scene 3. The stage directions note that he’s wearing a false beard. Most productions will make this beard very obviously fake, for a big laugh. He performs a song that lists all the items he’s selling as a peddler, along with the uses for each item. The list is jokey and broad enough that an actor could probably go ahead and say the lyrics rather than sing them outright, if needed.

The shepherd’s son announces that he is in love with Mopsa, one of the shepherdesses who have been dancing about during this scene. She’s only had one line before this, but suddenly now she’s a main character. If the dancing earlier in this scene is to be a big production number, it’d be easy enough to establish Mopsa as an important character then, by having her dance with the shepherd’s son.

Time for more naughty jokes as the shepherd’s son says he wasn’t going to buy anything from Autolycus, but his love for Mopsa has inspired him to buy some ribbons and gloves for her. He describes this as his “bondage.” What is this, Fifty Shades of Mopsa? Their flirtation banter contains even more speaking in double entendre, as he has a joke about the women being demure in hiding their faces, but their dresses having other openings (wa-HEY!). He then reminds her (and us) that he was recently “cozened” of all his money. None of my Shakespeare books have a footnote for “cozen” but the dictionary comes through by saying it means losing money through trickery or deceit. This is a reference to Autolycus ripping him off in their earlier scene. Autolycus plays along, saying they must be wary of cozeners about, with the audience knowing he’s talking about himself.

Next: The cost of a ballad.

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