Autolycus

Play

The Winter's Tale

Summary

A roguish peddler, ballad-monger, and pickpocket who wanders into the Bohemian pastoral scenes, cheating shepherds and singing merrily. Named after the mythological thief (Mercury's son), Autolycus is pure comic vitality — amoral, resourceful, and irrepressibly cheerful about his own rascality. He inadvertently helps Perdita and Florizel escape to Sicilia, and his presence in the play is partly a deliberate tonal counterweight to the tragic weight of the first half.

Notable Quotations

"I am a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles." *(IV.iii)*

"My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen." *(IV.iii)*

"Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, / And merrily hent the stile-a." *(IV.iii)*

Cross-references

• The Winter's Tale — the play
• Romances (Late Plays)
• character_perdita — the Bohemian festival she presides over, which he infiltrates
• character_florizel — whose escape he inadvertently assists