The Role of Autolycus                                                                                
 

 

82

…named for the thieving son of Mercury and ancestor to the wily Ulysses…
 

 

83

His antics entertain Shakespeare’s audiences, just as within the fiction he entertains the decent rustics at the festival of the wool harvest. He serves the plot directly twice: he shifts clothing with Florizel enabling him to escape a father’s wrath with his beloved, and he directs the old shepherd and his son to Sicilia…to reveal Perdita’s true identity.
 

 

…Mercury-Hermes is guide of souls and father of hermeneusis or interpretation.
 

 

His very presence…helps bridge the boundaries between fictive art and life.
 

 

…we see…a world realistically harboring a devil, calling…for vigilant interpretation of others’ language.
 

 

…a world where the power of evil is represented by an entertaining rascal whose actions turn to good, whatever his motivation…
 

 

The greater evil of a tyrannous king has been transmuted, in part through the actions of the rascal.
 

 

Hillman… ‘When we stand in the image [of the trickster and soul guide] and view hermetically, the problem of black and white becomes irrelevant . . . Hermes son Autolykos . . . changes them back and forth opportunistically I accordance with the situation.’
 

 

84

…situations in which good and evil are inextricably mixed.
 

 

Florizel turns trickster to escape and buy time without incurring any but a senex’s adverse judgment.