Digest it with a custom, I should blush
To see you so attired; sworn, I think,
To show myself a glass.

Flo.

I bless the time,

When my good falcon made her flight across
Thy father's ground.

Per.
Now Jove afford you cause!
To me, the difference' forges dread; your greatness
Hath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble
To think your father, by some accident,

Should pass this way, as you did. O the fates!
How would he look, to see his work, so noble,
Vilely bound up! What would he say? Or how
Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts, behold
The sternness of his presence?

Flo.

Apprehend
Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,
Humbling their deities to love, have taken
The shapes of beasts upon them. Jupiter
Became a bull, and bellowed; the green Neptune
A ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god,
Golden Apollo, a poor, humble swain,
As I seem now. Their transformations
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer;
Nor in a way so chaste; since my desires
Run not before mine honor; nor my lusts
Burn hotter than my faith.

Per.

O, but, dear sir,
Your resolution cannot hold, when 'tis

Opposed, as it must be, by the power o' the king:
One of these two must be necessities,

Which then will speak; that you must change this purpose,

Or I my life.

With these forced 3 thoughts, I pr'ythee, darken not The mirth o' the feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,

1 Meaning the difference between his rank and hers.

2 Dear is wanting in the oldest copy.

3 i. e. far-fetched, not arising from present objects.

Or not my father's; for I cannot be
Mine own, nor any thing to any, if

I be not thine: to this I am most constant,

Though destiny say, no. Be merry, gentle;
Strangle such thoughts as these, with any thing
That you behold the while. Your guests are coming:
Lift up your countenance, as it were the day

Of celebration of that nuptial, which

We two have sworn shall come.

Per.

Stand you auspicious!

O lady Fortune,

Enter Shepherd, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO, disguised; Clown, MOPSA, DORCAs, and others.

Flo.

See, your guests approach:

Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,
And let's be red with mirth.

Shep. Fie, daughter! When my old wife lived, upon This day, she was both pantler, butler, cook;

Both dame and servant; welcomed all, served all;
Would sing her song, and dance her turn; now here,
At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle;
On his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire

With labor; and the thing she took to quench it,
She would to each one sip.

As if you were a feasted one,
The hostess of the meeting.

You are retired,
and not

Pray you, bid

These unknown friends to us welcome; for it is
A way to make us better friends, more known.
Come, quench your blushes; and present yourself
That which you are, mistress o' the feast. Come on,
And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,

As your good flock shall prosper.

Per.

Welcome, sir! [To PoL. It is my father's will I should take on me

The hostesship o' the day.—You're welcome, sir!

[TO CAMILLO.

Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.-Reverend sirs, For you there's rosemary, and rue; these keep

Seeming, and savor,' all the winter long.
Grace, and remembrance, be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing!

Pol.

Shepherdess, (A fair one are you,) well you fit our ages With flowers of winter.

Per.

Sir, the year growing ancient,— Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth

Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season
Are our carnations, and streaked gilliflowers,
Which some call nature's bastards.

Of that kind

Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not
To get slips of them.

Wherefore, gentle maiden,

For I have heard it said,

There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares

With great creating nature.

Pol.

Say, there be;

Yet nature is made better by no mean,

But nature makes that mean; so, o'er that art,

Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock;

And make conceive a bark of baser kind

By bud of nobler race.

Which does mend nature,-change it rather: but

The art itself is nature.

Per.

This is an art

So it is.

Pol. Then make your garden rich in gilliflowers, And do not call them bastards.

I'll not put

Per.
The dibble in earth to set one slip of them;
No more than, were I painted, I would wish

This youth should say, 'twere well; and only therefore

1 i. e. appearance and smell. Rue, being used in exorcisms, was called herb of grace, and rosemary was supposed to strengthen the memory; it is prescribed for that purpose in the ancient herbals. Ophelia distributes the same plants with the same attributes.

2 The allusion is to the common practice of producing, by art, particular varieties of colors on flowers, especially on carnations.

Desire to breed by me.-Here's flowers for you;
Hot lavender, mints, savory marjoram ;
The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping; these are flowers
Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given
To men of middle age. You are very welcome.
Cam. I should leave grazing, were I of
And only live by gazing.

Per.

Out, alas!

You'd be so lean, that blasts of January

your flock,

Would blow you through and through.-Now, my fair

est friend,

I would I had some flowers o' the spring, that might
Become your time of day; and yours; and yours;
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maidenheads growing.-O Proserpina,
For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall
From Dis's wagon! daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried,2 ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and
The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack,
To make you garlands of; and, my sweet friend,
To strew him o'er and o'er.

Flo.
What, like a corse?
Per. No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on;
Not like a corse: or if,-not
But quick, and in mine arms.

to be buried,

Come, take your flowers.

1 "Some call it sponsus solis, the spowse of the sunne, because it sleeps and is awakened with him."-Lupton's Notable Things, book vi. 2 Perhaps the true explanation of this passage may be deduced from the subjoined verses in the original edition of Milton's Lycidas, which he subsequently omitted, and altered the epithet unwedded to forsaken in the preceding line.

"Bring the rathe primrose that unwedded dies,
Coloring the pale cheek of unenjoyed love."

Methinks, I play as I have seen them do

In Whitsun' pastorals. Sure, this robe of mine
Does change my disposition.

Flo.

What you do,

Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I'd have you do it ever: when you sing,

I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms;
Pray so; and for the ordering your affairs,

To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so, and own
No other function. Each your doing,

So singular in each particular,

Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.

Per.

O Doricles,
Your praises are too large but that your youth,
And the true blood, which fairly peeps through it,
Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd,
With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,

You wooed me the false way.

Flo.
I think
you have
As little skill to fear,' as I have purpose
To put you to't.-But come, our dance, I pray :
Your hand, my Perdita. So turtles pair,

That never mean to part.

Per.

I'll swear for 'em.2

Pol. This is the prettiest low-born lass, that ever Ran on the green sward; nothing she does, or seems, But smacks of something greater than herself;

Too noble for this place.

Cam.

He tells her something,

That makes her blood look out.

The queen of curds and cream.

Clo.

Good sooth, she is

Come on, strike up.

Dor. Mopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic, To mend her kissing with.

1 i. e. you as little know how to fear that I am false, as, &c. 2 This is a common phrase of acquiescence, like "I'll warrant you."