To chide at your extremes it not becomes me :
O, pardon, that I name them.-Your high self,
The gracious mark o' the land, you have obscured
With a swain's wearing, and me, poor lowly maid,
Most goddess-like pranked up. But that our feasts
In every mess have folly, and the feeders
Digest it with a custom, I should blush
To see you so attiréd; swoon, I think,
To show myself a glass.

Flo.

I bless the time

When my good falcon made her flight across

Thy father's ground.

Now, Jove afford

Per. 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 groom

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 honour nor my lusts
Burn hotter than my faith.

Per.

O, but, sir,

Your resolution cannot hold, when 't is

Opposed, as it must be, by the power of the king. One of these two must be necessities,

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

Or I my life.

Flo.

Thou dearest Perdita,

With these forced thoughts, I pr'ythee, darken

not

The mirth o' the feast: or I'll be thine, my fair, Or not my father's; for I cannot be

Mine own, nor anything 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 anything behold the while. Your guests are coming:

That you

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!

Flo.

O Lady Fortune,

See, your guests approach;

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

Enter Shepherd, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO, disguised; Clown, MOPSA, DORCAS, and others. 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 labour, and the thing she took to quench it,
She would to each one sip. You are retired,
As if you were a feasted one, and not
The hostess of the meeting: pray you, biď
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,

93

And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,

As your good flock shall prosper

Per. [To POLIXENES.]

Sir, welcome.

It is my father's will, I should take on me

The hostess-ship o' the day. [To CAMILLO.] You're welcome, sir.

Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.-Reverend

sirs,

For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long :

Grace and remembrance be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing!

Pol.

A fair one are you,

Shepherdess

-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 gillyvors,

Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind
Our rustic garden 's barren, and I care not
To get slips of them.

Pol.

Wherefore, gentle maiden,

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 noble race: this is an art

Which does mend nature,-change it rather; but The art itself is nature.

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

Per.

I'll not put

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

This youth should say 't were well, and only therefore

Desire to breed by me.-Here's flowers for you;
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;

The marigold, that goes to bed wi' 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