Enter Shepherd, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO, disguised; Clown, MoPSA, DORCAS, and others. Flo. See, your guests approach: Address yourself to entertain them sprightly, Shep. Fye, daughter! when my old wife liv'd, upon This day, she was both pantler, butler, cook; 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, Per. Welcome, Sir! It is my father's will, I should take on me [ To POL. You're welcome, Sir! [To CAMILLO. Give me those flowers there, Dorcas. Reverend Sirs For you there's rosemary, and rue: these keep 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 season Are our carnations, and streak'd gillyflowers, Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them? Per. For I have heard it said, There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares Pol. Say, there be; Yet nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean; so, o'er that art, That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race; This is an art The art itself is nature. Per. So it is. change it rather; but Pol. Then make your garden rich in gillyflowers, 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, 'twere well; and only therefore Cam. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing. Per. Out, alas! You'd be so lean, that blasts of January Would blow you through and through. my fairest friend, I would, I had some flowers o'the spring, that might Your maidenheads growing: 1 O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall From Dis's waggon! daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim, Flo. What? like a corse? Per. No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on; Not like a corse: or if, not to be buried, But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers: 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, wish you A wave o'the sea, that you might ever do So singular in each particular, Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds, 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 unstain'd shepherd; With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, You woo'd 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. 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: Good sooth, she is The Queen of curds and cream. Clown. Come on, strike up. Dor. Mopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlick, To mend her kissing with. Mop. Now, in good time! Clown. Not a word, a word; we stand upon our Come, strike up. manners. [Musick. Here a dance of Shepherds and Shepherdesses. Pol. Pray, good shepherd, what Fair swain is this, which dances with your daugh ter? Shep. They call him Doricles; and be boasts himself To have a worthy feeding: but I have it Upon his own report, and I believe it; He looks like sooth: He says, he loves my daughter; I think so too; for never gaz'd the moon Who loves another best. Pol. She dances featly. Shep. So she does any thing; though I report it, That should be silent: if young Doricles Do light upon her, she shall bring him that Enter a Servant. Serv. O Master, if you did but hear the pedler at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe: no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings several tunes, faster than you'll tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men's ears grew to his tunes. Clown. He could never come better: he shall come in: I love a ballad but even too well; if it be doleful matter, merrity set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung lamentably. Serv. He hath songs, for man, or woman, of all sizes; no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves: he has the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is s range; with such delicate, burdens of dildo's and fadings: jump her and thump her; and where some stretch-mouth'd rascal would, as it were, mean mischief, and break a foul |