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Per. O lady fortune,

Stand you auspicious!

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. Fye, daughter! when my old wife liv'd, upon This day, she was both pantler, butler, cook ;

Both dame and servant: welcom'd all, serv'd all :
Would sing her song, and dance her turn: now here,
At upper end o' th' table, now, i' th' 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 retir❜d.
As if you were a feasted one, and not
The hostess of the meeting: 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' th' feast: Come on,
And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,

As your good flock shall prosper.

Per. Welcome, sir!

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

[TO POL.

The hostessship o' th' day.-You're welcome, sir. [To CAM.
-Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.-Reverend sirs,
For you there's rosemary, and rue;3 these keep
Seeming, and savour, 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' th' season
Are our carnations, and streak'd gillyflowers,

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

[3] Rue was called herb of grace. Rosemary was the emblem of remembrance;

I know not why, unless because it was carried at funerals JOHNSON.

Rosemary was anciently supposed to strengthen the memory, and is prescribed

for that purpose in the books of ancient physic. STEEVENS.

Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden,

Do you neglect them?

Per. 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.

This is an art

Which does mend nature,-change it rather: but

The art itself is nature.

Per. So it is.

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 Desire to breed by me.-Here's flowers for you;

Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram ;

The marigold, that goes to bed with th' 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 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.-Now, my fairest

friend,

I would, I had some flowers o' th' spring, that might
Become your time of day; and yours, and yours,
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maidenheads growing:-0 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,
[4] So, in Ovid's Metam. B. V:

"ut summa vestem laxavit ab ora,

"Collecti fures tunicis cecidere remissis." STEEVENS.

But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,"
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, 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 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, I wish you
A wave o' th' 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 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,

[5] I suspect that our author mistakes Juno for Pallas, who was the goddess of blue eyes. JOHNSON. The eyes of Juno were as remarkable as those of Pallas.

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.

Clo. Come on, strike up.

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

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Mop. Now, in good time!

Clo. Not a word, a word; we stand upon our man

ners.

Come, strike up.

[Music.

Here a dance of Shepherds and Shepherdesses. Pol. Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this, Which dances with your daughter?

Shep. They call him Doricles; and he 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

Upon the water, as he'll stand, and read,

As 'twere, my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain,
I think, there is not half a kiss to choose

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
Which he not dreams of.

Enter a Servant.

Ser. 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.

Clo. He could never come better: he shall come in : I love a ballad bat even too well, if it be doleful matter, merrily 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, VOL. IV. K 3

15

which is strange; with such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings: jump her and thump her; and where some stretch-mouth'd rascal would, as it were, mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer, Whoop, do me no harm, good man; puts him off, slights him, with Whoop, do me no harm, good man. Pol. This is a brave fellow.

Clo. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable-conceited fellow Has he any unbraided wares ?

Ser. He hath ribands of all the colours i' th' rainbow; points, more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by the gross; inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns: why, he sings them over, as they were gods or goddesses; you would think, a smock were a she-angel; he so chants to the sleevehand, and the work about the square on't.

Clo. Pr'ythee, bring him in; and let him approach, singing.

Per. Forewarn him, that he use no scurrilous words in his tunes.

Clo. You have of these pedlers, that have more in 'em than you'd think, sister.

Per. Ay, good brother, or go about to think.

Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.

Lawn, as white as driven snow;
Cyprus, black as e'er was crow;
Gloves, as sweet as damask roses;
Masks for faces, and for noses;
Bugle-bracelet, necklace-amber,
Perfume for a lady's chamber:
Golden quoifs, and stomachers,
For my lads to give their dears;
Pins, and poking-sticks of steel,
What maids lack from head to heel:

Come, buy of me, come: come buy, come buy;
Buy, lads, or else your

Come, buy, &c.

lasses cry:

Clo. If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou should'st take no money of me; but being enthrall'd as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribands and gloves.

[6] These poking-sticks were heated in the fire, and made use of to adjust the plaits of ruffs. STEEVENS.

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