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,1 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.

Pol.

Do you neglect them?

Per.

2

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. This is an art

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

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;1 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' 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

2

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.

Per. No, like a bank, for Not like a corse: or if,-not But quick, and in mine arms.

What, like a corse? love to lie and play on; to be buried, Come, take 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.

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
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,

you

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.

He tells her something,

Cam.
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."

Mop.

Now in good time!

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

manners.1

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;

2

He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter, I think so too; for never gazed 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.3

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.

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.

Clo. He could never come better; he shall come in. I love a ballad but 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

1 i. e. we are now on our good behavior.

3 That is, dexterously, nimbly.

2 Truth.

4 The trade of a milliner was formerly carried on by men exclusively.

4