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 difference1 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.

2

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.

Flo.

Thou dearest Perdita,

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,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.

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.