Flo.

Thou dearest Perdita, With these forc'd 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 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. 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'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 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'the feast: Come on,

8 i. e. far fetched, not arising from present objects.

VOL. IV.

H

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 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' the season
Are our carnations, and streak'd gilliflowers,
Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind
Our rustick garden's barren; and I care not

To get slips of them.

Pol.

Do you neglect them?
Per.

Wherefore, gentle maiden,

For 10 I have heard it said, There is an art11, 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

Pol. Then make your garden rich in gilliflowers 12,

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, savory, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping 13; 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 :-) Proserpina,
For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall
From Dis's 14 waggon! 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 eyes 15,
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,

14 See Ovid's Metam. b. v.

ut summa vestem laxavit ab ora Collecti flores tunicis cecidere remissis.'

or the whole passage as translated by Golding, and given in the Variorum Shakspeare.

15 Johnson had not sufficient imagination to comprehend this exquisite passage, he thought that the poet had mistaken Juno for Pallas, and says, that 'sweeter than an eyelid is an odd image!' But the eyes of Juno were as remarkable as those of Pallas, and

The beauties of Greece and other Asiatic nations tinged their eyelids of an obscure violet colour by means of some unguent, which was doubtless perfumed like those for the hair, &c. mentioned by Athenæus. Hence Hesiod's βλεφάρων κυανεάων in a passage which has been rendered

- Her flowing hair and sable eyelids Breathed enamouring odour, like the breath Of balmy Venus.'

Shakspeare may not have known this, yet of the beauty and propriety of the epithet violets dim, and the transition at once to the lids of Juno's eyes and Cytherea's breath, no reader of taste and feeling need be reminded.

That die unmarried 16, ere they can behold
Bright Phœbus 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' 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.

O Doricles,