shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled 18, and my name put in the book of virtue! Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, A merry heart goes all the day, [Exit. SCENE III. The same. A Shepherd's Cottage. Enter FLORIzel and PERDITA. Flo. These your unusual weeds to each part of you Do give a life: no shepherdess, but Flora, Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing Is as a meeting of the petty gods, And you the queen on't. Sir, my gracious lord, To chide at your extremes 1, it not becomes me; O, pardon, that I name them: your high self, The gracious mark o'the land, you have obscur'd With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly maid, Most goddesslike prank'd up: But that our feasts In every mess have folly, and the feeders Digest it with a custom, I should blush To see you so attired; sworn, I think, To show myself a glass 3. Per. 18 i. e. dismissed from the society of rogues. 19 To hent the stile is to take the stile. It comes from the Saxon hentan. 1 i. e. the extravagance of his conduct in disguising himself in shepherd's clothes, while he pranked her up most goddesslike. 2 The gracious mark of the land is the object of all men's notice and expectation. 3. To show myself a glass. She probably means, that the prince, by the rustic habit he wears, seems as if he had sworn to show her as in a glass how she ought to be dressed, instead of being so goddesslike prank'd up. And were it not for the licence and folly which custom had made familiar at such feasts, as that of sheep-sheering, when mimetic sports were allowable, she should blush to see him so attired. 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 difference 4 forges dread; your greatness To think, your father, by some accident, 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 bellow'd; the green Neptune A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob'd 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 honour; nor my lusts Burn hotter than my faith. Per. O but, dear sir, Your resolution cannot hold, when 'tis Which then will speak; that you must change this purpose, Or I my life. ۱ 4 Meaning the difference between his rank and hers. 5 Vilely bound up. This was a metaphor natural enough to a writer, though not exactly suitable in the mouth of Perdita. Shakspeare has repeated it more than once in Romeo and Juliet. 6 This speech is almost literally taken from the novel. 7 Dear is wanting in the oldest copy. 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, Shep. Fye, daughter! when my old wife liv'd, upon 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 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 To get slips of them. Pol. Do you neglect them? Wherefore, gentle maiden, For 10 I have heard it said, There is an art11, which, in their piedness, shares With great creating nature. 9 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. 10 For again in the sense of cause. "Surely there is no reference here to the impracticable pretence of producing flowers by art to rival those of nature, as Steevens supposed. The allusion is to the common practice of producing by art particular varieties of colours on flowers, especially on carnations. Pol. Say, there be; Yet nature is made better by no mean, 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: 12 In the folio edition it is spelt Gillyvors. Gelofer or gillofer was the old name for the whole class of carnations, pinks, and sweetwilliams; from the French girofle. There were also stockgelofers, and wall-gelofers. The variegated gilliflowers or carnations, being considered as a produce of art, were properly called nature's bastards, and being streaked white and red, Perdita considers them a proper emblem of a painted or immodest woman; and therefore declines to meddle with them. She connects the gardener's art of varying the colours of these flowers with the art of painting the face, a fashion very prevalent in Shakspeare's time. This is Mr. Douce's very ingenious solution of this riddle, which had embarrassed Mr. Steevens. 13 Some call it sponsus solis, the spowse of the sunne, because it sleeps and is awakened with him. -Lupton's Notable Things, book vi. |
