The hostess-ship o’ the day.
To Camillo
You’re welcome, sir.
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!
Polixenes
Shepherdess,
A fair one are you — well you fit our ages
With flowers of winter.
Perdita
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 gillyvors,
Which some call nature’s bastards: of that kind
Our rustic garden’s barren; and I care not
To get slips of them.
Polixenes
Wherefore, gentle maiden,
Do you neglect them?
Perdita
For I have heard it said
There is an art which in their piedness shares
With great creating nature.
Polixenes
Say there be;
Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean: so, over 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.
Perdita
So it is.
Polixenes
Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,
And do not call them bastards.
Perdita
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 wi’ the sun
And with him rises weeping: these are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age. You’re very welcome.
Camillo
I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,
And only live by gazing.
Perdita
Out, alas!
You’d be so lean, that blasts of January
Would blow you through and through.
Now, my fair’st 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 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
Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bight 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!
Florizel
What, like a corse?
Perdita
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.
Florizel
What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.
I’ld have you do it ever: when you sing,
I’ld 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 deed,
That all your acts are queens.
Perdita
O Doricles,
Your praises are too large: but that your youth,
And the true blood which peepeth fairly through’t,
Do plainly give you out an unstain’d shepherd,
With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,
You woo’d me the false way.
Florizel
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.
Perdita
I’ll swear for ’em.
Polixenes
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.
Camillo
He tells her something
That makes her blood look out: good sooth, she is
The queen of curds and cream.
Clown
Come on, strike up!
Dorcas
Mopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic,
To mend her kissing with!
Mopsa
Now, in good time!
Clown
Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.
Come, strike up!
Music. Here a dance of Shepherds and Shepherdesses
Polixenes
Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this
Which dances with your daughter?
Shepherd
They call him Doricles; and 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 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.
Polixenes
She dances featly.
Shepherd
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 Servant
Servant
O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabour 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.
Clown
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.
Servant
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, which is strange; with such delicate burthens of dildos and fadings, ‘jump her and thump her;’ and where some stretch-mouthed rascal wou
ld, 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.’
Polixenes
This is a brave fellow.
Clown
Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares?
Servant
He hath ribbons of an the colours i’ the 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 ’em over as they were gods or goddesses; you would think a smock were a she-angel, he so chants to the sleeve-hand and the work about the square on’t.
Clown
Prithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.
Perdita
Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in ’s tunes.
Exit Servant
Clown
You have of these pedlars, that have more in them than you’ld think, sister.
Perdita
Ay, good brother, or go about to think.
Enter Autolycus, singing
Autolycus
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 lasses cry: Come buy.
Clown
If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.
Mopsa
I was promised them against the feast; but they come not too late now.
Dorcas
He hath promised you more than that, or there be liars.
Mopsa
He hath paid you all he promised you; may be, he has paid you more, which will shame you to give him again.
Clown
Is there no manners left among maids? will they wear their plackets where they should bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guests? ’tis well they are whispering: clamour your tongues, and not a word more.
Mopsa
I have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry-lace and a pair of sweet gloves.
Clown
Have I not told thee how I was cozened by the way and lost all my money?
Autolycus
And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it behoves men to be wary.
Clown
Fear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here.
Autolycus
I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge.
Clown
What hast here? ballads?
Mopsa
Pray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print o’ life, for then we are sure they are true.
Autolycus
Here’s one to a very doleful tune, how a usurer’s wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burthen and how she longed to eat adders’ heads and toads carbonadoed.
Mopsa
Is it true, think you?
Autolycus
Very true, and but a month old.
Dorcas
Bless me from marrying a usurer!
Autolycus
Here’s the midwife’s name to’t, one Mistress Tale-porter, and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I carry lies abroad?
Mopsa
Pray you now, buy it.
Clown
Come on, lay it by: and let’s first see moe ballads; we’ll buy the other things anon.
Autolycus
Here’s another ballad of a fish, that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the four-score of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids: it was thought she was a woman and was turned into a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her: the ballad is very pitiful and as true.
Dorcas
Is it true too, think you?
Autolycus
Five justices’ hands at it, and witnesses more than my pack will hold.
Clown
Lay it by too: another.
Autolycus
This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.
Mopsa
Let’s have some merry ones.
Autolycus
Why, this is a passing merry one and goes to the tune of ‘Two maids wooing a man:’ there’s scarce a maid westward but she sings it; ’tis in request, I can tell you.
Mopsa
We can both sing it: if thou’lt bear a part, thou shalt hear; ’tis in three parts.
Dorcas
We had the tune on’t a month ago.
Autolycus
I can bear my part; you must know ’tis my occupation; have at it with you.
Song
Autolycus
Get you hence, for I must go
Where it fits not you to know.
Dorcas
Whither?
Mopsa
O, whither?
Dorcas
Whither?
Mopsa
It becomes thy oath full well,
Thou to me thy secrets tell.
Dorcas
Me too, let me go thither.
Mopsa
Or thou goest to the orange or mill.
Dorcas
If to either, thou dost ill.
Autolycus
Neither.
Dorcas
What, neither?
Autolycus
Neither.
Dorcas
Thou hast sworn my love to be.
Mopsa
Thou hast sworn it more to me:
Then whither goest? say, whither?
Clown
We’ll have this song out anon by ourselves: my father and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we’ll not trouble them. Come, bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I’ll buy for you both. Pedlar, let’s have the first choice. Follow me, girls.
Exit with Dorcas and Mopsa
And you shall pay well for ’em.
Follows singing
Will you buy any tape,
Or lace for your cape,
My dainty duck, my dear-a?
Any silk, any thread,
Any toys for your head,
Of the new’st and finest, finest wear-a?
Come to the pedlar;
Money’s a medler.
That doth utter all men’s ware-a.
Exit
Re-enter Servant
Servant
Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made themselves all men of hair, they call themselves Saltiers, and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in’t; but they themselves are o’ the mind, if it be not too rough for some that know little but bowling, it will please plentifully.
Shepherd
Away! we’ll none on ’t: here has been too much homely foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.
Polixenes
You weary those that refresh us: pray, let’s see these four threes of herdsmen.
Servant
One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the king; and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squier.
Shepherd
Leave your prating: since these good men are pleased, let them come in; but quickly now.
Servant
Why, they stay at
door, sir.
Exit
Here a dance of twelve Satyrs
Polixenes
O, father, you’ll know more of that hereafter.
To Camillo
Is it not too far gone? ’Tis time to part them.
He’s simple and tells much.
To Florizel
How now, fair shepherd!
Your heart is full of something that does take
Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young
And handed love as you do, I was wont
To load my she with knacks: I would have ransack’d
The pedlar’s silken treasury and have pour’d it
To her acceptance; you have let him go
And nothing marted with him. If your lass
Interpretation should abuse and call this
Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited
For a reply, at least if you make a care
Of happy holding her.
Florizel
Old sir, I know
She prizes not such trifles as these are:
The gifts she looks from me are pack’d and lock’d
Up in my heart; which I have given already,
But not deliver’d. O, hear me breathe my life
Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem,
Hath sometime loved! I take thy hand, this hand,
As soft as dove’s down and as white as it,
Or Ethiopian’s tooth, or the fann’d snow that’s bolted
By the northern blasts twice o’er.
Polixenes
What follows this?
How prettily the young swain seems to wash
The hand was fair before! I have put you out:
But to your protestation; let me hear
What you profess.
Florizel
Do, and be witness to ’t.
Polixenes
And this my neighbour too?
Florizel
And he, and more
Than he, and men, the earth, the heavens, and all:
That, were I crown’d the most imperial monarch,
Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth
That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge
More than was ever man’s, I would not prize them
Without her love; for her employ them all;
Commend them and condemn them to her service
Or to their own perdition.
Polixenes
Fairly offer’d.
Camillo
This shows a sound affection.
Shepherd
But, my daughter,
Say you the like to him?
Perdita
I cannot speak
So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better:
By the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out
The purity of his.
Shepherd
Take hands, a bargain!
And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to ’t:
I give my daughter to him, and will make