Aut. Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand, and walk. I will even take my leave of you, and pace softly towards my kinsman's. Clo. Shall I bring thee on the way? Aut. No, good-faced sir! no, sweet sir. Clo. Then fare thee well; I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing. Aut. Prosper you, sweet sir!-[Exit Clown.] Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat bring out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled,' and my name put in the book of virtue! Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, A merry heart goes Your sad tires in a mile-a. [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 And you the queen on't. Per. Sir, my gracious lord, To chide at your extremes, it not becomes me; O, pardon, that I name them. Your high self, The gracious mark3 o'the land, you have obscured With a swain's wearing; and me, poor, lowly maid, Most goddesslike pranked up. But that our feasts In every mess have folly, and the feeders 1 i. e. dismissed from the society of rogues. 2 To hent the stile is to take the stile. It comes from the Saxon hentan. 3 The gracious mark of the land is the object of all men's notice and expectation. Digest it with a custom, I should blush Flo. When my good falcon I bless the time, made her flight across Thy father's ground. Should pass this way, as you did. O the fates! Flo. As I seem now. Their transformations Were never for a piece of beauty rarer ; Per. 2 O, but, dear sir, Your resolution cannot hold, when 'tis Opposed, as it must be, by the power o' the king: Which then will speak; that you must change this purpose, Or I my life. Flo. Thou dearest Perdita, With these forced 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 I be not thine: to this I am most constant, 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; With labor; and the thing she took to quench it, As if you were a feasted one, You are retired, These unknown friends to us welcome; for it is 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,' all the winter long. Pol. 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 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 Pol. Then make your garden rich in gilliflowers, And do not call them bastards. I'll not put Per. 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; Per. Out, alas! You'd be so lean, that blasts of January your flock, Would blow you through and through.-Now, my fairest friend, I would I had some flowers o' the spring, that might That come before the swallow dares, and take 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. 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. "Bring the rathe primrose that unwedded dies, |