THE WINTER'S TALE. Sidney Lee

Sir, my gracious lord,

       To chide at your extremes 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 goddess-like 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 attir’d; swoon, I think,

       To show myself a glass.

       FLORIZEL

       I bless the time

       When my good falcon made her flight across

       Thy father’s ground.

       PERDITA

       Now Jove afford you cause!

       To me the difference forges dread: your greatness

       Hath not been us’d 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 borrow’d flaunts, behold

       The sternness of his presence?

       FLORIZEL

       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.

       PERDITA

       O, but, sir,

       Your resolution cannot hold when ‘tis

       Oppos’d, as it must be, by the power of the king:

       One of these two must be necessities,

       Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose,

       Or I my life.

       FLORIZEL

       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 anything 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.

       PERDITA

       O lady Fortune,

       Stand you auspicious!

       FLORIZEL

       See, your guests approach:

       Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,

       And let’s be red with mirth.

       [Enter Shepherd, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO, disguised; CLOWN, MOPSA, DORCAS, with others.]

       SHEPHERD

       Fie, 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,

       And bid us welcome to your sheepshearing,

       As your good flock shall prosper.

       PERDITA

       [To POLIXENES.] Sir, welcome!

       It is my father’s will I should take on me

       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, 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.

       PERDITA

       So