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-shear ing Is as a meeting of the petty gods, And you the queen on't. Per. Sir, my gracious lord, To chide at your extremes, it not becomes me; 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 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 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 Oppos'd, as it must be, by the power o'the king: One of these two must be necessities, Which then will speak; that you must change this purpose, Or I my life. 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, 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; on, And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing, Per. Welcome, sir! [To Pol. It is my father's will, I should take on me The hostessship 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 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 gillyflowers, Pol. Do you neglect them? Per. Wherefore, gentle maiden, For I have heard it said, 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 The art itself is nature. Pol. Then make your garden rich in gillyflowers, And do not call them bastards. Per. I'll not put The dibble in earth to set one slip of them: Desire to breed by me.-Here's flowers for you; The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun, 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 That come before the swallow dares, and take |