The hoftefsfhip o' th' day; you're welcome, Sirs. Give me thofe flowers there, Dorcas-Reverend Sirs, "For you there's rosemary and rue, these keep

Seeming and favour all the winter long:

"Grace and remembrance be unto you both, "And welcome to our fhearing!

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 fummer's death, nor on the birth

"Of trembling winter, the faireft flowers o' th' feafon "Are our carnations, and streak'd gilly-flowers, "Which fome call Nature's baftards

of that kind

"Our ruftic garden's barren, and I care not

"To get flips of them.

Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden,

Do you neglect them?

Per. “For I have heard it faid,

"There is an art, which in their piedeness shares

"With great creating Nature.

Pol." Say, there be;

Yet nature is made better by no mean,

"But nature makes that mean; fo over that art, "Which you fay adds to nature, is an art

"That nature makes; you fee, fweet maid, we marry "A gentle fcyon to the wildeft stock;

"And make conceive a bark of bafer kind

"By bud of nobler race.

"Which does mend nature,

"The art itfelf is nature.

Per. So it is.

This is an art,

change it rather; but

Pol. Then make your garden rich in gilly-flowers, And do not call them baftards.

Per. "I'll not put

"The dibble in earth, to fet one slip of them:

"No more than, were I painted, I would wish

"This youth fhould fay, 'Twere well; and only there

"fore

"Defire to breed by me.

-Here's flowers for you;

Hot lavender, mints, favoury, marjoram,
The marygold, that goes to bed with th' fun,

"And with him rifes, weeping: these are flowers "Of middle fummer, and, I think, they are given “To men of middle age.” Y'are very welcome. Cam. I should leave grafing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing.

Per. 66

Out, alas!

"You'd be fo lean, that blafts of January "Would blow you through and through. "fairest friend,

Now, my

"I would I had fome flowers o' th' spring, that might "Become your time of day; and your's, and your's, "That wear upon your virgin-branches yet "Your maiden-heads growing: O Proferpina,

"For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let 'ft fall "From Dis's waggon! daffadils,

"That come before the fwallow dares, and take "The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, "But fweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, "Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, "That die unmarried, ere they can behold "Bright Phoebus in his ftrength, (a malady "Moft incident to maids); gold oxlips, and "The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds, "The flower-de-lis being one. O thefe I lack "To make you garlands of, and, my sweet friend, "To ftrow him o'r and o'er.

Flo. What? like a corfe?

Per. No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on ; Not like a corfe; 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 Whitfund' paftorals: fure, this robe of mine
Does change my difpofition.

Flo. What you do,

Still betters what is done. When you speak, (fweet),

I'd have you do it ever: when you fing,

I'd have you buy and fell fo; fo give alms;

Pray fo; and for the ord'ring your affairs,

To fing them too, When you do dance, I wish you A wave o' th' fea,

Nothing but that;

that you might ever do
move ftill, ftill fo,

And own no other function. Each your doing,

So fingular in each particular,

Crowns what you 're doing in the prefent deeds,
That all your acts are Queens.

Per. O Doricles,

Your praises are too large; but that your youth,

And the true blood, which peeps forth fairly through it,
Do plainly give you out an unftain'd fhepherd;
With wifdom I might fear, my Doricles,

You woo'd me the false way.

Flo. 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; fo turtles pair,

That never mean to part.

Per. I'll fwear for 'em.

Pol. "This is the prettieft low-born lafs that ever "Ran on the green ford; nothing fhe does, or feems, But fmacks of fomething greater than herself, Too noble for this place.

Cam. He tells her fomething,

That makes her blood look out: good footh, she is
The Queen of curds and cream.

Clo. Come on, ftrike up.

Dor. Mopfa muft be your mistress; marry, garlic to mend her kiffing with

Mop. Now, in good time!

Clo. Not a word, a word; we ftand upon our manners; come ftrike up.

Here a dance of fhepherds and fhepherdeffes.

Pol. Pray, good fhepherd, what fair fwain is this Who dances with your daughter?

Shep. They call him Doricles, and he boafts himself To have a worthy breeding; but I have it

Upon his own report, and I believe it :

He looks like footh; he fays he loves my daughter,
I think fo too; for never gaz'd the moon

Upon the water, as he'll ftand and read

As 'twere my daughter's eyes; and, to be plain,
I think there is not half a kifs to chufe

Who loves another beft.

Pol. She dances featly.

Shep. She does any thing, though I report it
That fhould be filent; if young Doricles
Do light upon her, the fhall bring him that
Which he not dreams of.

SCENE VI. Enter a Servant.

Ser. O Mafter, if you did but hear the pedler at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe: no, the bag-pipe could not move you. He fings feveral tunes fafter than you'll tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all mens' ears grew to his tunes.

Clo. He could never come better; he fhall come in: I love a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily fet down; or a very pleasant thing indeed, and fung lamentably.

Ser. He hath fongs for man, or woman, of all fizes; no milliner can fo fit his cuftomers with gloves: he has the prettieft love-fongs for maids, fo without bawdry, (which is ftrange), with fuch delicate burthens of dildo's and fa-ding's: jump her, and thump her: and where fome ftretch-mouth'd rafcal would, 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, flights him, with Whoop, do me no harm, good man.

Pol. This is a brave fellow.

Clo. Believe me, thou talkeft of an admirable-conceited fellow; has he any unbraided wares?

Ser. He hath ribbons of all the colours i' th' rainbow; points, more than all the lawyers in Bithynia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by the grofs; inkles, caddiffes, cambricks, lawns; why, hè fings them over, as they were gods and goddeffes; you would think a fmock were a fhe-angel, he fo chants to the sleeve-band, and the work about the fquare on 't.

Clo. Pr'ythee bring him in; and let him approach, finging.

Per. Forewarn him that he ufe no fcurrilous words in's tunes.

Clo. You have of thefe pedlers that have more in 'em than you'd think, fifter.

Per. Ay, good brother, or go about to think..

Enter Autolicus finging.

Lawn as white as driven fnow,
Cyprus black as e'er was crow;
Gloves as feet as damask rofes,
Masks for faces and for nofes;
Bugle bracelets, necklace amber,
Perfume for a lady's chamber:
Golden quoifs, and ftomachers,
For my lads to give their dears:
Pins, and poaking-fticks of steel,
What maids lack from head to heel:
Come buy of me, come: come buy, come buy,
Buy, lads, or else your laffes cry.

Come buy, &c.

Clo. If I were not in love with Mopfa, thou should'ft take no money of me; but being inthrall'd as I am, it will alfo be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.

Mop. I was promis'd them against the feast, but they come not too late now.

Dor. He hath promis'd you more than that, or there be lyars.

Mop. He hath paid you all he promis'd you: 'may be he has paid you more; which will fhame you to give him again.

Clo. Is there no manners left among maids? will they wear their plackets where they should wear their faces? is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kill-hole, to whittle of thefe fecrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guefts? 'tis well they are whifp'ring: clamour your tongues * and not a word

more.

Mop. I have done; come, you promis'd me a tawdry lace, and a pair of fweet gloves..

The phrafe is taken from ringing. When bells are at the height, in order to cease them, the repetition of the strokes be comes much quicker than before; this is called clamouring them,