Polixenes. Then make your garden rich in gillyflowers, And do not call them bastards.

The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping. These are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think are given

To men of middle age.

[Receiving thanks.]

You are very welcome.

Camillo. I should leave grazing were I of your flock,

You'd be so lean that blasts of January

Would blow you through and through.

[She turns to others.] Now, my fairest friend,

I would I had some flowers o' the spring, that might
Become your time of day — and yours

O Proserpina!

and yours.

For the flowers now that, frighted, thou letst fall
From Dis's wagon, - 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
Bright 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.

To make you garlands of.

Oh! these I lack

[Then turning to Florizel.] 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 living in mine arms.

[To others.]

Come, take your flowers.

[To Florizel.] Methinks I play as I have seen them do In Whitsun pastorals; sure, this robe of mine

Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,

I'd have you do it ever; when you sing,

I'd have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so; and for the ordering your affairs,

To sing them too.

A wave o' the sea,
Nothing but that,
No other function.
Perdita.

When you do dance, I wish you that you might ever do

move still, still so, and own

O Doricles!

Your praises are too large. But that your youth
And the true blood which fairly peeps through it
Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd,
With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,

You wooed me the false way.

As little skill to fear as I have purpose

To put you to it. But come, one dance I pray;

Your hand, my Perdita.

That never mean to part

Perdita.

Polixenes. This is the

So turtles pair

I'll swear for them.
prettiest low-born lass that ever

Ran on the green-sward. Nothing she does or seems

But smacks of something
Too noble for this place.

Camillo.

greater than herself, —

He tells her something
Good sooth, she is

That makes her blood look out.
The queen of curds and cream.

As the shepherd is conversing with. Polixenes during the pauses of the dance, telling him how Doricles (the alias of Florizel) is in love with his daughter, and how, if he

marries her, she shall bring him that he little dreams of, a servant comes in announcing a pedler. His speech gives us a peep into English rural life, rather than that of Bohemia. Points are colored laces (that is, like shoe-laces or corsetlaces), with tags to them; they were used for lacing up men's clothes. Inkles are tapes. Caddisses, what we now call skirt-braids. A smock is an under-garment, either shirt or chemise; the sleeve-hand is the cuff, the square the shirtbosom. It is a sweet trait of Perdita's native delicacy that, as mistress of the feast, she charges her foster-brother to forewarn the ballad-singer to use no scurrilous words in his

tunes.

Servant. O masters, if you did but hear the pedler at the door you would never dance again after a pipe and tabor. No! the bagpipe would not move you. He sings several tunes faster than you can tell money. He utters them as he had eaten ballads, and men's ears grew to his tunes!

Clown. He could never come better; he shall come in. I love a ballad even too well, — if it be a doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.

No

Servant. He hath songs, for man or woman, of all sizes. milliner can so fit his customers with gloves. He has the prettiest love-songs for maids, all without ribaldry, which is strange.... He hath ribands of all colors of 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 them over as they were gods and goddesses; you would think a smock were a she-angel, he so chaunts 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 his tunes.

Enter Autolycus, singing.

Lawn as white as driven snow;

Cyprus black as e'er was crow;

Gloves as sweet as damask roses;

Masks, for faces or for noses;

Bugle bracelets, necklace amber;
Perfume for a lady's chamber;
Golden coifs 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 buy, come buy!
Buy, lords, or else your lasses cry;
Come buy, come buy!

Meantime Camillo and Polixenes are talking with the shepherd, who apparently has let fall some hints of Perdita's history which strike Camillo, and make him have vague suspicions of the truth.

Twelve rustics habited as satyrs come in and dance. Then Polixenes, having found out all he came to learn, thinks it is time to part the lovers. But first he turns to Florizel.

Polixenes.

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 girl with knacks. I would have ransacked
The pedler's silken treasury, and have poured it

To her acceptance. You have let him go,

And nothing marted with him.

Florizel.

Old sir, I know

She prizes not such trifles as these are.

The gifts she seeks from me are packed and locked
Up in my heart; which I have given already

But not delivered.

Then there comes the thought that now is a fit occasion for a betrothal before witnesses, such a betrothal as, though not a marriage, was deemed the sure pledge of the future. ceremony. He turns from the two old men, men evidently of higher standing than the shepherds, to Perdita, and taking her hand says:

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. . . .
What follows this?

Polixenes.

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 neighbor too?
Florizel.

And he, and more

Than he- -or men; the earth, the heavens, and all,
That were I crowned the most imperial monarch,
Thereof most worthy; were I the fairest youth

That ever made eye swerve; had force and knowledge
More than were ever man's, I would not prize them
Without her love; for her employ them all.

Polixenes. Fairly offered.
Camillo.

This is a sound affection.

Shepherd. But, my daughter, say you the like to him?
Perdita.

I cannot speak

As well, nothing so well, no, nor mean better.

And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to 't.
I give my daughter to him, and will make