The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare (book club suggestions txt) 📖

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 sheep-shearing, 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 it is.

POLIXENES. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors, And do not call them bastards.

PERDITA.
I'll not put The dibble in earth to set one slip of them; No more than were I painted, I would wish This youth should say, 'twere well, and only therefore Desire to breed by me. - Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises weeping; these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age. You're very welcome!

CAMILLO. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing.

PERDITA.
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 Become your time of day; - and yours, and yours, That wear upon your virgin branches yet Your maidenheads growing. - O Proserpina, From the flowers now, that, frighted, thou lett'st fall From Dis's waggon! - 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. - O, these I lack, To make you garlands of; 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 quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers; Methinks I play as I have seen them do In Whitsun pastorals: sure, this robe of mine Does change my disposition.

FLORIZEL.
What you do 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: when you do dance, I wish you A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that; move still, still so, and own No other function: each your doing, So singular in each particular, Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds, That all your acts are queens.

PERDITA.
O Doricles, Your praises are too large: but that your youth, And the true blood which peeps fairly through it, Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd, With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, You woo'd me the false way.

FLORIZEL.
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; so turtles pair That never mean to part.

PERDITA.
I'll swear for 'em.

POLIXENES. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever Ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems But smacks of something greater than herself, Too noble for this place.

CAMILLO.
He tells her something That makes her blood look out: good sooth, she is The queen of curds and cream.

CLOWN.
Come on, strike up.

DORCAS. Mopsa must be your mistress; marry, garlic, To mend her kissing with!

MOPSA.
Now, in good time!

CLOWN. Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners. - Come, strike up.

[Music. Here a dance Of Shepherds and Shepherdesses.]

POLIXENES. Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this Which dances with your daughter?

SHEPHERD. They call him Doricles; and boasts himself To have a worthy feeding; but I have it Upon his own report, and I believe it: He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter: I think so too; for never gaz'd the moon Upon the water as he'll stand, and read, As 'twere, my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain, I think there is not half a kiss to choose Who loves another best.

POLIXENES.
She dances featly.

SHEPHERD. So she does anything; though I report it, That should be silent; if young Doricles Do light upon her, she shall bring him that Which he not dreams of.

[Enter a SERVANT.]

SERVANT. O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings several tunes faster than you'll tell money: he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men's ears grew to his tunes.

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

SERVANT. He hath songs for man or woman of all sizes; no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves: he has the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burdens of 'dildos' and 'fadings', 'jump her and thump her'; and where some stretch-mouth'd rascal 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, slights him, with 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'

POLIXENES. This is a brave fellow.

CLOWN. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares?

SERVANT. He hath ribbons of all the colours i' 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 'em over as they were gods or goddesses; you would think a smock were a she-angel, he so chants to the sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't.

CLOWN. Pr'ythee bring him in; and let him approach singing.

PERDITA. Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in his tunes.

[Exit SERVANT.]

CLOWN. You have of these pedlars that have more in them than you'd think, sister.

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

[Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing.]

AUTOLYCUS.
Lawn as white as driven snow;
Cypress black as e'er was crow;