And let’s be red with mirth.

Enter the Old Shepherd, with Polixenes and Camillo,

disguised, the Clown, Mopsa, Dorcas, and others

OLD SHEPHERD (to Perdita)

Fie, daughter, when my old wife lived, upon

This day she was both pantler, butler, cook,

Both dame and servant, welcomed all, served all,

Would sing her song and dance her turn, now here

At upper end o‘th’ table, now i’th’ middle,

On his shoulder, and his, her face afire

With labour, and the thing she took to quench it

She would to each one sip. You are retired

As if you were a feasted one and not

The hostess of the meeting. Pray you bid

These unknown friends to’s 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’th’ 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’th’ 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’th’ season

Are our carnations and streaked 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 over 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 wi’th’ 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.

She gives them flowers

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.

(To Florizel) Now, my fair‘st friend,

I would I had some flowers o’th’ spring that might

Become your time of day; (to Mopsa and Dorcas) and

yours, and yours,

That wear upon your virgin branches yet

Your maidenheads growing. O Proserpina,

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. 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 corpse?

PERDITA

No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on,

Not like a corpse—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 ord‘ring your affairs,

To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you

A wave o’th’ 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.