Complete Plays, The (43 page)

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’ld have you do it ever: when you sing,
I’ld 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 deed,
That all your acts are queens.

Perdita

O Doricles,
Your praises are too large: but that your youth,
And the true blood which peepeth fairly through’t,
Do plainly give you out an unstain’d 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 gazed 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 any thing; 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 Servant

Servant

O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabour 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 burthens of dildos and fadings, ‘jump her and thump her;’ and where some stretch-mouthed 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 an 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

Prithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.

Perdita

Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in ’s tunes.

Exit Servant

Clown

You have of these pedlars, that have more in them than you’ld think, sister.

Perdita

Ay, good brother, or go about to think.

Enter Autolycus, singing

Autolycus

Lawn as white as driven snow;
Cyprus black as e’er was crow;
Gloves as sweet as damask roses;
Masks for faces and for noses;
Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,
Perfume for a lady’s chamber;
Golden quoifs 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; come buy, come buy;
Buy lads, or else your lasses cry: Come buy.

Clown

If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.

Mopsa

I was promised them against the feast; but they come not too late now.

Dorcas

He hath promised you more than that, or there be liars.

Mopsa

He hath paid you all he promised you; may be, he has paid you more, which will shame you to give him again.

Clown

Is there no manners left among maids? will they wear their plackets where they should bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guests? ’tis well they are whispering: clamour your tongues, and not a word more.

Mopsa

I have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry-lace and a pair of sweet gloves.

Clown

Have I not told thee how I was cozened by the way and lost all my money?

Autolycus

And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it behoves men to be wary.

Clown

Fear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here.

Autolycus

I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge.

Clown

What hast here? ballads?

Mopsa

Pray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print o’ life, for then we are sure they are true.

Autolycus

Here’s one to a very doleful tune, how a usurer’s wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burthen and how she longed to eat adders’ heads and toads carbonadoed.

Mopsa

Is it true, think you?

Autolycus

Very true, and but a month old.

Dorcas

Bless me from marrying a usurer!

Autolycus

Here’s the midwife’s name to’t, one Mistress Tale-porter, and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I carry lies abroad?

Mopsa

Pray you now, buy it.

Clown

Come on, lay it by: and let’s first see moe ballads; we’ll buy the other things anon.

Autolycus

Here’s another ballad of a fish, that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the four-score of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids: it was thought she was a woman and was turned into a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her: the ballad is very pitiful and as true.

Dorcas

Is it true too, think you?

Autolycus

Five justices’ hands at it, and witnesses more than my pack will hold.

Clown

Lay it by too: another.

Autolycus

This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.

Mopsa

Let’s have some merry ones.

Autolycus

Why, this is a passing merry one and goes to the tune of ‘Two maids wooing a man:’ there’s scarce a maid westward but she sings it; ’tis in request, I can tell you.

Mopsa

We can both sing it: if thou’lt bear a part, thou shalt hear; ’tis in three parts.

Dorcas

We had the tune on’t a month ago.

Autolycus

I can bear my part; you must know ’tis my occupation; have at it with you.

Song

Autolycus

Get you hence, for I must go
Where it fits not you to know.

Dorcas

Whither?

Mopsa

O, whither?

Dorcas

Whither?

Mopsa

It becomes thy oath full well,
Thou to me thy secrets tell.

Dorcas

Me too, let me go thither.

Mopsa

Or thou goest to the orange or mill.

Dorcas

If to either, thou dost ill.

Autolycus

Neither.

Dorcas

What, neither?

Autolycus

Neither.

Dorcas

Thou hast sworn my love to be.

Mopsa

Thou hast sworn it more to me:
Then whither goest? say, whither?

Clown

We’ll have this song out anon by ourselves: my father and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we’ll not trouble them. Come, bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I’ll buy for you both. Pedlar, let’s have the first choice. Follow me, girls.

Exit with Dorcas and Mopsa

Autolycus

And you shall pay well for ’em.

Follows singing

Will you buy any tape,
Or lace for your cape,
My dainty duck, my dear-a?
Any silk, any thread,
Any toys for your head,
Of the new’st and finest, finest wear-a?
Come to the pedlar;
Money’s a medler.
That doth utter all men’s ware-a.

Exit

Re-enter Servant

Servant

Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made themselves all men of hair, they call themselves Saltiers, and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in’t; but they themselves are o’ the mind, if it be not too rough for some that know little but bowling, it will please plentifully.

Shepherd

Away! we’ll none on ’t: here has been too much homely foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.

Polixenes

You weary those that refresh us: pray, let’s see these four threes of herdsmen.

Servant

One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the king; and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squier.

Shepherd

Leave your prating: since these good men are pleased, let them come in; but quickly now.

Servant

Why, they stay at door, sir.

Exit

Here a dance of twelve Satyrs

Polixenes

O, father, you’ll know more of that hereafter.

To Camillo

Is it not too far gone? ’Tis time to part them.
He’s simple and tells much.

To Florizel

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 she with knacks: I would have ransack’d
The pedlar’s silken treasury and have pour’d it
To her acceptance; you have let him go
And nothing marted with him. If your lass
Interpretation should abuse and call this
Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited
For a reply, at least if you make a care
Of happy holding her.

Florizel

Old sir, I know
She prizes not such trifles as these are:
The gifts she looks from me are pack’d and lock’d
Up in my heart; which I have given already,
But not deliver’d. 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,
Or Ethiopian’s tooth, or the fann’d snow that’s bolted
By the northern blasts twice o’er.

Polixenes

What follows this?
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 neighbour too?

Florizel

And he, and more
Than he, and men, the earth, the heavens, and all:
That, were I crown’d the most imperial monarch,
Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth
That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge
More than was ever man’s, I would not prize them
Without her love; for her employ them all;
Commend them and condemn them to her service
Or to their own perdition.

Polixenes

Fairly offer’d.

Camillo

This shows a sound affection.

Shepherd

But, my daughter,
Say you the like to him?

Perdita

I cannot speak
So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better:
By the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out
The purity of his.

Shepherd

 
Take hands, a bargain!
And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to ’t:
I give my daughter to him, and will make
Her portion equal his.

Florizel

O, that must be
I’ the virtue of your daughter: one being dead,
I shall have more than you can dream of yet;
Enough then for your wonder. But, come on,
Contract us ’fore these witnesses.