JENNY
Why, Mistress, it grows longer every day.
It's far below your knees, and how it shines!
And wavy, just like Much the Miller's brook,
Where it comes tumbling out into the sun,
Like gold, red gold.
MARIAN
Ah, that's provoking, Jenny,
For you forgot to bring me my steel glass,
And, if you chatter so, I shall soon want it.
JENNY
I've found a very good one at a pinch.
There's a smooth silver pool, down in the stream,
Where you can see your face most beautiful.
MARIAN
So that's how Jenny spends her lonely hours,
A sad female Narcissus, while poor Much
Dwines to an Echo!
JENNY
I don't like those gods.
I never cared for them. But, as for Much,
Much is the best of all the merry men.
And, mistress, O, he speaks so beautifully,
It might be just an Echo from blue hills
Far, far away! You see he's quite a scholar:
Much, more an' most (That's what he calls the three
Greasy caparisons—much, more an' most)!
You see they thought that being so very small
They could not make him grow to be a man,
They'd make a scholar of him instead. The Friar
Taught him his letters. He can write his name,
And mine, and yours, just like a missal book,
In lovely colours; and he always draws
The first big letter of Jenny like a tree
With naked Cupids hiding in the branches. Mistress, I don't believe you hear one word
I ever speak to you! Your eyes are always
That far and far away.