ROSALIND: (laughing) I married him.
LADY MACBETH: Mistress Ford, have you a thought to add to our growing list?
MISTRESS FORD: (rising and bowing low) My lady, I thank you for your courtesy to one outside your club, and being a good housewife I would speak for grains. You should plant barley, corn and oats, rye and wheat. Then too, there’s spices, ginger, nutmeg and mace—oh yes, and mustard, thyme and savory.
MISTRESS PAGE: (rising quickly) Dear Madam, I, too, am a good housewife, pray let me speak for what we can never neglect, good vegetables. There’s cabbage and carrots, beans and peas, lettuce and mushrooms, and onions, garlic and leeks.
LADY MACBETH: Ladies! Mine ears are weighted with sounds of food. Pray let us not consider onions—garlic and leeks—or all the perfume of Arabia will not sweeten this little land.
CORDELIA: Dear Madam, I fear to annoy, but would the name of berries fall heavy on thine ear? We should grow some of these along the bank; say blueberries and blackberries, currants, and dewberries, gooseberries, mulberries and strawberries, and if we grow strawberries we must remember that our own King Henry the Fifth hath said: “The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, and wholesome berries thrive and ripen best, neighbored by fruit of baser quality.” Are we humans like that, I wonder?
LADY MACBETH: (Turning to Portia) Madam Secretary, are you able to make notes—these thoughts come in thick and fast.
PORTIA: Aye, Madam, and I crave your mercy, and beg that the quality of mercy is not strained, for Ann Hathaway has asked that we leave not out of our discussion the trees that Master Shakespeare loves so well. If a suggestion from me comes not amiss, it would seem wise that our members now sitting in this half circle should try, as in our childhood games, to name the trees in order, alphabetical, each taking her turn according to the letter, what say you, Madam?
LADY MACBETH: Most admirable. Shall we begin at this end with Mistress Page?
MISTRESS PAGE: Do I understand that I am to name all trees I canst remember beginning with the letter ‘A?’