Shakspeare also, in his Winter's Tale, has presented us not only with a list of the good things necessary for a sheep-shearing feast, but he describes likewise the attentions which were due, on this occasion, from the hostess, or Shepherd's Queen.
"Let me see," says the Clown, "what I am to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar; five pound of currants; rice——What will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers: three-man song-men all[183:B], and very good ones; but they are most of them means[183:C] and bases: but one Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to horn-pipes. I must have saffron, to colour the warden pies; mace,—dates,—none; that's out of my note: nutmegs, seven; a race, or two, of ginger: but that I may beg;—four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' the sun."[183:D]
The culinary articles in this detail are somewhat more expensive than those enumerated by Drayton; and Mr. Steevens, in a note on this passage of the Winter's Tale, observes that "the expence attending these festivities, appears to have afforded matter of complaint. Thus, in Questions of profitable and pleasant Concernings, &c. 1594: 'If it be a sheep-shearing feast, maister Baily can entertaine you with his bill of reckonings to his maister of three sheapheard's wages, spent on fresh cates, besides spices and saffron pottage."[183:E]
The shepherd's reproof to his adopted daughter, Perdita, as Polixenes remarks,
——— "the prettiest low-born lass, that ever
Ran on the green-sward,"
implies indirectly the duties which were expected by the peasants, on this day, from their rural queen, and which seems to have been sufficiently numerous and laborious:—
"Fye, 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: