2nd Girl.What makes your fingers red?
3rd Girl. Dipping them into wine to write bad words with15
On the bright table: how he laughed!
1st Girl.My turn.
Spring's come and summer's coming. I would wear
A long loose gown, down to the feet and hands,
With plaits here, close about the throat, all day;
And all night lie, the cool long nights, in bed;20
And have new milk to drink, apples to eat,
Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats—ah, I should say,
This is away in the fields—miles!
3rd Girl.Say at once
You'd be at home—she'd always be at home!
Now comes the story of the farm among25
The cherry orchards, and how April snowed
White blossoms on her as she ran. Why, fool,
They've rubbed the chalk-mark out, how tall you were,
Twisted your starling's neck, broken his cage,
Made a dunghill of your garden!
1st Girl.They destroy30
My garden since I left them? Well—perhaps
I would have done so—so I hope they have!
A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall;
They called it mine, I have forgotten why,
It must have been there long ere I was born:35
Cric—cric—I think I hear the wasps o'erhead
Pricking the papers strung to flutter there
And keep off birds in fruit-time—coarse long papers,
And the wasps eat them, prick them through and through.
3rd Girl. How her mouth twitches! Where was I?—before40
She broke in with her wishes and long gowns
And wasps—would I be such a fool!—Oh, here!
This is my way: I answer everyone
Who asks me why I make so much of him—
(If you say, "you love him"—straight "he'll not be gulled!")45
"He that seduced me when I was a girl
Thus high—had eyes like yours, or hair like yours,
Brown, red, white"—as the case may be; that pleases!
See how that beetle burnishes in the path!
There sparkles he along the dust; and, there—50
Your journey to that maize-tuft spoiled at least!
1st Girl. When I was young, they said if you killed one
Of those sunshiny beetles, that his friend
Up there would shine no more that day nor next.
2nd Girl. When you were young? Nor are you young, that's true.55
How your plump arms, that were, have dropped away!
Why, I can span them. Cecco beats you still?
No matter, so you keep your curious hair.
I wish they'd find a way to dye our hair
Your color—any lighter tint, indeed,60
Than black—the men say they are sick of black,
Black eyes, black hair!
4th Girl.Sick of yours, like enough.
Do you pretend you ever tasted lampreys
And ortolans? Giovita, of the palace,
Engaged (but there 's no trusting him) to slice me65
Polenta with a knife that had cut up
An ortolan.
2nd Girl. Why, there! Is not that Pippa
We are to talk to, under the window—quick!—
Where the lights are?