FIRST SERVANT.
Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift
As breathed stags; ay, fleeter than the roe.
SECOND SERVANT.
Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook,
And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
Which seem to move and wanton with her breath
Even as the waving sedges play with wind.
LORD.
We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid
And how she was beguiled and surpris’d,
As lively painted as the deed was done.
THIRD SERVANT.
Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs, that one shall swear she bleeds
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.
LORD.
Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord:
Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
Than any woman in this waning age.
FIRST SERVANT.
And, till the tears that she hath shed for thee
Like envious floods o’er-run her lovely face,
She was the fairest creature in the world;
And yet she is inferior to none.
SLY.
Am I a lord? and have I such a lady?
Or do I dream? Or have I dream’d till now?
I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;
I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things:
Upon my life, I am a lord indeed;
And not a tinker, nor Christophero Sly.
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;
And once again, a pot o’ the smallest ale.
SECOND SERVANT.
Will’t please your mightiness to wash your hands?
[Servants present a ewer, basin and napkin.]
O, how we joy to see your wit restor’d!
O, that once more you knew but what you are!
These fifteen years you have been in a dream,
Or, when you wak’d, so wak’d as if you slept.