POLIXENES.
Say there be;
Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean. So, over that art
Which you say adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentler scion to the wildest stock,
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race. This is an art
Which does mend nature, change it rather, but
The art itself is nature.
PERDITA.
So it is.
POLIXENES.
Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,
And do not call them bastards.
PERDITA.
I’ll not put
The dibble in earth to set one slip of them;
No more than, were I painted, I would wish
This youth should say ’twere well, and only therefore
Desire to breed by me. Here’s flowers for you:
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,
The marigold, that goes to bed with th’ sun
And with him rises weeping. These are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age. You’re very welcome.
CAMILLO.
I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,
And only live by gazing.
PERDITA.
Out, alas!
You’d be so lean that blasts of January
Would blow you through and through. [To Florizel] Now, my fair’st friend,
I would I had some flowers o’ th’ spring, that might
Become your time of day; and yours, and yours,
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maidenheads growing. O Proserpina,
From the flowers now that, frighted, thou let’st fall
From Dis’s waggon! daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes
Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength (a malady
Most incident to maids); bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one. O, these I lack,
To make you garlands of; and my sweet friend,
To strew him o’er and o’er!
FLORIZEL.
What, like a corse?
PERDITA.
No, like a bank for love to lie and play on;
Not like a corse; or if, not to be buried,
But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers.
Methinks I play as I have seen them do
In Whitsun pastorals. Sure this robe of mine
Does change my disposition.
FLORIZEL.
What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I’d have you do it ever. When you sing,
I’d have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so; and, for the ord’ring your affairs,
To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ th’ sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that, move still, still so,
And own no other function. Each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.
PERDITA.
O Doricles,
Your praises are too large. But that your youth,
And the true blood which peeps fairly through ’t,
Do plainly give you out an unstained shepherd,
With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,
You woo’d me the false way.