With these forc'd thoughts, I pr'ythee, darken not
The mirth o' the feast: Or I'll be thine, my fair,
Or not my father's: for I cannot be
Mine own, nor any thing to any, if

I be not thine: to this I am most constant,
Though destiny say, no. Be merry, gentle;
Strangle such thoughts as these, with any thing
That you behold the while. Your guests are coming:
Lift up your countenance; as it were the day

Of celebration of that nuptial, which

We two have sworn shall come.

Per.

Stand you auspicious!

O lady fortune,

Enter Shepherd, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO, disguised; Clown, MOPSA, DORCAS, and Others.

Flo.

See, your guests approach:

Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,
And let's be red with mirth.

Shep. Fy, 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:
Would sing her song, and dance her turn: now here,
At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle;
On his shoulder, and his: her face o' fire

With labour; and the thing, she took to quench it,
She would to each one sip: You are retir'd,
As if you were a feasted one, and not
The hostess of the meeting: Pray you, bid
These unknown friends to us welcome: for it is
A way to make us better friends, more known.
Come, quench your blushes; and present yourself
That which you are, mistress o' the feast: Come on,
And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,

As your good flock shall prosper.

Per.

Welcome, sir! [to PoL.

3 With these forc'd thoughts,] That is, thoughts far-fetched, and not arising from the present objects. M. Mason.

4 That which you are, mistress o' the feast:] From the novel: "It happened not long after this, that there was a meeting of all the farmers' daughters of Sicilia, whither Faunia was also bidden as mistress of the feast." Malone.

It is my father's will, I should take on me
The hostesship o' the day :-You 're welcome, sir!

[To CAM. Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.-Reverend sirs, For you there's rosemary, and rue; these keep Seeming, and savour, all the winter long: Grace, and remembrance, be to you both, And welcome to our shearing!

Pol.

Shepherdess, (A fair one are you) well you fit our ages With flowers of winter.

Per.

Sir, the year growing ancient,-Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth

Of trembling winter,-the fairest flowers o' the season
Are our carnations, and streak'd gillyflowers,
Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind
Our rustick garden's barren; and I care not
To get slips of them.

Pol.

Do you neglect them?

Per.

Wherefore, gentle maiden,

For I have heard it said,

There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares
With great creating nature.7

5 For you there's rosemary, and rue; these keep
Seeming, and savour, all the winter long:

Grace, and remembrance, be to you both,] Ophelia distributes the same plants, and accompanies them with the same documents. "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. There's rue for you: we may call it herb of grace." The qualities of retaining seeming and savour, appear to be the reason why these plants were considered as emblematical of grace and remembrance. The nosegay distributed by Perdita with the significations annexed to each flower, reminds one of the ænigmatical letter from a Turk. ish lover, described by Lady M. W. Montagu. Henley.

Grace, and remembrance,] Rue was called herb of Grace. Rosemary was the emblem of remembrance; I know not why, unless because it was carried at funerals. Johnson.

Rosemary was anciently supposed to strengthen the memory, and is prescribed for that purpose in the books of ancient physick. Steevens.

6 For I have heard it said,] For, in this place, signifies-because that. So, in Chaucer's Clerkes Tale, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 8092: "She dranke, and for she wolde vertue plese,

"She knew wel labour, but non idel ese." Steevens.

7 There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares

With great creating nature.] That is, as Mr. T. Warton ob

Pol.

Say, there be;

Yet nature is made better by no mean,

But nature makes that mean: so, o'er 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.

Pol. Then make your garden rich in gillyflowers, And do not call them bastards.

serves, "There is an art which can produce flowers, with as great a variety of colours as nature herself."

This art is pretended to be taught at the ends of some of the old books that treat of cookery, &c. but, being utterly impracticable, is not worth exemplification. Steevens.

8

in gillyflowers,] There is some further conceit relative to gill flowers than has yet been discovered. The old copy, (in both instances where this word occurs) reads-Gilly'vors, a term still used by low people in Sussex, to denote a harlot. In A Wonder, or a Woman never vex'd, 1632, is the following passage: A lover is behaving with freedom to his mistress as they are going into a garden, and after she has alluded to the quality of many herbs, he adds: "You have fair roses, have you not?" "Yes, sir, (says she) but no gilliflowers." Meaning, perhaps, that she would not be treated like a gill-flirt, i. e. wanton, a word often met with in the old plays, but written flirt-gill in Romeo and Ju liet. I suppose gill-flirt to be derived, or rather corrupted, from gilly-flower or carnation, which, though beautiful in its appearance, is apt, in the gardener's phrase, to run from its colours, and change as often as a licentious female.

Prior, in his Solomon, has taken notice of the same variability in this species of flowers:

66 the fond carnation loves to shoot

"Two various colours from one parent root."

In Lyte's Herbal, 1578, some sorts of gilliflowers are called small honesties, cuckoo gillofers, &c. And in A. W's Commendation of Gascoigne and his Posies, is the following remark on this species of flower:

"Some thinke that gilliflowers do yield a gelous smell." See Gascoigne's Works, 1587. Steevens.

The following line in The Paradise of Daintie Devises, 1578, may add some support to the first part of Mr. Steevens's note:

"Some jolly youth the gilly-flower esteemeth for his joy." Malone.

Per.

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 the sun,
And with him rises1 weeping; these are flowers
Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given
To men of middle age: You are very welcome.
Cam. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,
And only live by gazing.

You'd be so lean, that blasts of January

Would blow you through and through-Now, my fairest friend,

I would, I had some flowers o' the spring, that might
Become your time of day; and yours, and yours;
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maidenheads growing:-O Proserpina,
For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall
From Dis's waggon! daffodils,

9 dibble-] An instrument used by gardeners to make holes in the earth for the reception of young plants. See it in Minshieu. Steevens.

1 The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,

And with him rises-] Hence, says Lupton, in his Sixth Book of Notable Things: "Some calles it, Sponsus Solis, the Spowse of the Sunne; because it sleepes and is awakened with him."

2

O Proserpina,

Steevens.

Steevens.

For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall From Dis's waggon!] So, in Ovid's Metam. B. V: "ut summa vestem laxavit ab ora, "Collecti flores tunicis cecidere remissis." The whole passage is thus translated by Golding, 1587: "While in this garden Proserpine was taking her pastime, "In gathering either violets blew, or lillies white as lime,"Dis spide her, lou'd her, caught hir up, and all at once well neere.

"The ladie with a wailing voice afright did often call

"Hir mother

"And as she from the upper part hir garment would have rent,

"By chance she let her lap slip downe, and out her flow

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,3

But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,] I suspect that our author mistakes Juno for Pallas, who was the goddess of blue eyes. Sweeter than an eye-lid is an odd image: but perhaps he uses sweet in the general sense, for delightful. Johnson.

It was formerly the fashion to kiss the eyes, as a mark of extraordinary tenderness. I have somewhere met with an account of the first reception one of our kings gave to his new queen, where he is said to have kissed her fayre eyes. So, in Chaucer's Troilus and Cresseide, v. 1358:

"This Troilus full oft her eyen two

"Gan for to kisse," &c.

Thus also, in the sixteenth Odyssey, 15, Eumæus kisses both the eyes of Telemachus:

σε Κυσσε δέ μιν κεφαλήν τε, και αμφω φάεα καλά.

The same line occurs in the following Book, v. 39, where Penelope expresses her fondness for her son.

Again, in an ancient MS. play of Timon of Athens, in the possession of Mr. Strutt the engraver:

"O Juno, be not angry with thy Jove,

"But let me kisse thine eyes my sweete delight." p. 6, b. Another reason, however, why the eyes were kissed instead of the lips, may be found in a very scarce book, entitled A courtlie Controversy of Cupid's Cautels: Conteyning Fiue tragicall Histories, &c. Translated out of French &c. by H. W. [Henry Wotton] 4to. 1578: "Oh howe wise were our forefathers to forbidde wyne so strictly unto their children, and much more to their wives, so that for drinking wine they deserved defame, and being taken with the maner, it was lawful to kisse their mouthes, whereas otherwise men kissed but their eyes, to showe that wine drinkers were apt to further offence."

The eyes of Juno were as remarkable as those of Pallas:

βοώπις πότνια Ἤρη.” Homer.

But (as Mr. M. Mason observes) "we are not told that Pallas was the goddess of blue eye-lids; besides, as Shakspeare joins in the comparison, the breath of Cytherea with the eye-lids of Juno, it is evident that he does not allude to the colour, but to the fragrance of violets." Steevens.

So, in Marston's Insatiate Countess, 1613:

That eye was Juno's,

"Those lips were hers that won the golden ball,
"That virgir blush, Diana's."

Spenser, as well as our author, has attributed beauty to the eyelid:

"Upon her eye-lids many graces sate,

"Under the shadow of her even brows."

Fairy Queen, B. II, c. iii, st. 25.