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

FLO.

See, your guests approach: Addrefs yourself to entertain them sprightly, And let's be red with mirth.

SHEP. Fye, daughter! when my old wife liv'd,

upon

This day, fhe was both pantler, butler, cook;
Both dame and fervant: welcom'd all; ferv'd all:
Would fing her fong, and dance her turn: now here,
At upper end o'the table, now, i'the middle;
On his fhoulder, and his: her face o' fire
With labour; and the thing, she took to quench it,
She would to each one fip: You are retir'd,
As if you were a feafted one, and not
The hoftefs 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 feaft :3 Come on,
And bid us welcome to your fheep-fhearing,
As your good flock fhall profper.

It is

PER. Welcome, fir! [To POL. my father's will, I should take on me The hostessship o'the day :-You're welcome, fir!

[To CAMILLO. Give me thofe flowers there, Dorcas.-Reverend

firs,

For you there's rosemary, and rue; thefe keep

3 That which you are, mistress o'the feaft :] From the novel : "It happened not long after this, that there was a meeting of all the farmers' daughters of Sicilia, whither Fawnia was also bidden as miftrefs of the feaft." MALONE.

Seeming, and favour, all the winter long :
Grace, and remembrance, be to you both,4
And welcome to our fhearing!

POL.

Shepherdefs, (A fair one are you,) well you fit our ages

With flowers of winter.

PER.

Sir, the year growing ancient,—

Not yet on fummer's death, nor on the birth
Of trembling winter,-the fairest flowers o'the fea-

fon

Are our carnations, and streak'd gillyflowers,
Which fome call nature's baftards: of that kind
Our ruftick garden's barren; and I care not
get flips of them.

To

POL.

Do you neglect them?

PER.

Wherefore, gentle maiden,

For I have heard it said,5

For you there's rofemary, and rue; these keep
Seeming, and favour, all the winter long:

Grace, and remembrance, be to you both,] Ophelia diftributes the fame plants, and accompanies them with the fame documents. "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. There's rue for you: we may call it herb of grace." The qualities of retaining feeming and favour, appear to be the reason why these plants were confidered as emblematical of grace and remembrance. The nosegay diftributed by, Perdita with the fignifications annexed to each flower, reminds one of the ænigmatical letter from a Turkish lover, described by Lady M. W. Montagu. HENLEY.

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

Rosemary was anciently fuppofed to ftrengthen the memory, and is prescribed for that purpose in the books of ancient phyfick. STEEVENS.

5 For I have heard it faid,] For, in this place, fignifies-becaufe that. So, in Chaucer's Clerkes Tale, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit.

There is an art, which, in their piedness, fhares With great creating nature."

POL.

Say, there be;

Yet nature is made better by no mean,

But nature makes that mean: fo, o'er that art,
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes. You fee, fweet 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,7

"She dranke, and for the wolde vertue plefe,

“She knew wel labour, but non idel efe." STEEVENS.

• There is an art, which, in their piedness, Shares

With great creating nature.] That is, as Mr. T. Warton obferves, "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 fome of the old books that treat of cookery, &c. but, being utterly impracticable, is not worth exemplification. STEEVENS.

7 in gillyflowers,] There is fome further conceit relative to gilly flowers than has yet been discovered. The old copy, (in both inftances where this word occurs,) reads-Gilly'vors, a term still used by low people in Suffex, to denote a harlot. In A Wonder, or a Woman never vex'd, 1632, is the following paffage 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, fir, (fays fhe,) but no gilliflowers." Meaning, perhaps, that the 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 Juliet. I fuppofe 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 phrafe, to run from its colours, and change as often as a licentious female.

And do not call them baftards.

PER.

I'll not put

The dibble in earth to fet one flip of them:
No more than, were I painted, I would wish
This youth fhould fay, 'twere well; and only there-

fore

Defire to breed by me.-Here's flowers for you;

Hot lavender, mints, favory, marjoram ;
The marigold, that goes to bed with the fun,
And with him rifes 9 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.

PER.

Out, alas!

You'd be fo lean, that blafts of January

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

66

the fond carnation loves to shoot

"Two various colours from one parent root."

In Lyte's Herbal, 1578, fome forts of gilliflowers are called small honefties, cuckoo gillofers, &c. And in A. W.'s Commendation of Gascoigne and his Pofies, is the following remark on this fpecies of flower:

"Some think that gilliflowers do yield a gelous fmell." See Gascoigne's Works, 1587. STEEVENS.

The following line in The Paradife 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.

8 dibble-] An inftrument used by gardeners to make holes in the earth for the reception of young plants. See it in Minfheu. STEEVENS.

9 The marigold, that goes to bed with the fun,

And with him rifes-] Hence, fays Lupton, in his Sixth Book of notable Things: "Some calles it, Sponfus Solis, the Spowfe of the Sunne; because it fleepes and is awakened with him." STEEVENS.

Would blow you through and through.-Now, my faireft friend,

I would, I had fome 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 Proferpina,
For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'ft 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,2

O Proferpina,

For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'ft fall
From Dis's waggon!] So, in Ovid's Metam. B. V:
ut fumma veftem laxavit ab ora,

STEEVENS.

"Collecti flores tunicis cecidere remiffis." The whole paffage is thus tranflated by Golding, 1587: "While in this garden Proferpine was taking her pastime, "In gathering either violets blew, or lillies white as

2

lime,

"Dis fpide 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 fhe from the upper part hir garment would have

rent,

By chance the let her lap flip downe, and out her flowers went." RITSON.

violets, dim,

But fweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,] I fufpect 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 ufes fweet in the general fenfe, for delightful. JOHNSON.

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

"This Troilus full oft her eyen two
"Gan for to kiffe," &c.