Come, I'll question you / Of my lord's tricks, and yours, when you were boys: / You were pretty lordlings then?
We were, fair Queen, / Two lads that thought there was no more behind / But such a day tomorrow as today, / And to be boy eternal.
Was not my lord / The verier wag o' th' two?
We were as twinned lambs, that did frisk i' th' sun, / And bleat the one at th' other; what we changed / Was innocence for innocence; we knew not / The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed / That any did; had we pursued that life, / And our weak spirits ne'er been higher reared / With stronger blood, we should have answered heaven / Boldly, "not guilty"; the imposition cleared, / Hereditary ours.
Mamillius, / Art thou my boy?
Ay, my good lord.
I' fecks! / Why, that's my bawcock. What, hast smutched thy nose? / They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, Captain, / We must be neat — not neat, but cleanly, Captain: / And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf, / Are all called neat. Still virginaling / Upon his palm? How now, you wanton calf, / Art thou my calf?
Yes, if you will, my lord.
Thou want'st a rough pash, and the shoots that I have / To be full like me: yet they say we are / Almost as like as eggs; women say so, / That will say anything. But were they false / As o'er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters; false / As dice are to be wished, by one that fixes / No bourn 'twixt his and mine — yet were it true / To say this boy were like me. Come, Sir Page, / Look on me with your welkin eye. Sweet villain, / Most dear'st, my collop! Can thy dam, may 't be? / Affection! Thy intention stabs the center. / Thou dost make possible things not so held, / Communicat'st with dreams — how can this be? — / With what's unreal thou coactive art, / And fellow'st nothing. Then 'tis very credent / Thou mayst co-join with something, and thou dost, / And that beyond commission, and I find it, / And that to the infection of my brains, / And hardening of my brows.
Gone already! / Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a forked one! / Go play, boy, play: thy mother plays, and I / Play too — but so disgraced a part, whose issue / Will hiss me to my grave; contempt and clamour / Will be my knell. Go play, boy, play. There have been, / Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now, / And many a man there is, even at this present, / Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by th' arm, / That little thinks she has been sluiced in 's absence, / And his pond fished by his next neighbour, by / Sir Smile, his neighbour; nay, there's comfort in 't, / Whiles other men have gates, and those gates opened, / As mine against their will. Should all despair, / That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind / Would hang themselves. Physic for 't there's none; / It is a bawdy planet, that will strike / Where 'tis predominant, and 'tis powerful, think it, / From east, west, north, and south. Be it concluded, / No barricado for a belly. Know 't / It will let in and out the enemy, / With bag and baggage. Many thousand on 's / Have the disease, and feel 't not. How now, boy!
Is whispering nothing? / Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses? / Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career / Of laughter with a sigh (a note infallible / Of breaking honesty)? Horsing foot on foot? / Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift? / Hours, minutes? Noon, midnight? And all eyes / Blind with the pin and web, but theirs; theirs only, / That would unseen be wicked? Is this nothing? / Why, then the world and all that's in 't is nothing, / The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing, / My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings, / If this be nothing.
I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting. Hark you now! Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the master; if anywhere I have them, 'tis by the seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an 't be thy will, what have we here? Mercy on 's, a barne! A very pretty barne; a boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one, a very pretty one; sure, some scape; though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door-work; they were warmer that got this than the poor thing is here.
My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus, who being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and drab, I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is the silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway. Beating and hanging are terrors to me; for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it.
Shepherdess — / A fair one are you — well you fit our ages / With flow'rs of winter.
Sir, the year growing ancient, / Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth / Of trembling winter, the fairest flow'rs o' th' season / Are our carnations, and streaked gillyvors, / Which some call Nature's bastards; of that kind / Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not / To get slips of them.
Wherefore, gentle maiden, / Do you neglect them?
For I have heard it said, / There is an art, which in their piedness shares / With great creating Nature.
Say there be; / Yet Nature is made better by no mean / But Nature makes that means; 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.
So it is.
Then make your garden rich in gillyvors, / And do not call them bastards.
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 flow'rs for you: / Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, / The marigold that goes to bed wi' th' sun, / And with him rises, weeping; these are flow'rs / Of middle summer, and I think they are given / To men of middle age. You're very welcome.
He sings several tunes faster than you'll tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men's ears grew to his tunes.
He could never come better; he shall come in; I love a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set down; or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung lamentably.
He hath songs for man or woman of all sizes; no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves. He has the prettiest love songs for maids, so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings: "Jump her, and thump her"; and where some stretch-mouthed rascal would, as it were, mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer, "Whoop, do me no harm, good man"; puts him off, slights him, with "Whoop, do me no harm, good man."
Mark your divorce, young sir, / Whom son I dare not call; thou art too base / To be acknowledged. Thou, a scepter's heir, / That thus affect'st a sheep-hook! Thou, old traitor, / I am sorry that by hanging thee, I can / But shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece / Of excellent witchcraft, who of force must know / The royal fool thou cop'st with —
O my heart!
I'll have thy beauty scratched with briers and made / More homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy, / If I may ever know thou dost but sigh / That thou no more shalt see this knack — as never / I mean thou shalt — we'll bar thee from succession; / Not hold thee of our blood, no not our kin, / Farre than Deucalion off. Mark thou my words. / Follow us to the court. Thou, churl, for this time, / Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee / From the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment, / Worthy enough a herdsman — yea him, too, / That makes himself, but for our honour therein, / Unworthy thee — if ever henceforth thou / These rural latches to his entrance open, / Or hoop his body more with thy embraces, / I will devise a death as cruel for thee / As thou art tender to 't.
Even here undone!
I understand the business, I hear it. To have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cutpurse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for th' other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth thrive. What an exchange had this been without boot! What a boot is here, with this exchange! Sure, the gods do this year connive at us, and we may do anything extempore.
Give me thy hand. I will swear to the Prince thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.
You may say it, but not swear it.
Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins say it, I'll swear it.
How if it be false, son?
If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it in the behalf of his friend; and I'll swear to the Prince thou art a tall fellow of thy hands, and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands, and that thou wilt be drunk; but I'll swear it, and I would thou wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands.
I will prove so, sir, to my power.
Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow. If I do not wonder how thou dar'st venture to be drunk, not being a tall fellow, trust me not.
The shepherd's sentiment in III.iii was taken up by Breillat in abig way in The Sleeping Beauty.
ReplyDeleteThat's one of the films from the last couple years I'm most looking forward to seeing, but haven't yet. Ditto Bluebeard. Lola Créton is incredible, one to watch.
ReplyDelete