FLORIZEL

These your unusual weeds, to each partly of you Do's give a life: no Shepherdess, but Flora Peering in Aprils front. This your sheepshearing, Is as a meeting of the petty Gods, And you the Queen on't. I bless the time, When my good Falcon, made her flight across Thy Father's ground Apprehend Nothing but jollity: the Gods themselves (Humbling their Deities to love) have taken The shapes of Beasts upon them. Jupiter, Became a Bull, and bellowed: the green Neptune A Ram, and bleated: and the Fire-roab'd-God Golden Apollo, a poor humble Swain, As I seem now. Their transformations, Were never for a piece of beauty, rarer, Not in a way so chaste: since my desires Run not before mine honour: nor my Lustest Burn hotter then my Faith. Thou dearest Perdita, With these forced thoughts, I prithee darken not The Mirth of 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. See, your Guests approach, Address your self to entertain them sprightly, And let's be read with mirth. What? Like a Coarse? 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 fell so: so give Alms, Pray so: and for the ordering your Affairs, To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you A wave of that 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. I think you have As little skill to fear, as I have purpose To put you to't. But come, our dance I pray, Your hand (my Perdita :) so Turtles pair That never mean to partly. Old Sir, I know She prizes not such trifles as these are: The gifts she looks from me, are packed and locked Up in my heart, which I have given already, But not delivered. Oh hear me breath my life Before this ancient Sir, whom (it should seem) Hath sometime loved: I take thy hand, this hand, As soft as Doves down, and as white as it, Or Ethyopians tooth, or the saned snow, that's bolted By the Northern blasts, twice over. Do, and be witness too't. And he, and more Then he, and men: the earth, the heavens, and all; That were I crowned the most Imperial Monarch Thereof most worthy: were I the fairest youth That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge More then was ever men, I would not prize them Without her Love; for her, employ them all, Commend them, and condemn them to her service, Or to their own perdition. Oh, that must be In that Virtue of your daughter: One being dead, I shall have more then you can dream of yet, Enough then for your wonder: but come-on, Contract us before these Witnesses. I have: but what of him? He neither do's, nor shall. No good Sir: He has his health, and ampler strength indeed Then most have of his age. I yield all this; But for some other reasons (my graven Sir) Which it's not fit you know, I not acquaint My Father of this business. Come, come, he must not: Mark our Contract. Why look you so upon me? I am but sorry, not affeared: delayed, But nothing altered: What I was, I am: More straining on, for plucking back; not following My leash unwillingly. I not purpose it: I think Camillo. It cannot fail, but by The violation of my faith, and then Let Nature crush the sides of that earth together, And mar the feeds within. Lift up thy looks: From my succession wipe me (Father) I Am heir to my affection. I am: and by my fancy, if my Reason Will thereto be obedient: I have reason: If not, my senses better pleased with madness, Do bid it welcome. So call it: but it do's fulfil my vow: I needs must think it honesty. Camillo, Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may Be there at gleaned: for all the Sun sees, or The close earth wombs, or the profound seas, hides In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath To this my fair beloved: Therefore, I pray you, As you have ever been my Father's honoured friend, When he shall miss me, as (in faith I mean not To see him any more) cast your good counsels Upon his passion: Let my self, and Fortune Tug for the time to come. This you may know, And so deliver, I am put to Sea With her, who here I cannot hold on shore: And most opportune to her need, I have A Vessel rides fast by, but not prepared For this design. What course I mean to hold Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor Concern me the reporting. Hark Perdita, I'll hear you by and by. Now good Camillo, I am so fraught with curious business, that I leave out ceremony. Very nobly Have you deserved: It is my Father's Music To speak your deeds: not little of his care To have them recompensed, as thought on. How Camillo May this (almost a miracle) be done? That I may call thee something more then man, And after that trust to thee. Not any yet: But as the vnthought-on accident is guilty To what we wildly do, so we profess Our selves to be the slaves of chance, and flies Of every wind that blows. Worthy Camillo, What colour for my Visitation, shall I Hold up before him? I am bound to you: There is some sap in this. My good Camillo, She's as forward, of her Breeding, as She is in the reare' our Birth. My prettiest Perdita. But Oh, the Thorns we stand upon: (Camillo) Preserver of my Father, now of me, The Medicine of our House: how shall we do? We are not furnished Like Bohemia's Son, Nor shall appear in Sicilia. And those that you'll procure from King Leontes? Dispatch, I prithee. Should I now meet my Father, He would not call me Son. Oh Perdita: what have we twain forgotten? pray you a word. Fortune speed us: Thus we set on (Camillo) to the Seaside. By his command Have I here touched Sicilia, and from him Give you all greetings, that a King (at friend) Can send his Brother: and but Infirmity (Which waits upon worn times) hath something seized His wished Ability, he had himself The Lands and Waters, betwixt your Throne and his, Measured, to look upon you; whom he loves (He bade me say so) more then all the Sceptres, And those that bear them, living. Good my Lord, She came from Libya. Most Royal Sir, From thence: from him, whose Daughter His Tears proclaimed his parting with her: thence (A prosperous South-wind friendly) we have crossed, To execute the Charge my Father gave me, For visiting your Highness: My best Train I have from your Sicilian Shores dismissed; Who for Bohemia bend, to signify Not only my success in Libya (Sir) But my arrival, and my Wives, in safety Here, where we are. Camillo ha betrayed me; Whose honour, and whose honesty till now, Endured all Weathers. We are not (Sir) nor are we Like to be: The Stars (I see) will kiss the Valleys first: The odds for high and low's alike. She is, When once she is my Wife. Dear, look up: Though Fortune, visible and Enemy, Should chase us, with my Father; pour no jot Hath she to change our Loves. Beseech you (Sir) Remember, since you owed no more to Time Then I do now: with thought of such Affections, Stop forth mine Advocate: at your request, My Father will grant precious things, as Trifles. He shall not. No, he must not.