May walk again: if such thing be, thy mother So fill'd and so o'er-running: in pure white robes, My cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me ; There wend, and leave it crying; and, for the babe I prythee, call't. For this ungentle business, I did in time collect myself; and thought I will be squared by this. I do believe Blossom, speed thee well! [Laying down the Child, with a scroll. 2 Perdita is a Latin word literally meaning lost. 8 Toys, as the word is here used, are trifles, fancies, or things of no importance. There lie; and there thy character: 4 there these; [Laying down a bundle. Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty, That, for thy mother's fault, art thus exposed Farewell! [Thunder. thou'rt like to have A lullaby too rough: I never saw [Noise of hunters, dogs, and bears within. Well may I get aboard! - This is the chase: I'm gone for ever. [Exit, pursued by a bear. Enter an old Shepherd. Shep. I would there were no age between sixteen 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 boil'd 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, browzing of ivy. - [Seeing the Child.] Good luck, an't be thy will! what have we here? Mercy on's, a barn; a 4 This character is the description, a written scroll, afterwards found with Perdita. 5 Wretch was the strongest expression of tenderness or endearment in the language. Shakespeare has it repeatedly so. 6 Love, madness, and melancholy are imaged by Shakespeare under the figure of boil'd brains, or boiling brains. Here the phrase means the same as our "mad-brained youth." See page 95, note 10. very pretty barn! A god, or a child, I wonder? A pretty one; a very pretty one: sure, some 'scape: 8 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. I'll take it up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he halloo'd but even now. - Whoa, ho, hoa! Clo. [Within.] Hilloa, loa! Shep. What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. Enter the Clown. What ailest thou, man? Clo. I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land! but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky: betwixt the firmament and it you cannot thrust a bodkin's point. Shep. Why, boy, how is it? Clo. I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up 9 the shore! but that's not to the point. 0, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and then not to see 'em ; now the ship boring the Moon with her main-mast, and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then, for the landservice, to see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said his name was Antigonus, 7 The best comment on this is furnished by Greene's novel: "The Shepherd, who before had never seen so fair a babe nor so rich jewels, thought assuredly that it was some little god, and began with great devotion to knock on his breast. The babe, who writhed with the head to seek for the pap, began again to cry afresh, whereby the poor man knew it was a child." 8 'Scape here means a secret lapse or transgression ; an escape from the limits of rule, a trick, a wanton deviation," says Nares. 9 Take up appears to be used something in the sense of devour; as in Hamlet, iv. 2: "The ocean, overpeering of his list, eats not the flats with more impetuous haste," &c. a nobleman. But, to make an end of the ship, to see how the sea flap-dragon'd it: 10 but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mock'd them; and how the poor gentleman roared, and the bear mock'd him, both roaring louder than the sea or weather. Shep. Name of mercy, when was this, boy? Clo. Now, now; I have not wink'd since I saw these sights the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman; he's at it now. : Shep. Would I had been by, to have help'd the nobleman ! Clo. I would you had been by the ship-side, to have help'd her: [Aside.] there your charity would have lack'd footing. Shep. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself: thou mett'st with things dying, I with things new-born. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth 11 for a squire's child! look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open't. So, let's see it was told me I should be rich by the fairies; this is some changeling: 12 open't. What's within, boy? Clo. You're a made old man: 13 if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold! Shep. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so; up with't, keep it close: home, home, the next way.14 We are 10 That is, swallowed it, as topers did flap-dragons, which were some inflammable substances set on fire, put afloat in the liquor, and gulped down blazing. See vol. ii. page 72, note 5. 11 The mantle of fine cloth, in which a child was carried to be baptized. 12 In the olden time the fairies had a naughty custom of stealing away fine, bright children, and leaving ugly or stupid ones in their stead. Both the child so stolen and the child so left were called changelings. Here the changeling is the child stolen. The old poets have many allusions to this sharp practice of the fairy nation. See vol. iii. page 23, note 5. 13 To make a man is, in old language, to set him up in the world, or to endow him with wealth. See page 55, note 9. 14" The next way" is the nearest way. Often so. lucky, boy; and to be so still, requires nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go: come, good boy, the next way home. Clo. Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten they are never curst,15 but when they are hungry : if there be any of him left, I'll bury it. Shep. That's a good deed. If thou mayst discern by that which is left of him what he is, fetch me to the sight of him. Clo. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground. Shep. 'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds on't. [Exeunt. ACT IV. Enter TIME, as Chorus. Time. I that please some, try all; both joy and terror Of good and bad; that make and unfold error Now take upon me, in the name of Time, Let me pass 15 Curst here signifies mischievous. An old adage says, have short horns." "Curst cows 1 Leave unexamined the progress of the time which filled up the gap in Perdita's story. The reasoning of Time is not very clear; he seems to mean, that he who overthrows every thing, and makes as well as overwhelms custom, may surely infringe the laws of his own making. |