Page 800 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

SHEPHERD

I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth
would sleep out the rest; [60] 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
[65] wolf will sooner find than the master: if anywhere I have them, ’tis by
the sea-side, browzing of ivy. (Seeing the babe) Good luck, and ’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 [70] 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. I’ll take it up for
pity: yet I’ll tarry till my son come; he [75] hallooed but even now. Whoa-ho-
hoa!

Enter Clown.

CLOWN
Hilloa, loa!

SHEPHERD
What, art so near? If thou’lt see a thing to talk on when thou art dead and

rotten, come hither. What ail’st thou man? [80]

CLOWN
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.

SHEPHERD
Why, boy, how is it?

CLOWN
I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, [85] how it takes up the

shore! But that’s not to the point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls!
sometimes to see ’em, and 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