Page 811 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

and Shepherdesses).

FLORIZEL
These your unusual weeds, to each part of you
Do give a life: no shepherdess, but Flora
Peering in April’s front. This your sheep-shearing
Is as a meeting of the petty gods,

And you the queen on’t.

PERDITA
Sir: my gracious lord, [5]
To chide at your extremes, it not becomes me −
O pardon, that I name them! Your high self,

The gracious mark o’ th’ land, you have obscur’d
With a swain’s wearing, and me, poor lowly maid,
Most goddess-like prank’d up: but that our feasts [10]
In every mess have folly, and the feeders

Digest it with a custom, I should blush
To see you so attir’d; swoon, I think,
To show myself a glass.

FLORIZEL
I bless the time

When my good falcon made her flight across [15]
Thy father’s ground.

PERDITA
Now Jove afford you cause!
To me the difference forges dread (your greatness
Hath not been us’d to fear): even now I tremble

To think your father, by some accident
Should pass this way, as you did: O the Fates! [20]
How would he look, to see his work, so noble,
Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how

Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts, behold
The sternness of his presence?

FLORIZEL