Besides, you know
Prosperity's the very bond of love;
Whose fresh complexion, and whose heart together
Affliction alters.

To which she replies,--

One of these is true;
I think, affliction may subdue the cheek,
But not take in the mind.

In that elegant scene where she receives the guests at the
sheep-shearing, and distributes the flowers, there is in the full flow
of the poetry, a most beautiful and striking touch of individual
character: but here it is impossible to mutilate the dialogue.

Reverend sirs,
For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savor all the winter long;
Grace and remembrance be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing!

POLIXENES.

Shepherdess,
(A fair one are you,) well you fit our ages
With flowers of winter.

PERDITA.

Sir, the year growing ancient,
Nor yet on summer's death, nor on the birth
Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season
Are our carnations, and streaked gilliflowers,
Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind
Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not
To get slips of them.

POLIXENES.

Wherefore, gentle maiden,
Do you neglect them?

PERDITA.

For I have heard it said,
There is an art, which in their piedness, shares
With great creating nature.

POLIXENES.

Say there be;
Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean; so o'er that art
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentle 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.

PERDITA.

So it is.

POLIXENES.

Then make your garden rich in gilliflowers,
And do not call them bastards.

PERDITA.

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.

It has been well remarked of