Perdita. Sir, welcome! [To Polixenes and Camillo.] It is my father's will I should take on me The hostess-ship o' the day: you're welcome, sir! Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.--Reverend sirs, For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming, and savour, all the winter long: Grace and remembrance be unto 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, Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations, and streak'd gilly-flowers, 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 gentler 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. [Footnote: The lady, we here see, gives up the argument, but keeps her mind.] Polixenes. Then make your garden rich in gilly-flowers, And do not call them bastards. Perdita. I'll not put The dibble in earth, to set one slip of them; [Footnote: The lady, we here see, gives up the argument, but keeps her mind.] No more than, were I painted, I would wish This youth should say, 'twere well; and only therefore Desire to breed by me.--Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises, weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given To men of middle age. You are very welcome. Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing.