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Enter Silvius.

Sil.

My errand is to you, fair youth,

My gentle Phebe did bid me give you this.

[Gives a letter.]

I know not the contents, but as I guess

By the stern brow and waspish action

Which she did use as she was writing of it,

It bears an angry tenure. Pardon me,

I am but as a guiltless messenger.

Ros.

Patience herself would startle at this letter,

And play the swaggerer: bear this, bear all!

She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;

She calls me proud, and that she could not love me

Were man as rare as phoenix. ’Od’s my will,

Her love is not the hare that I do hunt;

Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,

This is a letter of your own device.

Sil.

No, I protest, I know not the contents,

Phebe did write it.

Ros.

Come, come, you are a fool,

And turn’d into the extremity of love.

I saw her hand, she has a leathern hand,

A freestone-colored hand. I verily did think

That her old gloves were on, but ’twas her hands;

She has a huswive’s hand—but that’s no matter.

I say she never did invent this letter,