A Fair and Happy Milkmaid
作者：约翰.韦伯斯特(John Webster)[1580(?)-1625(?)英国剧作家，他的生平后人知之甚微。
Is a Country Wench,that is so far from making herself beautiful by art that one look of hers is able to put all face-physick out of countenance..She knows a fair look is but a dumb orator to commend virtue, therefore minds it not. All her excellencies stand in her so silently,as if they had stolen upon her without her knowledge. The lining of her apparel (which is herself) is far better than outsides of tissue: for though she be not arrayed in the spoil of the silkworm, she is decked in innocency, a far better wearing. She doth not, with lying long abed, spoil both her complexion and conditions; nature hath taught her too immoderate sleep is rust to the soul: she rises therefore with Chanticleer, her damd’s cock, and at night maks the lamb her curfew. In milking a Cow, and straining ghe teats through her fingers, it seems that so sweet a milk-press makes the milk the whiter or sweeter; for never came almond glove or aromatic ointment on her palm to tain it. The golden ears of corn fall and kiss her feet when she reaps them, as if they wished to be bound and leb prisoners by the same hand that felled them. Her breath is her own, which scents all the year long of june, like a new-made haycock. She makes her hand hard with labour, and her heart soft and pity; and when winter evenings fall early (sitting at her merry wheel) she sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of Fortune. She doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not suffer her to do ill, being her mind is to do well. She bestows her year’s wages at next fair; and in chusing her garments counts no bravery I’s th’ world like decency. The garden and beehive are all her physick and chirurgery, and she lives the longer for it . She dares go alone, and unfold sheep in the night,and fears no manner of ill, because she means none; yet to say truth, she is never alone, for she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones;yet they have their efficacy, in that they are not palled with ensuing idle cogitations. Lastly, her dreams are so chaste that she dare tell them: only a Friday’s dream is all her superstition: that she conceals for fear of anger. Thus lives she, and all her care is she may die in the springtime, to have store of flowers stuck upon her winding-sheet.
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