Autolycus. 
   Lawn as white as driven snow;
   Cypress black as e’er was crow;
   Gloves as sweet as damask-roses;
   Masks for faces and for noses;
   Bugle-bracelet, necklace amber,
   Perfume for a lady’s chamber;
   Golden quoifs and stomachers,
   For my lads to give their dears;
   Pins and poking-sticks of steel,
   What maids lack from head to heel. 
   Come, buy of me, come; come buy, come buy;
   Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry: 
   Come, buy.

Clown.  If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.

Mopsa. 
I was promis’d them against the feast; but they come not too
late now.

Dorcas. 
He hath promised you more than that, or there be liars.

Mopsa. 
He hath paid you all he promised you:  may be he has paid you
more,—­which will shame you to give him again.

Clown.  Is there no manners left among maids? will they wear their plackets where they should bear their faces?  Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guests? ’tis well they are whispering.  Clamour your tongues, and not a word more.

Mopsa. 
I have done.  Come, you promised me a tawdry lace, and a pair
of sweet gloves.

Clown. 
Have I not told thee how I was cozened by the way, and lost
all my money?

Autolycus. 
And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it
behoves men to be wary.

Clown. 
Fear not thou, man; thou shalt lose nothing here.

Autolycus. 
I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge.

Clown. 
What hast here? ballads?

Mopsa. 
Pray now, buy some:  I love a ballad in print a-life; for then
we are sure they are true.

Autolycus.  Here’s one to a very doleful tune.  How a usurer’s wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden, and how she long’d to eat adders’ heads and toads carbonadoed.

Mopsa. 
Is it true, think you?

Autolycus. 
Very true; and but a month old.

Dorcas. 
Bless me from marrying a usurer!

Autolycus.  Here’s the midwife’s name to’ t, one Mistress Taleporter, and five or six honest wives that were present.  Why should I carry lies abroad?

Mopsa. 
Pray you now, buy it.

Clown. 
Come on, lay it by; and let’s first see more ballads; we’ll
buy the other things anon.

Autolycus.  Here’s another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids:  it was thought she was a woman, and was turned into a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her.  The ballad is very pitiful, and as true.