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The Shoemaker's Holiday

Start: ROSE. Here sit thou down up...

Overview

Character
Gender
Female
Playing Age
Young Adult
Style
Comedic
Act/Scene
Act 2, Scene 1
Time & Place
The monologue takes place in a garden outside the Lord Mayor’s house in London, England, during the late sixteenth century.
Length
Short
Time Period
Classical
Show Type
Play
Age Guidance
Youth (Y)/General Audiences (G)

Context

Text

Start:

ROSE. Here sit thou down upon this flow’ry bank,

And make a garland for thy Lacy’s head.

These pinks, these roses, and these violets,

These blushing gilliflowers, these marigolds,

The fair embroidery of his coronet,

Carry not half such beauty in their cheeks,

As the sweet countenance of my Lacy doth.

O my most unkind father! O my stars,

Why lower’d you so at my nativity,

To make me love, yet live robb’d of my love?

Here as a thief am I imprisoned

For my dear Lacy’s sake within those walls,

Which by my father’s cost were builded up

For better purposes. Here must I languish

For him that doth as much lament, I know,

Mine absence, as for him I pine in woe.

Dekker, Thomas. The Shoemaker’s Holiday, 1599, Act 2, Scene 1.

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