And therefore put I on the countenance

Of stern commandment: But whate'er you are,
That in this desert inaccessible17,

Under the shade of melancholy boughs, akc
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;
If ever you have look'd on better days,

If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church;
If ever sat at any good man's feast;

If ever from your eye-lids wip'd a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied;
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be
In the which hope, I blush, and hide my sword.
Duke S. True is it that we have seen better days;
And have with holy bell been knell'd to church:
And sat at good men's feasts; and wip'd our eyes
Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd:Clas
And therefore sit you down in gentleness, no A
And take upon command18 what help we have,
That to your wanting may be ministered.
Orl. Then, but forbear your food a little while,
Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,
And give it food19, There is an
an old poor man,
Who after me hath many a weary step
Limp'd in pure love: till he be first suffic'd,
Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger,-
I will not touch a bit.

Duke S.
Go find him out,
And we will nothing waste till you return.

Orl. I thank ye; and be bless'd for your good comfort!

[Exit.

Duke S. Thou seest, we are not all alone un

happy:

This wide and universal theatre

17 "This desert inaccessible. So in The adventures of SImonides, by Barnabe Riche, 1590: --and onely acquainted himselfe with this unaccessible desert.'

18 i. e. at your own command.

19 So in Venus and Adonis: Bat

'Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ake,
Hasting to feede her fawn.'

Presents more woful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in20.

Jaq.
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages21. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;

And then, the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail bus
Unwillingly to school: And then, the lover;
Sighing like furnace22, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eye-brow: Then, a soldier;
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden23 and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth: And then, the justice;

20 Pleonasms of this kind were by no means uncommon in the writers of Shakspeare's age: 'I was afearde to what end his talke would come to. Baret. In Coriolanus, Act ii. Sc. 1:

'In what enormity is Marcius poor in. And in Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Chorus:

"That fair for which love groan'd for.

1 In the old play of Damon and Pythias, we have 'Pythagoras said, that this world was like a stage whereon many play their parts. And in The Legend of Orpheus and Euridice, 1597:

'Unhappy man

Whose life a sad continuall tragedie,

Himself the actor, in the world, the stage,

While as the acts are measured by his age.'

In The Treasury of Ancient and Modern Times, 1613, is a division of the life of man into seven ages, said to be taken from Proclus: and it appears from Brown's Vulgar Errors, that Hippocrates also divided man's life into seven degrees or stages, though he differs from Proclus in the number of years allotted to each stage. Dr. Henley mentions an old emblematical print, entitled, The Stage of Man's Life divided into Seven Ages, from which he thinks Shakspeare more likely to have taken his hint than from Hippocrates, or Proclus; but he does not tell us that this print was of Shakspeare's age. Steevens refers to the Totus mundus exerceat histrioniam of Petronius, with whom probably the sentiment originated. Shakspeare has again referred to it in The Merchant of Venice:

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,
A stage where every man must play his part.'

12 So in Cymbeline: 'He furnaceth the thick sighs from him.' 23 One of the ancient senses of sudden is violent.

1

In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern24 instances,
And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon25;
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
is second childishness, and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM.

Duke S. Welcome: Set down your venerable burden,

And let him feed.

Orl.

I thank you most for him.
Adam. So had you need;

I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.
Duke S. Welcome, fall to: I will not trouble you
As yet, to question you about your fortunes :—
Give us some music; and, good cousin, sing,

AMIENS sings.

SONG.

I.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind26
As man's ingratitude;

3 Trite, common, trivial.

25 The pantaloon was a character in the old Italian farces; it represented, as Warburton observes, a thin emaciated old man in slippers. Nashe mentions the character in his Pierce Pennilesse. And in The Plotte of the Deade Man's Fortune, printed by Malone Enter the panteloun and pescode with spectacles."

26 That is, thy action is not so contrary to thy kind, 80 unna tural, as the ingratitude of man. Thus in Venus and Adonis : O had thy mother borne so bad a mind,

She had not brought forth thee, but dy'd unkind'.

Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art not seen21,

Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh, ho, the holly!

This life is most jolly.

II.

1 Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,einkkelbet
That dost not bite so nighir daglubd
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp28.
Thy sting is not so sharp,

As friend remember'd not29.
Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! &c. mboty?!

27 Johnson thus explains this line, which some of the editors have thought corrupt or misprinted: "Thou winter wind, says Amiens, thy rudeness gives the less pain, as thou art not seen, as thou art an enemy that dost not brave us with thy presence, and whose unkindness is therefore not aggravated by insult.' So in the Sonnet introduced into Love's Labour's Lost:

"Through the velvet leaves the wind

All unseen 'gan passage find.'

Again in Measure for Measure :

"To be imprison'd in the viewless winds.

28 Though thou the waters warp.' Mr. Holt White has pointed out a Saxon adage in Hickes's Thesaurus, vol. i. p. 221: Winter sceal geweorpan weder, Winter shall warp water. So that Shakspeare's expression was anciently proverbial. To warp, from the Gothic Warpan jacere, projicere, signified anciently to weave, as may be seen in Florio's Dict. v. ordire; or in Cotgrave v. ourdir. Though thou the waters warp' may therefore be explained, as Mr. Nares suggests, Though thou weave the waters into a firm texture. The following very apt illustration, which has occurred to me in Propertius, was probably unknown to the Poet:

'Africus in glaciem frigore nectit aquas.'-El. 3. lib. iv. The context of the song

'Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky

is also in favour of this explanation; those who have seen the beautiful experiment of the congelation of water by artificial means, the projection of intersecting spiculae, and the network appearance which first takes place on the surface, would be inclined to think the expression 'to warp or weave the water' appropriate.

29 Remember'd for remembering, So afterwards in Act iii. Sc. ult. And now I am remember'd,' i. e. and now that I bethink me, &c.

Duke S. If that you were the good Sir Rowland's

son,

As you have whisper'd faithfully you were;
And as mine eye doth his effigies witness
Most truly limn'd, and living in your face,-
Be truly welcome hither: I am the duke,
That lov'd your father: The residue of your fortune,
Go to my cave and tell me.- -Good old man,
Thou art right welcome as thy master is:
Support him by the arm. Give me your hand,
And let me all your fortunes understand. [Exeunt.

ACT III.

SCENE I. A Room in the Palace.

Enter Duke FREDERICK, OLIVER, Lords, and Attendants.

Duke F. Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be:

But were I not the better part made mercy,

I should not seek an absent argument!

Of my revenge, thou present: But look to it;
Find out thy brother, wheresoe'er he is;
Seek him with candle: bring him dead or living,
Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more
To seek a living in our territory.

Thy lands, and all things that thou dost call thine,
Worth seizure, do we seize into our hands;
Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother's mouth,
Of what we think against thee.

Oli. O, that your highness knew my heart in this! I never lov'd my brother in my life.blade

1 The argument is used for the contents of a book; thence Shakspeare considered it as meaning the subject, and then used it for subject in another scuse.