Jaq. More, more, I pr'ythee, more. Ami. It will make you melancholy, monsieur Jaques. Jaq. I thank it. More, I pr'ythee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weazel sucks eggs: More, I pr'ythee, more. Ami. My voice is ragged; I know, I cannot please you. Jaq. I do not desire you to please me, I do desire you to sing: Come,more; another stanza; Call you them stanzas? Ami. What you will, monsieur Jaques. Jaq. Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing: Will you sing? Ami. More at your request, than to please myself. Jaq. Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank you but that they call compliment, is like the encounter of two dog-apes; and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks, I have given him a penny, and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you that will not, hold your tongues. Ami. Well, I'll end the song.—Sirs, cover the while; the duke will drink under this tree :-he hath been all this day to look you. Jaq. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is too dispútable for my company: I think of as many matters as he ; but I give heaven thanks, and make no boast of them. Come, warble, come. SONG. Who doth ambition shun, Seeking the food he eats, [All together here And pleas'd with what he gets, Come hither, come hither, come hither; Here shall he see No enemy, But winter and rough weather. Jaq. I'll give you a verse to this note, that I made yesterday in despight of my invention. Ami. And I'll sing it. Jaq. Thus it goes: If it do come to pass, Leaving his wealth and ease, Gross fools as he, An if he will come to Ami. Ami. What's that ducdàme ? Jaq. 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a cirele. I'll go sleep if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the first born of Egypt. 8 Ami. And I'll go seek the duke; his banquet is prepar'd. [Exeunt severally. SCENE VI. The same. Enter ORLANDO and ADAM. Adam. Dear master, I can go no farther: O, I die for food! Here lie I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master. Orla. Why, how now, Adam! no greater heart in thee? Live a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little: If this uncouth forest yield any thing savage, I will either be food for it, or bring it for food to thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy powers. For my sake, be comfortable; hold death a while at the arm's end I will here be with thee presently; and if I bring thee not something to eat, I'll give thee leave to die: but if thou diest before I come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said! thou look'st cheerily : and I'll be with thee quickly.-Yet thou liest in the bleak air: Come, I will bear thee to some shelter; and thou shalt not die for lack of a dinner, if there live any thing in this desert. Cheerly, good Adam! [Exeunt. SCENE VII. The same. A table set out. Enter Duke senior, AMIENS, Lords, and others. Duke S. I think he be transform'd into a beast ; For I can no where find him like a man. 1 Lord. My lord, he is but even now gone hence; Here was he merry, hearing of a song. [8] A proverbial expression for high-born persons. JOHNSON. Duke S. If he, compact of jars, grow musical, We shall have shortly discord in the spheres :Go, seek him; tell him, I would speak with him. Enter JAQUES. 1 Lord. He saves my labour by his own approach. Duke S. Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this, That your poor friends must woo your company? What! you look merrily. Jaq. A fool, a fool !—I met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool;-a miserable world! As I do live by food, I met a fool; Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Thus may we see, quoth he, how the world wags : Duke S. What fool is this? Jaq. O worthy fool!-One that hath been a courtier ; And says, if ladies be but young, and fair, They have the gift to know it: and in his brain,— Which is as dry as the remainder bisket After a voyage,-he hath strange places cramm'd. In mangled forms:-O, that I were a fool! Duke S. Thou shalt have one. Jaq. It is my only suit ; Provided, that you weed your better judgments That I am wise. I must have liberty To blow on whom I please; for so fools have: They most must laugh: And why, sir, must they so? He, that a fool doth very wisely hit, Doth very foolishly, although he smart, The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd Even by the squandering glances of the fool.9 To speak my mind, and I will through and through If they will patiently receive my medicine. Duke S. Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do. Jaq. What, for a counter, would I do, but good? Duke S. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin: For thou thyself hast been a libertine, As sensual as the brutish sting itself; And all the embossed sores, and headed evils, That says, his bravery is not on my cost, There then; How, What then? Let me see wherein [9] Unless men have the prudence not to appear touched with the sarcasms of a jester, they subject themselves to his power, and the wise man will have his folly anatomized, that is, dissected and laid open, by the squandering glances or random shots of a fool. JOHNSON, Enter ORLANDO, with his sword drawn. Orla. Forbear, and eat no more. Jaq. Why, I have eat none yet. Orla. Nor shalt not, till necessity be serv'd. Duke S. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress; Or else a rude despiser of good manners, That in civility thou seem'st so empty? Orla. You touch'd my vein at first; the thorny point Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred, 1 -And know some nurture :2 But forbear, I say ; He dies, that touches any of this fruit, Till I and my affairs are answered. Jaq. An you will not be answered with reason, I must die. Duke S. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force, More than your force move us to gentleness. Orla. I almost die for food, and let me have it. Duke S. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table. I thought, that all things had been savage here; And therefore put I on the countenance Of stern commandment: But whate'er you are, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time; If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church; If ever from your eye-lids wip'd a tear, 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 knoll'd to church; And sat at good men's feasts; and wip'd our eyes Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd: [1] Inland here, and elsewhere in this play, is the opposite to outland, or upland. Orlando means to say, that he had not been bred among clowns. HOLT WHITE. [2] Nurture is education. STEEVENS-St. Paul advises the Ephesians, in his Ep istle, ch. vi. 4, to bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." HARRIS. |