Whether.

1623.

Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl?
No; let my father seek another heir.

Whither to go,

• So 1632. Therefore devise with me how we may fly, and what to bear with us: And do not seek to take your change+ upon you,* + charge. To bear your griefs yourself, and leave me out; For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale, Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee. Ros. Why, whither shall we go?

1632.

So as

above.

CEL. To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden.
Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel forth so far?
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

CEL. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,
And with a kind of umber smirch my face,
The like do you; so shall we pass along,
And never stir assailants.

Ros.

Were it not better,

Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,

son offers, as a similar phraseology:
which teaches you to do right."

you know not the law,

a take your change upon you] i. e. encounter this reverse. b For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale] This passage may be interpreted either " by this heaven, or the light of heaven, with its lustre faded in sympathy with our feelings:" or, for, by this heaven, now we have reached, now we are at the utmost verge or point, in this extremity or crisis of our fate," &c. (for such it was) as this word is used in the Wint. T. IV. 2. Autol.

"For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale."

And with a kind of umber smirch my face] Umber is a dusky yellow-coloured earth, brought from Umbria in Italy.

It was used in stage exhibitions. In a MS. of mine, the Tell tale, there is this direction, "He umbers her face." MALONE. In H. V. IV. Chor. we have," the battle's umber'd face.” Smirch is soil, smear. "The smirchen worm-eaten tapestry."

Much ado &c. III. 3. Borach.

d

curtle-axe] i. e. cutlace, broadsword. JOHNSON.

A boar-spear in my hand; and (in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will,)
We'll have a swashing(16) and a martial outside;
As many other mannish cowards have,

That do outface it (17) with their semblances.

CEL. What shall I call thee, when thou art a man?

Ros. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own

page,

And therefore look you call me Ganymede.

But what will you be* call'd?

* So 1632.

CEL. Something that hath a reference to my by. 1623.

state;

No longer Celia, but Aliena.

Ros. But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal
The clownish fool out of your father's court?
Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

CEL. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me;
Leave me alone to woo him: Let's away,
And get our jewels and our wealth together;
Devise the fittest time, and safest way
To hide us from pursuit that will be made
After my flight: Now go in wet content,
To liberty, and not to banishment.

[Exeunt.

† we in. 1632.

ACT II. SCENE I.

The Forest of Arden.

Enter Duke senior, AMIENS, and other Lords in the dress of Foresters.

DUKE S. Now, my co-mates, and brothers in
exíle,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference; as, the icy fang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind;
Which when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say,-
This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am."

a co-mates] i. e. associates. Copemates was also in the same sense the language of the day.

b Hath not old custom

Are not these woods-Here feel we not the penalty

That feelingly persuade me what I am] Wherever the course of thought admits it, Shakespeare is accustomed to continue the form of speaking which he first falls upon; and the sense of this passage, in which he repeats the word not, appears to be"The penalty here, properly speaking, is not, or scarce is, physically felt, because the suffering it occasions, sharp as it otherwise might be called, turns so much to account in a moral sense." The construction of " which, when it blows," is "at which, or which blowing." And or for, instead of which, would have given a plain and clear sense; but the same forms and cold terms of reasoning, would have clogged the spirited and warm flow of the sentiment: and the recurrence of and at the beginning of this line would have offended the ear. The modern editors, following Theobald, for not, read but as we conceive, unnecessarily. Still the word " feelingly," used at the end of

Sweet are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head ;(1)
And this our life, exempt from publick haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running
brooks, (2)

Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

AMI. I would not change it: Happy is your grace, That can translate the stubbornness of fortune Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

DUKE S. Come, shall we go and kill us venison ? And yet it irks me,(3) the poor dappled fools,Being native burghers of this desert city,(4) Should, in their own confínes, with forked heads, Have their round haunches gor'd.

1 LORD.

Indeed, my lord,
The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;
And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp
Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.
To-day, my lord of Amiens, and myself,
Did steal behind him, as he lay along

Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood :(5)
To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,
That from the hunters' aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears(6)
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase: and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

DUKE S.

But what said Jaques ? Did he not moralize this spectacle?

this passage in an affirmative sense, after "feel" had been brought forward, coupled with a negative, certainly makes a confusion, if it be not said to favour Theobald's substitution.

1 LORD. O yes, into a thousand similes.

First, for his weeping into the needless stream;'
Poor deer, quoth he, thou mak'st a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

So 1632. To that which had too much. Then being alone,* there alone. Left and abandon'd of his velvet friend;

1623.

d

'Tis right, quoth he; thus misery doth part The flux of company: Anon, a careless herd, Full of the pasture, jumps along by him, And never stays to greet him; Ay, quoth Jaques, Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens; 'Tis just the fashion: Wherefore do you look Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there? Thus most invectively he pierceth through + the coun- The body of the country, city, court, Yea, and of this our life: swearing, that we Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what's worse, To fright the animals, and to kill them up,(7) In their assign'd and native dwelling place.

try. 1632.

DUKE S. And did you leave him in this contemplation?

66

a needless stream] i. e. stream, that needed not, that wanted no supply. Much in the sense in which Lear says, age is unnecessary," II. 4. i. e. superfluous lumber, what might be spared, needless.

b thy sum of more to that which had too much]

"Upon whose weeping margin she was set,

"Like usury, applying wet to wet." Lover's Complaint.

"With tearful eyes add water to the sea,

"And give more strength to that which hath too much."

c friend] The modern editors have substituted friends: but Whiter observes," the singular is often used for the plural with a sense more abstracted; and therefore in many instances more poetical." Specimen of a Commentary, 8vo. 1794, p. 15.

d greasy citizens] "By other men's losses to enrich and greaze themselves." Newton's Lemnie's Touchstone of Complexions, 12mo. 1581. p. 58, b.