Cor.

Fair sir, I pity her,

And wish, for her sake more than for mine own,
My fortunes were more able to relieve her;
But I am shepherd to another man,

And do not shear the fleeces that I graze:
My master is of churlish disposition,

8

And little recks to find the way to Heaven
By doing deeds of hospitality.

Besides, his cote, his flocks, and bounds of feed
Are now on sale; and at our sheepcote now,
By reason of his absence, there is nothing
That you will feed on: but what is, come see,
And in my voice most welcome shall you be.10

Ros. What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture? Cor. That young swain that you saw here but erewhile, That little cares for buying any thing.

Ros. I pray thee, if it stand with honesty,

Buy thou the cottage, pasture, and the flock,
And thou shalt have to pay for it of us.

Cel. And we will mend thy wages. I like this place,
And willingly could waste my time in it.
Cor. Assuredly the thing is to be sold.
Go with me: if you like, upon report,
The soil, the profit, and this kind of life,
I will your very faithful feeder be,
And buy it with your gold right suddenly.

SCENE V. Another part of the Forest.

Enter AMIENS, JAQUES, and others.

Song.

Ami. Under the greenwood tree

Who loves to lie with me,

And tune his merry note

Unto the sweet bird's throat,

Come hither, come hither, come hither:

Here shall he see no enemy

But Winter and rough weather.

Jaq. More, more, I pr'ythee, more.

[Exeunt

Ami. It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.
Jaq. I thank it. More, I pr'ythee, more. I can suck

8 Little cares. The sense of reck appears in our word reckless.

9 That is, cot or cottage; the word is still used in its compound form, as cheepcote in the next line.

10 As far as my voice has the power to bid you welcome.

1 Turn in the original, but commonly changed to tune in modern editions.

melancholy out of a song, as a weasel 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 'em stanzas? Ami. What you will, Monsieur Jaques.

Jaq. Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing:2 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. Duke will drink under this tree. to look you.

Sirs, cover the while; the
He hath been all this day

Jaq. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is too disputable 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.

All. Who doth ambition shun,

And loves to live i the sun,

Seeking the food he eats,

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 n despite of my invention.

Ami. And I'll sing it.

Jaq. Thus it goes:

If it do come to pass

That any man turn ass,
Leaving his wealth and ease
A stubborn will to please,

In Latin, nomina facere means to enter an account, because not only the sums, but the names of the parties, are entered. Cicero uses nomina facere for to lend money, and nomen solvere for to pay a debt; and in Livy we have nomen transcribere in alium for to transfer a debt to another.

3 Cover refers to the forthcoming banquet, and seems to be an order for setting out and preparing the table. Accordingly, at the close of the scene, we have "his banquet is prepar'd."

Disputable for disputatious. The use of the passive form in an active sense, and vice versa, was quite common in the Poet's time.

Ducadme, ducadme, ducadme : 5

Here shall he see gross fools as he,

An if he will come to me.

Ami. What's that ducadme?

Jaq. 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle. I'll go sleep if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the firstborn of Egypt.

Ami. And I'll go seek the Duke: his banquet is prepar❜d. [Exeunt severally.

SCENE VI. Another Part of the Forest.

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM.

Adam. Dear master, I can go no further: O, I die for food! Here lie I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind

master.

Orl. 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 conceit1 is nearer death than thy powers. For my sake be comfortable; hold death awhile at the arm's end: I will be here 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 cheerly; 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 as Scene V.

A Table set out.

Enter the DUKE, AMIENS, Lords, and others.

Duke. I think he be transform'd into a beast; For I can nowhere find him like a man.

1 Lord. My lord, he is but even now gone hence: Here was he merry, hearing of a song.

5 In the original the parts of this word are transposed, ducdame. As the sense required," bring him to me," is rightly expressed in Latin by duc ad me, there appears no reason for the transposition, and probably it occurred by mistake of printer or transcriber.

6 The invocation is Latin, not Greek. Of course the Poet knew this. Perhaps Mr. White explains it rightly: "That the cynical Jaques should pass off his Latin for Greek upon Amiens, is but in character."

A proverbial expression for high-born persons.

1 Conceit was often used for conception, or imagination.
2 A phrase of the time, meaning the same as our well done!

Duke. 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.
1 Lord. He saves my labour by his own approach.
Enter JAQUES.

Duke. 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 rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms,

8

and yet a motley Fool.
Good morrow, Fool, quoth I. No, sir, quoth he,
Call me not fool till Heaven hath sent me fortune.
And then he drew a dial from his poke,*
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, It is ten o'clock:

Thus may we see, quoth he, how the world wage:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale. When I did hear
The motley Fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That Fools should be so deep-contemplative;
And I did laugh, sans intermission,
An hour by his dial.-O noble Fool!

A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.
Duke. 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 't; and in his brain,

Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit

After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd
With observation, the which he vents

In mangled forms. O, that I were a Fool!

I am ambitious for a motley coat.

1 That is, composed or made up of jars; as in the well-known passage, "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact."

2 If things are going so contrary to their natural order, the music of the spheres will soon be untuned. This music is best described in The Merchant of Venice, Act v. scene 1.

8 Alluding to the proverb, "Fortune favours fools." It will be time enough to call me fool, when I shall have got rich.

4 Pocket, or pouch.

Duke. Thou shalt have one.

Jaq.
It is my only suit;
Provided that you weed your better judgments
Of all opinion that grows rank in them
That I am wise. I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,

To blow on whom I please; for so Fools have:
And they that are most galled with my folly,
They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?
The why is plain as way to parish church:

He that a Fool doth very wisely hit

Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
Not to seem senseless of the bob; if not,
The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd'

Even by the squandering glances of the Fool.
Invest me in my motley; give me leave

To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world,

If they will patiently receive my medicine.

Duke. Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.
Jaq. What, for a counter, would I do, but good?
Duke. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin:
For thou thyself hast been a libertine ;

9

And all th' embossed sores and headed evils,
That thou with license of free foot hast caught,
Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.
Jaq. Why, who cries out on pride,
That can therein tax any private party?
Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,
Till that the wearer's very means do ebb? 10
What woman in the city do I name,
When that I say, the city-woman bears
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?"1
Who can come in, and say that I mean her,
When such a one as she, such is her neighbour?
Or what is he of basest function,

6 A quibble between petition and dress is here intended.

6 Bob is blow or thrust.

7 See page 27, note 19.

8 About the time when this play was written, the French counters, pieces of false money used in reckoning, were brought into use in England.

9 Embossed is protuberant, or come to a head, like boils and carbuncles. So, in King Lear, Act ii. scene 4: " Thou art a boil, a plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle." The protuberant part of a shield was called the boss.

10 Instead of wearer's, the original prints wearie, which has been commonly changed to very, thus giving an awkward repetition of that word. Mr. Singer is the author of the happy emendation, which is or ought to be satisfactory to all.

11 So in King Henry VIII, Act 1. scene 1: "Many have broke their backs with laying manors on 'em."