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 despite of my invention. Ami. And I'll sing it. If it do come to pass, Gross fools as he, An if he will come to me. Ami. What's that ducdame? 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 first-born of Egypt 5. 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 further: 0, I die for food! Here lie I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master. 4 Sir Thomas Hanmer reads duc ad me, i. e. bring him to me, which reading Johnson highly approves. 5 The firstborn of Egypt,' a proverbial expression for highborn persons; it is derived from Exodus, xii. 29. 6 So in Romeo and Juliet: 11 fall upon the ground, as I do now, Taking the measure of an unmade grave.' 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 conceit is nearer death than thy powers. For my sake, be comfortable; hold death awhile 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 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. 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. - Duke S. If he, compact of jars1, 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. 1 i. e. made up of discords. In the Comedy of Errors we have compact of credit,' for made up of credulity. Jaq. A fool, a fool!- -I met a fool i' the forest, Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, Thus may we see, quoth he, how the world wags: And after an hour more, 'twill be eleven; A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear3. Jaq. O worthy fool!-One that hath been a courtier ; And says, if ladies be but young, and fair, 2 Alluding to the proverb, Fortuna favet fatuis, Fools have fortune.' 3 The fool was anciently dressed in a party-coloured coat. 'And now and then breaks a dry, biscuit jest, With observation, the which he vents I am ambitious for a motley coat. Duke S. Thou shalt have one. Jaq. Of all opinion that grows rank in them, To blow on whom I please; for so fools have: He, that a fool doth very wisely hit, Doth very foolishly, although he smart, Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool. To speak my mind, and I will through and through 5 Duke S. Fye on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do. Jaq. What, for a counter9, would I do, but good? My only suit,' a quibble between petition and dress is here intended. So in Act v. Not out of your apparel, but out of your suit.' 6 In Henry V. we have : The wind, that charter'd libertine, is still.' 7 The old copies read only, seem senseless, &c. not to were supplied by Theobald. 8 So in Macbeth : 'Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff.' 9 About the time when this play was written, the French counters (i. e. pieces of false money used as a means of reckoning) were brought into use in England. They are again mentioned in Troilus and Cressida, and in The Winter's Tale. Duke S. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin: For thou thyself hast been a libertine, That says, his bravery 12 is not on my cost, There then; How then, what then 13? Let me see wherein My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right, 10 So in Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. i. c. xii. : A herd of bulls whom kindly rage doth sting.' Again, b. ii. c. xii.: As if that hunger's point or Venus' sting And in Othello: our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts.' 11 The old copies read: 'Till that the weary very means do ebb, &c.' The emendation is by Pope. 12 Finery. 13 Malone thinks we should read, where then? in this redundant line. So in Othello: 'What then? How then? Where's satisfaction?' |