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.
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,
Ducdame, ducdàme, ducdame1;
Here shall he see,

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,
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,—and yet a motley fool.
Good-morrow, fool, quoth I: No, sir, quoth he,
Call me not fool, till heaven hath sent me fortune2:
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 wags:
'Tis but an hour ago, since it was nine;

And after an 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 wear3.
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 biscuit*
After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd

2 Alluding to the proverb, Fortuna favet fatuis, Fools have fortune.'

3 The fool was anciently dressed in a party-coloured coat.
4 So in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour :-

'And now and then breaks a dry, biscuit jest,
Which, that it may more easily be chew'd,
He steeps in his own laughter.'

With observation, the which he vents
In mangled forms :-O, that I were a fool!

I am ambitious for a motley coat.

Duke S. Thou shalt have one.

Jaq.
It is my only suit5;
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 6,

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,
7 Not to seem senseless of the bob: if not,
The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd

Even by the squand'ring 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 the infected world,
If they will patiently receive my medicine.

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,
As sensual as the brutish sting 10 itself;
And all the embossed sores, and headed evils,
That thou with licence 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 very very means do ebb 11?
What woman in the city do I name,
When that I say, The city-woman bears
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
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,

That says, his bravery 12 is not on my cost,
(Thinking that I mean him), but therein suits
His folly to the mettle of my speech?

There then; How then, what then 13? Let me see wherein

My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right,
Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free,

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
Had them enrag'd.'

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?'