Why then, my taxing like a wild goose flies,
Unclaim'd of any man.-But who comes here?

Enter ORLANDO, with his Sword drawn.
Orl. Forbear, and eat no more.

Jaq.

Why, I have eat none yet. Orl. Nor shalt not, till necessity be serv'd.

Jaq. Of what kind should this cock come of? 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?

Orl. You touch'd my vein at first; the thorny point

Of bare distress hath ta'en 14 from me the show
Of smooth civility: yet I am inland bred 15,
And know some nurture 16: But forbear, I say;
He dies, that touches any of this fruit,

Till I and my affairs are answered.
Jaq. An

I must die.

you

will not be answered with reason,

Duke S. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force,

More than your force move us to gentleness.

Orl. I almost die for food, and let me have it. Duke S. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.

Orl. Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray

you:

14 We might read torn with more elegance,' says Johnson, 'but elegance alone will not justify alteration.'

15 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.

16 Nurture is education, breeding, manners. It is a point of nourtour or good manners to salute them that you meete.' Urbanitas est salutare obvios.' Baret's Alvearie, 1573. And again: 'She is a manerly maide and well nourtured. Ibid. in voce maner.

I thought, that all things had been savage here;
And therefore put I on the countenance

Of stern commandment: But whate'er you are,
That in this desert inaccessible 17,

Under the shade of melancholy boughs,
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;
If ever you have look'd on better days,

If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church;
If ever sat at any good man's feast;
If ever from your eye-lids wip'd a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied;
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be:
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:
And therefore sit you down in gentleness,
And take upon command 18 what help we have,
That to your wanting may be ministered.

Orl. Then, but forbear your food a little while,
Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,
And give it food 19. There is an old poor man,
Who after me hath many a weary step
Limp'd in pure love: till he be first suffic'd,-
Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger,-
I will not touch a bit.

Duke S.

Go find him out,

And we will nothing waste till

you return.

17 This desert inaccessible.' So in The Adventures of Si

'Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ake,
Hasting to feede her fawn.'

Orl. I thank ye; and be bless'd for your good

comfort!

[Exit.

Duke S. Thou seest, we are not all alone un

happy:

This wide and universal theatre

Presents more woful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in 20.

Jaq.
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages 21. At first, the infant,

20 Pleonasms of this kind were by no means uncommon in the writers of Shakspeare's age: 'I was afearde to what end his talke would come to.' Baret. In Coriolanus, Act ii. Sc. 1:

'In what enormity is Marcius poor in.

And in Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Chorus:

'That fair for which love groan'd for.'

21 In the old play of Damon and Pythias, we have—' Pythagoras said, that this world was like a stage whereon many play their parts.' And in The Legend of Orpheus and Euridice, 1597: 'Unhappy man

Whose life a sad continuall tragedie,

Himself the actor, in the world, the stage,

While as the acts are measured by his age.'

In The Treasury of Ancient and Modern Times, 1613, is a division of the life of man into seven ages, said to be taken from Proclus: and it appears from Brown's Vulgar Errors, that Hippocrates also divided man's life into seven degrees or stages, though he differs from Proclus in the number of years allotted to each stage. Dr. Henley mentions an old emblematical print, entitled, The Stage of Man's Life divided into Seven Ages, from which he thinks Shakspeare more likely to have taken his hint than from Hippocrates, or Proclus; but he does not tell us that this print was of Shakspeare's age. Steevens refers to the Totus mundus exerceat histrioniam of Petronius, with whom probably the sentiment originated. Shakspeare has again referred to it in The Merchant of Venice:

'I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,

A stage where every man must play his part.'

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
And then, the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school: And then, the lover;
Sighing like furnace 22, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eye-brow: Then, a soldier;
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden 23 and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth: And then, the justice;
In fair round belly, with good capon lin❜d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern 24 instances,
And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon 25;
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM.

Duke S. Welcome: Set down your venerable burden,

And let him feed.

22 So in Cymbeline: 'He furnaceth the thick sighs from him.' 23 One of the ancient senses of sudden is violent.

24 Trite, common, trivial.

25 The pantaloon was a character in the old Italian farces; it represented, as Warburton observes, a thin emaciated old man in slippers. Nashe mentions the character in his Pierce Pennilesse. And in The Plotte of the Deade Man's Fortune, printed by Malone: Enter the panteloun and pescode with spectacles.'

Orl.

I thank

Adam. So had you need;

you most for him.

I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.

Duke S. Welcome, fall to: I will not trouble As yet, to question you about your fortunes :Give us some musick; and, good cousin, sing.

AMIENS sings.

SONG.

you

I.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,

726

Thou art not so unkind2

As man's ingratitude;

Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen 27.

Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh, ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

26 That is, thy action is not so contrary to thy kind, so unnatural, as the ingratitude of man. Thus in Venus and Adonis:

'O had thy mother borne so bad a mind,

She had not brought forth thee, but dy'd unkind.'

27 Johnson thus explains this line, which some of the editors have thought corrupt or misprinted: 'Thou winter wind, says Amiens, thy rudeness gives the less pain, as thou art not seen, as thou art an enemy that dost not brave us with thy presence, and whose unkindness is therefore not aggravated by insult.' So in the Sonnet introduced into Love's Labour's Lost:

'Through the velvet leaves the wind
All unseen 'gan passage find.'

Again in Measure for Measure: