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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?

1 Lord. O, yes, into a thousand similes.
First, for his weeping in the needless stream;
Poor deer, quoth he, thou makʼst a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
To that which had too much: Then, being alone,
Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends;
'Tis right, quoth he; this 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 body of 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,
In their assign'd and native dwelling-place.

Duke S. And did you leave him in this contem-
plation?

7 i. e. the stream that needed not such a supply of moisture. 8 So in Shakspeare's Lover's Complaint :

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Upon whose weeping margin she was set
Like usury applying wet to wet.'

Again in King Henry VI. Part III. Act v. Sc. 4:

With tearful eyes add water to the sea,

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

2 Lord. We did, my lord, weeping and commenting

Upon the sobbing deer.

Duke S.

Show me the place;

I love to cope9 him in these sullen fits,

For then he's full of matter.

2 Lord. I'll bring you to him straight. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. A Room in the Palace.

Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, and Attendants. Duke F. Can it be possible that no man saw them? It cannot be some villains of my court

Are of consent and sufferance in this.

1 Lord. I cannot hear of any that did see her. The ladies, her attendants of her chamber, Saw her a-bed; and, in the morning early, They found the bed untreasur'd of their mistress. 2 Lord. My lord, the roynish1 clown, at whom so oft

Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.
Hesperia, the princess' gentlewoman,
Confesses, that she secretly o'er-heard
Your daughter and her cousin much commend
The parts and graces of the wrestler 2
That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles;
And she believes, wherever they are gone,

That youth is surely in their company.

Duke F. Send to his brother; fetch that gallant

hither;

If he be absent, bring his brother to me,

9 i. e. to encounter him. Thus in K. Henry VIII. Act i. Sc. 2: -cope malicious censurers.'

1 The roynish clown,' mangy or scurvy, from roigneux, French. The word is used by Chaucer.

2 Wrestler is here to be sounded as a trisyllable.

I'll make him find him: do this suddenly;
And let not search and inquisition quail 3
To bring again these foolish run-aways.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. Before Oliver's House.

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting.

Orl. Who's there?

Adam. What! my young master?-O, my gentle master,

O, my sweet master, O you memory1

1

Of old Sir Rowland! why, what make you here?
Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you?
And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?
Why would
you be so fond 2 to overcome

The bony priser 3 of the humorous duke?
Your praise is come too swiftly home before
Know you not, master, to some kind of men
Their graces serve them but as enemies?
No more do

you.

yours; your virtues, gentle master, Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.

3To quail,' says Steevens, 'is to faint, to sink into dejection.' It may be so, but in neither of these senses is the word here used by Shakspeare. Cotgrave will lead us to the meaning of it in this place, to quaile, fade, faile,' are among the interpretations he gives of the word Alachir, and fail is the sense required by the context of the above passage. So in Tancred and Gismunda :

For as the world wore on and waxed old,
So virtue quail'd, and vice began to grow.'

1 Shakspeare uses memory for memorial. So in Lear, Act iv. Sc. 7:

Those weeds are memories of those worser hours.' And in The Atheist's Tragedy, by C. Turner, 1611:— ' And with his body place that memory

Of noble Charlemont.'

2 i. e. rash, foolish.

3 I suspect that a priser was the term for a wrestler, a prise was a term in that sport for a grappling or hold taken.

O, what a world is this, when what is comely
Envenoms him that bears it!

Orl. Why, what's the matter?

Adam.

O unhappy youth,
Come not within these doors; within this roof
The enemy of all your graces lives:

Your brother-(no, no brother: yet the son-
Yet not the son; -I will not call him son
Of him I was about to call his father),-

Hath heard your praises; and this night he means
To burn the lodging where you use to lie,
And you within it: if he fail of that,
He will have other means to cut you off:
I overheard him, and his practices*.

This is no place 5, this house is but a butchery;
Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.

Orl. Why,whither, Adam,wouldst thou have me go?
Adam. No matter whither, so you come not here.
Orl. What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my
food?

Or, with a base and boisterous sword, enforce

A thievish living on the common road?

This I must do, or know not what to do:
Yet this I will not do, do how I can;

I rather will subject me to the malice
Of a diverted blood, and bloody brother.

Adam. But do not so: I have five hundred crowns,

The thrifty hire I sav'd under your father,

Which I did store, to be

my

foster-nurse,

When service should in my old limbs lie lame,
And unregarded age in corners thrown;
Take that: and He that doth the ravens feed,

4 i. e. treacherous devices.

5 Place here signifies a seat, a mansion, a residence: it is not yet obsolete in this sense.

6 i. e. blood turned out of a course of nature. Affections alienated.

Yea, providently caters for the sparrow7,
Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold;
All this I give you: Let me be your servant;
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty:
For in my youth I never did apply

Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly let me go with you;
I'll do the service of a younger man
In all your business and necessities.

:

Orl. O good old man; how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed! Thou art not for the fashion of these times, Where none will sweat, but for promotion; And having that, do choke their service up Even with the having: it is not so with thee.

But, poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree,

That cannot so much as a blossom yield,
In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry:
But come thy ways, we'll go along together;
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent,
We'll light upon some settled low content.

Adam. Master, go on, and I will follow thee,
To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.—
From seventeen years till now almost fourscore
Here lived I, but now live here no more.
At seventeen years many their fortunes seek;
But at fourscore, it is too late a week:
Yet fortune cannot recompense me better,
Than to die well, and not my master's debtor.

7 See St. Luke, xii. 6 and 24.

[Exeunt.

8 Even with the promotion gained by service is service extinguished.

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