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.

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 graves. 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 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.

5 The firstborn of Egypt, a proverbial expression for highborn persons; it is derived from Exodus, XII, 29.

6 So in Romeo and Juliet :

--fall upon the ground, as I do now, Taking the measure of an unmade grave."

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

Duke S. If he, compáct of jars!, 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.

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;

wags:

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
'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.

1 i. e. made up of discords. In the Comedy of Errors we have 'compact of credit,' for made up of credulity.

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

3 The fool was anciently dressed in a party-coloured coat.

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
With observation, the which he vents

In mangled forms:-0, 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",

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 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 worlds,
If they will patiently receive my medicine.

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."

'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.'

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.'

Duke S. Fye on thee! I can tell what thou

wouldst do.

Jaq. What, for a counter9, would I do, but good? Duke S. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin: For thou thyself hast been a libertine,

As sensual as the brutish sting10 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 ebb11?
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 bravery12 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 then13? Let me see wherein

9 About the time when this play was written,

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.

10 So in Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. i. c. xit. :—

'A herd of bulls whom kindly rage doth sting.

C. XII. :

Again, b. ii. c. 1

'As if that hunger's point or Venus' sting

Had them entag'd.'

And in Othello :

our carnal stings, dur unbitted lusts.

11 The old copies read:

"Till that the weary very means do cbb, &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?

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

Of bare distress hath ta'en14 from me the show
Of smooth civility: yet I am inland bred15, 77
And know some nurture16: But forbear, I say;
He dies, that touches any of this fruit,
Till I I and my affairs are answered.

Jaq. An you will not be answered with reason, I must die. sulf

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:

I thought, that all things had been savage here;

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.