ACT SECOND

SCENE I

The Forest of Arden.

Enter Duke senior, Amiens, and two or
three Lords, like foresters.

Duke S. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet

Than that of painted pomp? Are not these
Cowb

woods

More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference; as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
"This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
Sweet are the uses of adversity;

10

5. "here feel we but"; Theobald first conjectured “but” for “not” of the Folios, and his emendation has been accepted by many scholars, though violently opposed by others. Most of the discussions turn on "the penalty of Adam," which ordinarily suggests toil-"in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread”—but in this passage Shakespeare makes the penalty to be “the seasons' difference,” cp. Paradise Lost, x. 678, 9:

"Else had the spring Perpetual smiled on earth with vernant flowers." -I. G.

ene

of the

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head:
And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running
brooks,

Sermons in stones and good in every thing.

I would not change it.

Ami.

Happy is your Grace,

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

Duke S. Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,

Being native burghers of this desert city,

20

Should in their own confines with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored.
First Lord.

Indeed, my Lord,
The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,
And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp

13-14. "like the toad, ugly and venomous," &c. A favorite Euphuistic conceit, e. g. "The foule toade hath a faire stone in his head," Euphues, p. 53 (ed. Arber), based on an actual belief in toadstones. The origin of the belief is traced back to Pliny's description of a stone as "of the colour of a frog."-I. G.

14. The "precious jewel" in the toad's head was not his bright eye, as is sometimes supposed, but one of the "secret wonders of nature," which exist no longer "in the faith of reason." According to Edward Fenton, it was found in the heads of old, and large, and especially he toads, and was of great value for its moral and medicinal virtues. Of course so precious a thing, being rather hard to find, was often counterfeited, and there was an infallible test for distinguishing the counterfeit from the true: "You shall know whether the toad-stone be the right and perfect stone or not. Hold the stone before a toad, so that he may see it; and if it be a right and true stone the toad will leap towards it, and make as though he would snatch it. He envieth so much that man should have that stone."-H. N. H.

Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.
To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself
Did steal behind him as he lay along

30

Under an oak whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood:
To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
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.

40

But what said Jaques?
Did he not moralize this spectacle?

First Lord. O, yes, into a thousand similes.
First, for his weeping into the needless stream;
'Poor deer,'quoth he, 'thou makest a testament
As worldings do, giving thy sum of more

39. "tears coursed," etc.; it was an ancient notion that a deer, being closely pursued, "fleeth to a ryver or ponde, and roreth, cryeth, and wepeth, when he is take." Drayton in the thirteenth song of his Poly-Olbion has a fine description of a deer-hunt, which he winds up with an allusion to the same matter:

"He who the mourner is to his own dying corse,

Upon the ruthless earth his precious tears lets fall.”

And in a note upon the passage he adds, "The hart weepeth at his dying: his tears are held precious in medicine.”—H. N. H.

To that which had too much:' then, being there

alone,

Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends;

50

"Tis right,' quoth he; 'thus 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; 'Aye,' quoth
Jaques,

look

'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you
Upon that
poor and broken bankrupt there?'
Thus most invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court,

60

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 contemplation?

Sec. Lord. We did, my lord, weeping and com

menting

Upon the sobbing deer.

Duke S.

Show me the place!

I love to cope him in these sullen fits,

For then he 's full of matter.

First Lord. I'll bring you to him straight.

[Exeunt.

49. "to that which had too much"; so in 3 Henry VI, Act v. sc. 4:

"With tearful eyes add water to the sea,

And give more strength to that which hath too much."-H. N. H.

51. "part"; shut out.-C. H. H.

52. "flux"; flow.-C. H. H.

SCENE II

A room in the palace.

Enter Duke Frederick, with Lords.

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. First 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 untreasured of their mistress.

Sec. Lord. My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft

10

Your Grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.
Hisperia, the princess' gentlewoman,
Confesses that she secretly o'erheard

Your daughter and her cousin much com-
mend

The parts and graces of the wrestler

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;

I'll make him find him: do this suddenly,

3. "Are of consent and sufferance in this"; have connived at and permitted it. A legal phrase.-C. H. H.