Duke F. You are a fool.-You, niece, provide yourself; If you outstay the time, upon mine honour, And in the greatness of my word, you die.

[Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK and Lords. Cel. O my poor Rosalind! whither wilt thou go? Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.

I charge thee be not thou more grieved than I am.
Ros. I have more cause.

Cel.

Thou hast not, cousin; Prithee, be cheerful: know'st thou not, the duke

Hath banished me his daughter?

Ros.

That he hath not.

Cel. No? hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love
Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one:

Shall we be sundered? shall we part, sweet girl?
No; let my father seek another heir.
Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
Whither to go, and what to bear with us:
And do not seek to take your change upon you
To bear your griefs yourself, and leave me out;
For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.
Ros. Why, whither shall we go?

Cel.

To seek

Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us, Maids as we are, to travel forth so far! Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

Cel. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire, And with a kind of umber smirch 1 my face; The like do you; so shall we pass along,

And never stir assailants.

my uncle.

Smirch] Stain.—In Hamlet i. 3, we have 'besmirch;' and iv. 5, 'the chaste unsmirched brow.'

Were it not better,

Ros.
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points 1 like a man?
A gallant curtal-axe 2 upon my thigh,
A boar-spear in my hand? and (in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will)
We'll have a swashing and a martial outside;
As many other mannish cowards have,
That do outface it with their semblances.3

Cel. What shall I call thee when thou art a man? Ros. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page, And therefore look you call me Ganymede.

But what will you be called?

Cel. Something that hath a reference to my state: No longer Celia, but Aliena.

Ros. But, cousin, what if we assayed to steal
The clownish fool out of your father's court?
Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

Cel. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me;
Leave me alone to woo him.
Let's away,

And get our jewels and our wealth together;
Devise the fittest time and safest way

To hide us from pursuit that will be made
After my flight. Now go we in content
To liberty, and not to banishment.

[Exeunt.

1 Suit me all points] Dress myself in all points, or completely. 2 Curtal-axe] A short broad sword; a cutlass.

3 Outface it, &c.] Put a brave face upon it by wearing a 'valiant beard.'

Aliena] This word is Italian as well as Latin, and denotes a female foreigner or stranger. See the Editor's Merchant of Venice, p. 85, How many cowards,' &c., and Hamlet, p. 65, Thy face is valiant,' &c.

6

ACT II.

SCENE I.-The Forest of Arden.

Enter DUKE senior, AMIENS, and other Lords, in the dress of 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 woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,1
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 2 of adversity;

Which, like the toad ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head : 3

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

I would not change it.

Ami.

Happy is your grace,

1 Here feel we but, &c.] In the original text it is, 'Here feel we not,' &c. Theobald's substitution of but for not is generally adopted. 2 The uses] The practical lessons.

Wears yet a precious jewel, &c.] This was in Shakspeare's time a vulgar notion. The toad-stone was supposed to be an antidote to poison.

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,1
Being native burghers of this desert city,

Should, in their own confines, with forked heads 2
Have their round haunches gored.

1 Lord.

Indeed, my lord,
The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;
And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp
Than doth your brother that hath banished you.
To-day, my lord of Amiens and myself

Did steal behind him, as he lay along

Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood:
To the which place a poor sequestered stag,
That from the hunters' 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.

But what said Jaques ?

Did he not moralise 3 this spectacle?

Fools] This was often a term of tenderness or endearment. In the next speech the wounded stag is called 'the hairy fool.' In K. Lear, v. 3, Lear says of Cordelia, 'My poor fool is hanged.'

2 With forked heads] With barbed spear-heads.

3 Moralise] To moralise a subject was to draw comparisons from it, in the manner of the moral or application of a fable.

1 Lord. O, yes, into a thousand similes.
First, for his weeping in the needless 1 stream:-
Poor deer, quoth he, thou makest a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

To that which had too much. Then, being alone,
Left and abandoned of his velvet friends:

this misery doth part

'Tis right, quoth he;

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 the 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 assigned and native dwelling-place.

Duke S. And did you leave him in this contemplation? 2 Lord. We did, my lord, weeping and commenting Upon the sobbing deer.

Duke S.

I love to cope him 3 in these sullen fits,

Show me the place;

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

[Exeunt.

For then he's full of matter.

1 Needless] Not needing. An active sense not now belonging to

the word. There are many such usages in Shakspeare.

2 Ay] A common expression for ah! in the ancient drama. 3 To cope him] To argue or question with him.