William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

CORIN

Assuredly the thing is to be sold:

Go with me: if you like, upon report,

The soil, the profit, and this kind of life,

I will your very faithful feeder be,

And buy it with your gold right suddenly.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE V. Another part of the Forest

[Enter AMIENS, JAQUES, and others.]

AMIENS

[SONG]

Under the greenwood tree,

Who loves to lie with me,

And turn his merry note

Unto the sweet bird’s throat,

Come hither, come hither, come hither;

Here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

JAQUES

More, more, I pr’ythee, more.

AMIENS

It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.

JAQUES

I thank it. More, I pr’ythee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I pr’ythee, more.

AMIENS

My voice is ragged; I know I cannot please you.

JAQUES

I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing. Come, more: another stanza. Call you them stanzas?

AMIENS

What you will, Monsieur Jaques.

JAQUES

Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing. Will you sing?

AMIENS

More at your request than to please myself.

JAQUES

Well then, if ever I thank any man, I’ll thank you: but that they call compliment is like the encounter of two dog-apes; and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks have given him a penny, and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you that will not, hold your tongues.

AMIENS

Well, I’ll end the song.—Sirs, cover the while: the duke will drink under this tree:—he hath been all this day to look you.

JAQUES

And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is too disputable for my company: I think of as many matters as he; but I give heaven thanks, and make no boast of them. Come, warble, come.

[SONG. All together here.]

Who doth ambition shun,

And loves to live i’ the sun,

Seeking the food he eats,

And pleas’d with what he gets,

Come hither, come hither, come hither.

Here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

JAQUES

I’ll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in despite of my invention.

AMIENS

And I’ll sing it.

JAQUES

Thus it goes:

If it do come to pass

That any man turn ass,

Leaving his wealth and ease

A stubborn will to please,

Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame;

Here shall he see

Gross fools as he,

An if he will come to me.

AMIENS

What’s that “ducdame?”

JAQUES

‘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.

AMIENS

And I’ll go seek the duke; his banquet is prepared.

[Exeunt severally.]

SCENE VI. Another part of the Forest

[Enter ORLANDO and ADAM.]

ADAM

Dear master, I can go no further: O, I die for food! Here lie I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master.

ORLANDO

Why, how now, Adam! no greater heart in thee? Live a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little. If this uncouth forest yield anything 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 cheerily: 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 anything in this desert. Cheerily, good Adam!

[Exeunt.]

SCENE VII. Another part of the Forest

[A table set. Enter DUKE Senior, AMIENS, and others.]

DUKE SENIOR

I think he be transform’d into a beast;

For I can nowhere find him like a man.

FIRST LORD

My lord, he is but even now gone hence;

Here was he merry, hearing of a song.

DUKE SENIOR

If he, compact of jars, grow musical,

We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.

Go, seek him; tell him I would speak with him.

FIRST LORD

He saves my labour by his own approach.

[Enter JAQUES.]

DUKE SENIOR

Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this,

That your poor friends must woo your company?

What! you look merrily!

JAQUES

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,

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 fortune.”

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 we may see,” quoth he, “how the world wags;

‘Tis but an hour ago since it was nine;

And after one 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 wear.

DUKE SENIOR

What fool is this?

JAQUES

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.-O that I were a fool!

I am ambitious for a motley coat.

DUKE SENIOR

Thou shalt have one.

JAQUES

It is my only suit,

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 gallèd 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 squandering 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 world,

If they will patiently receive my medicine.

DUKE SENIOR

Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.

JAQUES

What, for a counter, would I do but good?

DUKE SENIOR

Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin;

For thou thyself hast been a libertine,

As sensual as the brutish sting itself;

And all the embossèd sores and headed evils

That thou with license of free foot hast caught

Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.

JAQUES

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 weary very means do ebb?

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?