As You Like It | Page 9

uses of adversity;?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 everything.?I would not change it.
AMIENS.?Happy is your grace,?That can translate the stubbornness of fortune?Into so quiet and so sweet a style.
DUKE SENIOR.?Come, shall we go and kill us venison??And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools,?Being native burghers of this desert city,?Should, in their own confines, with forked heads?Have their round haunches gor'd.
FIRST 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 banish'd 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 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 heav'd forth such groans,?That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat?Almost to bursting; and the big round tears?Cours'd 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 SENIOR.?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 mak'st a testament?As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more?To that which had too much:' then, being there alone,?Left and abandoned of his velvet friends;?''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; '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 assign'd and native dwelling-place.
DUKE SENIOR.?And did you leave him in this contemplation?
SECOND LORD.?We did, my lord, weeping and commenting?Upon the sobbing deer.
DUKE SENIOR.?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.]
SCENE II. A Room in the Palace.
[Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, and Attendants.]
DUKE FREDERICK.?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 untreasur'd of their mistress.
SECOND LORD.?My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft?Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.?Hesperia, the princess' gentlewoman,?Confesses that she secretly o'erheard?Your daughter and her cousin much commend?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 FREDERICK.?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;?And let not search and inquisition quail?To bring again these foolish runaways.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. Before OLIVER'S House.
[Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting.]
ORLANDO.?Who's there?
ADAM.?What, my young master?--O my gentle master!?O my sweet master! O you memory?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 to overcome?The bonny prizer of the humorous duke??Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.?Know you not, master, to some kind of men?Their graces serve them but as enemies??No more do yours; your virtues, gentle master,?Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.?O, what a world is this, when what is comely?Envenoms him that bears it!
ORLANDO.?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; this house is but a butchery:?Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.
ORLANDO.?Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?
ADAM.?No matter whither, so you come not here.
ORLANDO.?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