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As You Like It - Act 2, scene 1
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As You Like It - Act 2, scene 1Act 2, scene 1
Scene 1
Synopsis:
In the Forest of Arden, the banished duke (Duke Senior) and the courtiers who share his exile discuss their life in the country and listen to a story about their fellow-courtier Jaques.
Enter Duke Senior, Amiens, and two or three Lords, likeforesters.
DUKE SENIOR
0606 Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
0607 Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
0608 Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
0609 More free from peril than the envious court?
0610 5 Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,
0611 The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
0612 And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
0613 Which when it bites and blows upon my body
0614 Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
0615 10 “This is no flattery. These are counselors
0616 That feelingly persuade me what I am.”
0617 Sweet are the uses of adversity,
0618 Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
0619 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
0620 15 And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
0621 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
0622 Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
AMIENS
0623 I would not change it. Happy is your Grace,
0624 That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
0625 20 Into so quiet and so sweet a style.
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51
DUKE SENIOR 0626 Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
0627 And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
0628 Being native burghers of this desert city,
0629 Should in their own confines with forkèd heads
0630 25 Have their round haunches gored.
FIRST LORD 0631 Indeed, my lord,
0632 The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,
0633 And in that kind swears you do more usurp
0634 Than doth your brother that hath banished you.
0635 30 Today my Lord of Amiens and myself
0636 Did steal behind him as he lay along
0637 Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
0638 Upon the brook that brawls along this wood;
0639 To the which place a poor sequestered stag
0640 35 That from the hunter’s aim had ta’en a hurt
0641 Did come to languish. And indeed, my lord,
0642 The wretched animal heaved forth such groans
0643 That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
0644 Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
0645 40 Coursed one another down his innocent nose
0646 In piteous chase. And thus the hairy fool,
0647 Much markèd of the melancholy Jaques,
0648 Stood on th’ extremest verge of the swift brook,
0649 Augmenting it with tears.
DUKE SENIOR 0650 45 But what said Jaques?
0651 Did he not moralize this spectacle?
FIRST LORD
0652 O yes, into a thousand similes.
0653 First, for his weeping into the needless stream:
0654 “Poor deer,” quoth he, “thou mak’st a testament
0655 50 As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
0656 To that which had too ⌜much.⌝” Then, being there
0657 alone,
0658 Left and abandoned of his velvet ⌜friends:⌝
0659 “’Tis right,” quoth he. “Thus misery doth part
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53
0660
55 The flux of company.” Anon a careless herd,0661 Full of the pasture, jumps along by him
0662 And never stays to greet him. “Ay,” quoth Jaques,
0663 “Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens.
0664 ’Tis just the fashion. Wherefore do you look
0665 60 Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?”
0666 Thus most invectively he pierceth through
0667 The body of country, city, court,
0668 Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we
0669 Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what’s worse,
0670 65 To fright the animals and to kill them up
0671 In their assigned and native dwelling place.
DUKE SENIOR
0672 And did you leave him in this contemplation?
SECOND LORD
0673 We did, my lord, weeping and commenting
0674 Upon the sobbing deer.
DUKE SENIOR 0675 70 Show me the place.
0676 I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
0677 For then he’s full of matter.
FIRST LORD 0678 I’ll bring you to him straight.
They exit.