William Shakespeare - Ultimate Collection: Complete Plays & Poetry in One Volume. William Shakespeare

Here feel we not 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;

       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 markèd 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,