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As You Like It: Act II, Scene 1

As You Like It
Act II, Scene 1

Scene 1

The Forest of Arden.

  1. Enter Duke Senior, Amiens, and two or three Lords, like
  2. foresters.

Duke Senior

1 - 17
  1. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
  2. Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
  3. Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
  4. More free from peril than the envious court?
  5. Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,
  6. The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
  7. And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
  8. Which when it bites and blows upon my body
  9. Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say,
  10. This is no flattery: these are counsellors
  11. That feelingly persuade me what I am.”
  12. Sweet are the uses of adversity,
  13. Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
  14. Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
  15. And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
  16. Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
  17. Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

Amiens

18 - 20
  1. I would not change it. Happy is your Grace,
  2. That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
  3. Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

Duke Senior

21 - 25
  1. Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
  2. And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
  3. Being native burghers of this desert city,
  4. Should in their own confines with forked heads
  5. Have their round haunches gor’d.

First Lord in Arden

26 - 44
  1. Indeed, my lord,
  2. The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,
  3. And in that kind swears you do more usurp
  4. Than doth your brother that hath banish’d you.
  5. Today my Lord of Amiens and myself
  6. Did steal behind him as he lay along
  7. Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
  8. Upon the brook that brawls along this wood,
  9. To the which place a poor sequest’red stag,
  10. That from the hunter’s aim had ta’en a hurt,
  11. Did come to languish; and indeed, my lord,
  12. The wretched animal heav’d forth such groans
  13. That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
  14. Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
  15. Cours’d one another down his innocent nose
  16. In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool,
  17. Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
  18. Stood on th’ extremest verge of the swift brook,
  19. Augmenting it with tears.

Duke Senior

45 - 46
  1. But what said Jaques?
  2. Did he not moralize this spectacle?

First Lord in Arden

47 - 65
  1. O yes, into a thousand similes.
  2. First, for his weeping into the needless stream:
  3. Poor deer,” quoth he, thou mak’st a testament
  4. As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
  5. To that which had too much.” Then being there alone,
  6. Left and abandoned of his velvet friends
  7. ’Tis right,” quoth he, thus misery doth part
  8. The flux of company.” Anon a careless herd,
  9. Full of the pasture, jumps along by him
  10. And never stays to greet him. Ay,” quoth Jaques,
  11. Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens,
  12. ’Tis just the fashion. Wherefore do you look
  13. Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?”
  14. Thus most invectively he pierceth through
  15. The body of the country, city, court,
  16. Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we
  17. Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what’s worse,
  18. To fright the animals and to kill them up
  19. In their assign’d and native dwelling-place.

Duke Senior

66
  1. And did you leave him in this contemplation?

Second Lord in Arden

67 - 68
  1. We did, my lord, weeping and commenting
  2. Upon the sobbing deer.

Duke Senior

69 - 71
  1. Show me the place.
  2. I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
  3. For then he’s full of matter.

First Lord in Arden

72
  1. I’ll bring you to him straight.
  1. Exeunt.
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