As You Like It
Act II, Scene 5
Another part of the Forest of Arden.
From: Songs of Shakespeare
H. C. Hoskyns Abrahall, 1865
- Enter Amiens, Jaques, and others.
- Song.
Amiens
1 - 8- 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
9- More, more, I prithee more.
Amiens
10- It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.
Jaques
11 - 12- I thank it. More, I prithee more. I can suck melancholy out
- of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee more.
Amiens
13- My voice is ragged, I know I cannot please you.
Jaques
14 - 15- I do not desire you to please me, I do desire you to sing.
- Come, more, another stanzo. Call you ’em stanzos?
Amiens
16- What you will, Monsieur Jaques.
Jaques
17 - 18- Nay, I care not for their names, they owe me nothing. Will
- you sing?
Amiens
19- More at your request than to please myself.
Jaques
20 - 24- Well then, if ever I thank any man, I’ll thank you; but that
- they call compliment is like th’ encounter of two dog-apes;
- and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks I have given him
- a penny, and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing;
- and you that will not, hold your tongues.
Amiens
25 - 27- 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
28 - 31- 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.
Amiens
32 - 39- Song. All together here.
- Who doth ambition shun,
- And loves to live i’ th’ 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.
Under the greenwood tree who loves to lie with me
From: Songs and sonnets
circa 1925
Jaques
40 - 41- I’ll give you a verse to this note, that I made yesterday in
- despite of my invention.
Amiens
42- And I’ll sing it.
Jaques
43 - 51- 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,
- And if he will come to me.
Amiens
52- What’s that “ducdame”?
Jaques
53 - 55- ’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
56- And I’ll go seek the Duke, his banquet is prepar’d.
- Exeunt.
From: Songs from the Plays of Shakespeare
1915