That to your wanting may be minister'd.

Orl. Then but forbear your food a little while,
Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,
And give it food. There is an old poor man,
Who after me hath many a weary step

Limp'd in pure love: till he be first sufficed,
Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger,

I will not touch a bit.

Duke S.

Go find him out,

And we will nothing waste till you return.

Orl. I thank ye; and be bless'd for your good comfort!

Duke S. Thou see'st we are not all alone unhappy : This wide and universal theatre

Presents more woeful pageants than the scene

Wherein we play in.

Jaq.

All the world's a stage,

[Exit.

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.18 As, first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms :

And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

18 Totus mundus agit histrionem, an observation occurring in one of the fragments of Petronius, is said to have been the motto over Shakespeare's theatre, the Globe, and was probably a familiar apothegm in his day. The division of human life into certain stages, or epochs, had also a classical origin. In some Greek verses attributed to Solon, — and, whether written by him or not, certainly as old as the middle of the first century, the life of man is divided into ten ages of seven years each. Other Greek authors distributed it into seven parts, and Varro the Roman into five. A Hebrew doctor of the ninth century, and a Hebrew Poet of the twelfth, have made a similar distribution.

And shining morning face, creeping like snail Seat
Unwillingly to school And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow: Then the soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,19
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth) And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,

20

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;2
And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,21
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his 22 sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM.

Gift of The People of the United States
Through the Victory Book Campaign
(A. L. A. ---- A. . C.-U. S. 0.)

To the Armed Forces and Merchant Marine

Duke S. Welcome. Set down your venerable burden, And let him feed.

19 Pard is one of the old names for leopard.

20 Saws are sayings; often so used. Modern is trite, common, familiar. Men may still be seen overflowing with stale, threadbare proverbs and phrases, and imagining themselves wondrous wise. Instances, here, is examples, illustrations, anecdotes, such as many an official wiseacre is fond of repeating on all occasions.

21 The pantaloon was a stereotyped character in the old Italian farces: it represented a thin, emaciated old man, in slippers.

22 His for its, the latter not being then in use.

Orl. I thank you most for him.

Adam.

So had you need:

I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.

Duke S. Welcome; fall to: I will not trouble you As yet, to question you about your fortunes.

Give us some music; and, good cousin, sing.

SONG.

Ami. Blow, blow, thou winter wind,

Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;

Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art foreseen,

Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!

This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot:

Though thou the waters warp,23
Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend remember'd not.

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! &c.

-a

23 In the Poet's time the verb warp was sometimes used for weave, sense now retained only in the substantive. Thus in Sternhold's version of the Psalms: "While he doth mischief warp," and "Such wicked wiles to In Hickes' Thesaurus is found a warp"; where we should say weave. Saxon proverb, "Winter shall warp water." And Propertius has a line containing the same figure: 'Africus in glaciem frigore nectit aquas." The appropriateness of the figure may be seen in the fine network appearance which water assumes in the first stages of crystallization.

"

Duke S. If that you are the good Sir Roland's son, As you have whisper'd faithfully you are,

And as mine eye doth his effigies witness

Most truly limn'd 24 and living in your face,

Be truly welcome hither: I'm the Duke,

That loved your father: the residue of your fortune,
Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man,
Thou art right welcome as thy master is.
Support him by the arm. -Give me your hand,
And let me all your fortunes understand.

[Exeunt.

Enter Duke FREDERICK, OLIVER, Lords, and Attendants.

Duke F. Not seen him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be : But, were I not the better part made mercy,

I should not seek an absent argument 1

Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it :
Find out thy brother, wheresoe'er he is ;

Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living
Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more
To seek a living in our territory.

Thy lands, and all things that thou dost call thine
Worth seizure, do we seize into our hands,

24 Limn'd is lined, or depicted. It is hardly needful to say that effigies is the same in sense as image.

1 Argument was used in a good many senses: here it means object.

Till thou canst quit 2 thee by thy brother's mouth.
Of what we think against thee.

Oli. O, that your Highness knew my heart in this!
I never loved my brother in my life.

Duke F. More villain thou. - Well, push him out of

doors;

And let my officers of such a nature

Make an extent 3 upon his house and lands:

Do this expediently, and turn him going.

SCENE II. The Forest of Arden.

[Exeunt.

Enter ORLANDO, with a paper, which he hangs on a tree.

Orl. Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love :
And thou, thrice-crownèd Queen of Night,5 survey
With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
Thy huntress' name,
full life doth sway.

that my

2 Quit here is acquit. The Poet has it repeatedly in that sense. So in Measure for Measure, v. 1: "Thou'rt condemn'd: but, for those earthly faults, I quit them all." And in Henry V., ii. 1: "God quit you in His mercy!

8 A law phrase, thus explained by Blackstone: "The process hereon is usually called an extent or extendi facias, because the Sheriff is to cause the lands, &c., to be appraised to their full extended value, before he delivers them to the plaintiff."

4 Expediently for expeditiously. So the Poet uses expedient for expedi

tious.

5 Luna Queen of Night, Proserpine Queen of Hades, and Diana the Goddess of Chastity, were all three sometimes identified in classical mythology; hence the epithet thrice-crowned. In Chapman's Hymns to Night and to Cynthia, which were doubtless well known to Shakespeare, we have the following highly poetical passage:

Nature's bright eye-sight, and the night's fair soul,
That with thy triple forehead dost control
Earth, seas, and hell.