With observation, the which he vents

In mangled forms:-O, that I were a fool!
I am ambitious for a motley coat.

Duke S. Thou shalt have one.

Jaq.
It is my only suit5;
Provided, that you weed your better judgments
Of all opinion that grows rank in them,
That I am wise. I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please; for so fools have:
And they that are most galled with my folly,
They most must laugh: And why, sir, must they so?
The why is plain as way to parish church:
He, that a fool doth very wisely hit,
Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
7 Not to seem senseless of the bob: if not,
The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd

Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool.
Invest me in my motley; give me leave

To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foul body of the infected world3,
If they will patiently receive my medicine.

Duke S. Fye on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.

Jaq. What, for a counter9, would I do, but good?

5 <

My only suit,' a quibble between petition and dress is here intended. So in Act v. Not out of your apparel, but out of your suit.'

6 In Henry V. we have :

The wind, that charter'd libertine, is still.'

7 The old copies read only, seem senseless, &c. not to were supplied by Theobald.

8 So in Macbeth :

'Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff.'

About the time when this play was written, the French counters (i. e. pieces of false money used as a means of reckoning) were brought into use in England. They are again mentioned in Troilus and Cressida, and in The Winter's Tale.

Duke S. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding

sin:

For thou thyself hast been a libertine,
As sensual as the brutish sting 10 itself;
And all the embossed sores, and headed evils,
That thou with licence of free foot hast caught,
Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.
Jaq. Why, who cries out on pride,
That can therein tax any private party?
Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,
Till that the very very means do ebb 11?
What woman in the city do I name,
When that I say, The city-woman bears
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
Who can come in, and say, that I mean her,
When such a one as she, such is her neighbour?
Or what is he of basest function,

That says, his bravery 12 is not on my cost,
(Thinking that I mean him), but therein suits
His folly to the mettle of my speech?

There then; How then, what then 13? Let me see wherein

My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right,
Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free,

10 So in Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. i. c. xii. :—
A herd of bulls whom kindly rage doth sting.'

Again, b. ii. c. xii.:

'As if that hunger's point or Venus' sting
Had them enrag'd.'

And in Othello:

— our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts.'

11 The old copies read:

'Till that the weary very means do ebb, &c.'

The emendation is by Pope.

12 Finery.

13 Malone thinks we should read, where then? in this redundant line. So in Othello:

• What then? How then? Where's satisfaction?'

Why then, my taxing like a wild goose flies,
Unclaim'd of any man.- -But who comes here?

Enter ORLANDO, with his Sword drawn.
Orl. Forbear, and eat no more.

Jaq.

Why, I have eat none yet. Orl. Nor shalt not, till necessity be serv'd.

Jaq. Of what kind should this cock come of? Duke S. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress;

Or else a rude despiser of good manners,

That in civility thou seem'st so empty?

Orl. You touch'd my vein at first; the thorny point

say;

Of bare distress hath ta'en 14 from me the show
Of smooth civility: yet I am inland bred 15,
And know some nurture 16: But forbear, I
He dies, that touches any of this fruit,
Till I and my affairs are answered.
Jaq. An
I must die.

you

will not be answered with reason,

Duke S. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force,

More than your force move us to gentleness.

Orl. I almost die for food, and let me have it. Duke S. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.

Orl. Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray

you:

14We might read torn with more elegance,' says Johnson, 'but elegance alone will not justify alteration.'

15 Inland here, and elsewhere in this play, is the opposite to outland, or upland. Orlando means to say that he had not been bred among clowns.

16 Nurture is education, breeding, manners. It is a point of nourtour or good manners to salute them that you meete. Urbanitas est salutare obvios.' Baret's Alvearie, 1573. And again: 'She is a manerly maide and well nourtured. Ibid. in voce maner.

I thought, that all things had been savage here;
And therefore put I on the countenance

Of stern commandment: But whate'er you are,
That in this desert inaccessible 17,

Under the shade of melancholy boughs,
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;
If ever you have look'd on better days,

If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church;
If ever sat at any good man's feast;

If ever from your eye-lids wip'd a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied;
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be:
In the which hope, I blush, and hide

my sword.
Duke S. True is it that we have seen better days;
And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church:
And sat at good men's feasts; and wip'd our eyes
Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd:
And therefore sit you down in gentleness,
And take upon command 18 what help we have,
That to your wanting may be ministered.

Orl. Then, but forbear your food a little while, Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn, And give it food 19. There is an old poor man, Who after me hath many a weary step Limp'd in pure love: till he be first suffic'd,— 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.

17 This desert inaccessible.' So in The Adventures of Simonides, by Barnabe Riche, 1580: '—— and onely acquainted himselfe with this unaccessible desert.'

18 i. e. at your own command.

19 So in Venus and Adonis :

'Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ake,
Hasting to feede her fawn.'

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

comfort!

[Exit.

Duke S. Thou seest, we are not all alone un

happy:

This wide and universal theatre

Presents more woful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in 20.

Jaq.
All the world's a stage,
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 21. At first, the infant,

20 Pleonasms of this kind were by no means uncommon in the writers of Shakspeare's age: 'I was afearde to what end his talke would come to.' Baret. In Coriolanus, Act ii. Sc. 1 :

'In what enormity is Marcius poor in. And in Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Chorus:

That fair for which love groan'd for.'

21 In the old play of Damon and Pythias, we have-' Pythagoras said, that this world was like a stage whereon many play their parts.' And in The Legend of Orpheus and Euridice, 1597: 'Unhappy man

Whose life a sad continuall tragedie,

Himself the actor, in the world, the stage,
While as the acts are measured by his age.'

In The Treasury of Ancient and Modern Times, 1613, is a division of the life of man into seven ages, said to be taken from Proclus: and it appears from Brown's Vulgar Errors, that Hippocrates also divided man's life into seven degrees or stages, though he differs from Proclus in the number of years allotted to each stage. Dr. Henley mentions an old emblematical print, entitled, The Stage of Man's Life divided into Seven Ages, from which he thinks Shakspeare more likely to have taken his hint than from Hippocrates, or Proclus; but he does not tell us that this print was of Shakspeare's age. Steevens refers to the Totus mundus exerceat histrioniam of Petronius, with whom probably the sentiment originated. Shakspeare has again referred to it in The Merchant of Venice:

'I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,

A stage where every man must play his part.'