Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
I charge thee, be not thou more griev'd than I am.

Ros. I have more cause.

CEL.

Thou hast not, cousin ;

Pr'ythee, be cheerful: know'st thou not, the duke Hath banish'd me, his daughter?

Ros.

That he hath not.

CEL. No? hath not? Rosalind lacks then the

love

Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one;*
Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl?
No; let my father seek another heir.

Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
Whither to go, and what to bear with us:
And do not seek to take your change upon you,"
To bear your griefs yourself, and leave me out;
For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.

Ros. Why, whither shall we go?

CEL.

To seek my uncle.

Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us, Maids as we are, to travel forth so far? Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

CEL. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,

• Which teacheth thee, &c.] That warmth of feeling, which cannot do less than instruct thee, that, &c. Dr. Johnson offers, as a similar phraseology: "you know not the law, which teaches you to do right."

b take your change upon you] Encounter this reverse.

• For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale] This passage may be interpreted either " by this heaven, or the light of heaven, with its lustre faded in sympathy with our feelings:" or, "for, by this heaven, now we have reached, now we are at the utmost verge or point, in this extremity or crisis of our fate," &c. (for such it was) as this word is used in the Wint. T. IV. 2. Autol.

"For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale."

And with a kind of umber smirch my face,
The like do you; so shall we pass along,
And never stir assailants.

Were it not better,

Ros.
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtle-axe" upon my thigh,

A boar-spear in my hand; and (in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will,)
We'll have a swashing (16) and a martial outside;
As many other mannish cowards have,

That do outface it with their semblances.

CEL. What shall I call thee, when thou art a

man?

Ros. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own
page,

And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
But what will you be call'd?

CEL. Something that hath a reference to my
state;

No longer Celia, but Aliena.

Ros. But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal The clownish fool out of your father's court? Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

CEL. He'll go along o'er the wide world with

me;

Leave me alone to woo him: Let's away,
And get our jewels and our wealth together;
Devise the fittest time, and safest way
To hide us from pursuit that will be made
After my flight: Now go in we* content,
To liberty, and not to banishment.

we in,

[Exeunt. 1632.

• And with a kind of umber smirch my face] Umber is a dusky yellow-coloured earth, brought from Umbria in Italy.

MALONE.

In the Chor. IV H. V. we have," the battle's umber'd face." Smirch is soil, smear. "The smirchen worm-eaten tapestry."

Much ado, &c. III. 3. Borach.

curtle-axe] Cutlace, broadsword. JOHNSON.

ACT II. SCENE I.

The Forest of Arden.

Enter Duke senior, AMIENS, and other Lords in the dress of Foresters.

DUKE S. Now, my co-mates, and brothers in

exíle,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
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 ;""

• Hath not old custom

Are not these woods-Here feel we not the penalty

That feelingly persuade me what I am] Wherever the course of thought admits it, Shakespeare is accustomed to continue the form of speaking which he first falls upon; and the sense of this passage, in which he repeats the word not, appears to be"The penalty here, properly speaking, is not, or scarce is, physically felt, because the suffering it occasions, sharp as it otherwise might be called, turns so much to account in a moral sense. The construction of" which, when it blows," is " at which, or which blowing." The modern editors, following Theobald, for not, read but: as we conceive, unnecessarily. Still the word "feelingly," used at the end of this passage in an affirmative sense, after "feel" had been brought forward, coupled with a negative, certainly makes a confusion, if it be not said to favour Theobald's alteration.

19

And this our life, exempt from publick haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, (2)

Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

AMI. I would not change it: Happy is your

grace,

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

DUKE S. Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools,Being native burghers of this desert city,(4) Should, in their own confines, with forked heads, Have their round haunches gor'd.

1 LORD.

Indeed, my lord, The melancholy Jaques grieves at that t; 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: (5) To the which place a poor sequester'd stag, That from the hunters' 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 (6). Cours'd one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase: and thus the hairy fool, Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook, Augmenting it with tears.

DUKE S. But what said Jaques ? Did he not moralize this spectacle?

1 LORD. O yes, into a thousand similes. First, for his weeping into the needless stream ;*

• needless stream] Stream, that needed not, that wanted no supply. Much in the sense in which Lear says, "age is unne

Poor deer, quoth he, thou mak'st a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

a

C

To that which had too much: Then being alone, Left and abandon'd of his velvet friend ;6 'Tis right, quoth he; this 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 10, 1632. 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 S. And did you leave him in this contemplation?

2 LORD. We did, my lord, weeping and commenting

Upon the sobbing deer.

DUKE S.

Show me the place;

cessary,” II. 4. i. e. superfluous lumber, what might be spared, needless.

*thy sum of more to that which had too much]

66

66

in a river

Upon whose weeping margin she was set, "Like usury, applying wet to wet."

Lover's Complaint.

"With tearful eyes add water to the sea,

"And give more strength to that which hath too much." III H. VI. (V. 4.) STEVENS.

friend] The modern editors have substituted friends: but Mr. Whiter observes, "the singular is often used for the plural with a sense more abstracted; and therefore in many instances more poetical." Specimen of a Commentary, 8vo. 1794, p. 15.

c

greasy citizens] "By other men's losses to enrich and grenze themselves." Newton's Lemnie's Touchstone of Complexions, 12mo. 1581, p. 58, b.