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Ros. I pr'ythee, shepherd, if that love, or gold, Can in this desert place buy entertainment, Bring us where we may rest ourselves, and feed: Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd, And faints for succour.

COR.

Fair sir, I pity her, And wish for her sake, more than for mine own,

My fortunes were more able to relieve her:
But I am shepherd to another man,

And do not sheer the fleeces that I graze;
My master is of churlish disposition,

And little recks to find the way to heaven.
By doing deeds of hospitality:

Besides, his cote, his flocks, and bounds of feed,
Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now,
By reason of his absence, there is nothing
That you will feed on; but what is, come see,
And in my voice most welcome shall you be."
Ros. What is he that shall buy his flock and
pasture?

COR. That young swain that you saw here but erewhile,

That little cares for buying any thing.

Ros. I pray thee, if it stand with honesty, Buy thou the cottage, pasture, and the flock, And thou shalt have to pay for it of us.

CEL. And we will mend thy wages: I like this place,

And willingly could waste my time in it.

⚫ And little recks-] i. e. heeds, cares for. So, in Hamlet: "And recks not his own rede." STEEVENS.

my

5 And in voice most welcome shall you be.] In my voice, as far as I have a voice or vote, as far as I have power to bid you welcome. JOHNSON.

COR. Assuredly, the thing is to be sold:
Go with me; if you like, upon report,
The soil, the profit, and this kind of life,
I will your very faithful feeder be,

And buy it with your gold right suddenly.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

The same.

Enter AMIENS, JAQUES, and Others.

SONG.

AMI. Under the greenwood tree,

Who loves to lie with me,

And tune his merry note

Under the sweet bird's throat,

Come hither, come hither, come hither;
Here shall he see

[blocks in formation]

JAQ. More, more, I pr'ythee, more.

AMI. It will make you melancholy, monsieur Jaques.

And tune-] The old copy has turne. Corrected by Mr. Pope. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona;

"And to the nightingale's complaining note

"Tune my distresses, and record my woes." MALONE. The old copy may be right, though Mr. Pope, &c. read tune. To turn a tune or a note, is still a current phrase among vulgar musicians. STEEVENS.

JAQ. I thank it. More, I pr'ythee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weazel sucks eggs: More, I pr'ythee, more.

AMI. My voice is ragged;' I know, I cannot please you.

JAQ. I do not desire you to please me, I do desire you to sing: Come, more; another stanza; Call you them stanzas?

AMI. What you will, monsieur Jaques.

JAQ. Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing: Will you sing?

AMI. More at your request, than to please myself.

JAQ. Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank you: but that they call compliment, is like the 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.

AMI. 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.

8

JAQ. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is too dispútable 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.

7 ragged;] Our modern editors (Mr. Malone excepted) read rugged; but ragged had anciently the same meaning. So, in Nash's Apologie of Pierce Pennilesse, 4to. 1593: “I would not trot a false gallop through the rest of his ragged verses," &c. STEEVENS.

8

-dispútable-] For disputatious. MALONE.

SONG.

Who doth ambition shun, [All together here.
And loves to live i' the sun,9

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.

JAQ. I'll give you a verse to this note, that I

made yesterday in despite of

my invention.

AMI. And I'll sing it.

JAQ. 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;1
Here shall he see,

Gross fools as he,

An if he will come to Ami.

to live i' the sun,] Modern editions, to lie.

JOHNSON.

To live i' the sun, is to labour and "sweat in the eye of Phoebus," or, vitam agere sub dio; for by lying in the sun, how could they get the food they eat? TOLLET.

1ducdame;] For ducdame, Sir Thomas Hanmer, very acutely and judiciously, reads duc ad me, that is, bring him to JOHNSON.

me.

If duc ad me were right, Amiens would not have asked its meaning, and been put off with "a Greek invocation." It is evidently a word coined for the nonce. We have here, as Butler

AMI. What's that ducdame?

JAQ. 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a

says, "One for sense, and one for rhyme." Indeed we must have a double rhyme; or this stanza cannot well be sung to the same tune with the former. I read thus:

"Ducdame, Ducdame, Ducdáme,
"Here shall he see

"Gross fools as he,

"An' if he will come to Ami."

That is, to Amiens. Jaques did not mean to ridicule himself.

FARMER.

Duc ad me has hitherto been received as an allusion to the burthen of Amiens's song

Come hither,, come hither, come hither.

That Amiens, who is a courtier, should not understand Latin, or be persuaded it was Greek, is no great matter for wonder. An anonymous correspondent proposes to read-Huc ad me.

In confirmation of the old reading, however, Dr. Farmer observes to me, that, being at a house not far from Cambridge, when news was brought that the hen-roost was robbed, a facetious old squire who was present, immediately sung the following stanza, which has an odd coincidence with the ditty of Jaques :

"Dame, what makes your ducks to die?

"duck, duck, duck.

"Dame, what makes your chicks to cry?

"chuck, chuck, chuck.".

I have placed Dr. Farmer's emendation in the text. Ducddme is a trisyllable. STEEVENS.

If it do come to pass,

That any man turn ass,

Leaving his wealth and ease,

A stubborn will to please,

Duc ad me, duc ad me, duc ad me;

Here shall he see

Gross fools as he, &c.] See HoR. Serm. L. II. sat. iii :
Audire atque togam jubeo componere, quisquis
"Ambitione mala aut argenti pallet amore;
"Quisquis luxuria tristive superstitione,
"Aut alio mentis morbo calet: Huc proprius me,
"Dum doceo insanire omnes, vos ordine adite."

MALONE.

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