This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.
JAQUES All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
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They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel
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And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
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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 lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
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Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide
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For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
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Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Enter ORLANDO with ADAM.
DUKE SENIOR
Welcome. Set down your venerable burden,
And let him feed.
ORLANDO I thank you most for him.
ADAM So had you need,
I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.
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DUKE SENIOR Welcome, fall to. I will not trouble you
As yet to question you about your fortunes.
Give us some music, and good cousin, sing.
AMIENS [Sings.]
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
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As man’s ingratitude.
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho, sing heigh-ho, unto the green holly
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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
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As benefits forgot.
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp,
As friend remember’d not.
Heigh-ho, sing heigh-ho, unto the green holly,
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Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then heigh-ho the holly,
This life is most jolly.
DUKE SENIOR
If that you were the good Sir Rowland’s son,
As you have whisper’d faithfully you were,
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And as mine eye doth his effigies witness
Most truly limn’d and living in your face,
Be truly welcome hither. I am the duke
That lov’d your father. The residue of your fortune,
Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man,
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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.
3.1 Enter DUKE, lords and OLIVER.
DUKE FREDERICK
Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be.
But were I not the better part made mercy,
I should not seek an absent argument
Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it:
Find out thy brother whereso’er he is;
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Seek him with candle: bring him dead or living
Within this twelvmonth, 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,
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Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother’s mouth
Of what we think against thee.
OLIVER O that your Highness knew my heart in this!
I never lov’d my brother in my life.
DUKE FREDERICK
More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors,
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And let my officers of such a nature
Make an extent upon his house and lands.
Do this expediently, and turn him going. Exeunt.
3.2 Enter ORLANDO with a paper.
ORLANDO Hang there my verse, in witness of my love,
And thou thrice-crowned queen of night, survey
With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
Thy huntress’ name, that my full life doth sway.
O Rosalind, these trees shall be my books,
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And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character,
That every eye which in this forest looks,
Shall see thy virtue witness’d everywhere.
Run, run Orlando, carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she. Exit.
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Enter CORIN and TOUCHSTONE.
CORIN And how like you this shepherd’s life, Master
Touchstone?
TOUCHSTONE Truly shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a
good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd’s life, it is
naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well;
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but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life.
Now in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well;
but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it
is a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as
there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my
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stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?
CORIN No more but that I know the more one sickens
the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money,
means, and content is without three good friends; that
the property of rain is to wet and fire to burn; that
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good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a great cause of
the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned
no wit by nature nor art may complain of good
breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.
TOUCHSTONE Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast
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ever in court, shepherd?
CORIN No truly.
TOUCHSTONE Then thou art damned.
CORIN Nay, I hope.
TOUCHSTONE Truly thou art damned, like an ill-
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roasted egg, all on one side.
CORIN For not being at court? Your reason.
TOUCHSTONE Why, if thou never wast at court, thou
never saw’st good manners; if thou never saw’st good
manners, then thy manners must be wicked, and
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wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in
a parlous state, shepherd.
CORIN Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good
manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country
as the behaviour of the country i
s most mockable at the
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court. You told me you salute not at the court, but you
kiss your hands: that courtesy would be uncleanly if
courtiers were shepherds.
TOUCHSTONE Instance, briefly; come, instance.
CORIN Why we are still handling our ewes, and their
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fells you know are greasy.
TOUCHSTONE Why, do not your courtier’s hands sweat?
And is not the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the
sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance I
say. Come.
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CORIN Besides, our hands are hard.
TOUCHSTONE Your lips will feel them the sooner.
Shallow again. A more sounder instance, come.
CORIN And they are often tarred over with the surgery
of our sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The
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courtier’s hands are perfumed with civet.
TOUCHSTONE Most shallow man! Thou worms-meat in
respect of a good piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the
wise and perpend. Civet is of a baser birth than tar, the
very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance,
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shepherd.
CORIN You have too courtly a wit for me, I’ll rest.
TOUCHSTONE Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee,
shallow man! God make incision in thee, thou art raw!
CORIN Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get
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that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man’s
happiness; glad of other men’s good, content with my
harm; and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes
graze and my lambs suck.
TOUCHSTONE That is another simple sin in you, to
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bring the ewes and the rams together, and to offer to
get your living by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd
to a bell-wether, and to betray a she-lamb of a twelve-
month to a crooked-pated old cuckoldly ram, out of all
reasonable match. If thou beest not damned for this,
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the devil himself will have no shepherds. I cannot see
else how thou shouldst ’scape.
CORIN Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new
mistress’s brother.
Enter ROSALIND with a paper, reading.
ROSALIND
From the east to western Inde,
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No jewel is like Rosalind.
Her worth being mounted on the wind,
Through all the world bears Rosalind.
All the pictures fairest lin’d
Are but black to Rosalind.
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Let no face be kept in mind
But the fair of Rosalind.
TOUCHSTONE I’ll rhyme you so, eight years together;
dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted. It
is the right butter-women’s rank to market.
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ROSALIND Out fool!
TOUCHSTONE For a taste.
If a hart do lack a hind,
Let him seek out Rosalind.
If the cat will after kind,
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So be sure will Rosalind.
Winter’d garments must be lin’d,
So must slender Rosalind.
They that reap must sheaf and bind,
Then to cart with Rosalind.
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Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
Such a nut is Rosalind.
He that sweetest rose will find
Must find love’s prick, and Rosalind.
This is the very false gallop of verses; why do you
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infect yourself with them?
ROSALIND Peace you dull fool! I found them on a tree.
TOUCHSTONE Truly the tree yields bad fruit.
ROSALIND I’ll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it
with a medlar. Then it will be the earliest fruit i’th’
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country; for you’ll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and
that’s the right virtue of the medlar.
TOUCHSTONE You have said; but whether wisely or no,
let the forest judge.
ROSALIND Peace! Here comes my sister, reading. Stand
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aside.
Enter CELIA with a writing.
CELIA [Reads.]
Why should this desert be,
For it is unpeopled? No.
Tongues I’ll hang on every tree,
That shall civil sayings show.
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Some, how brief the life of man
Runs his erring pilgrimage,
That the stretching of a span
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 68
