As You Like It: ACT II
Introduction ACT I ACT II SCENE I. The Forest of Arden. SCENE II. A room in the palace. SCENE III. Before OLIVER'S house. SCENE IV. The Forest of Arden. SCENE V. The Forest. SCENE VI. The forest. SCENE VII. The forest. ACT III ACT IV ACT V About the Play Feedback			Search: All the plays Hamlet Coriolanus Julius Caesar King Lear Macbeth Othello Romeo and Juliet Richard II Richard III Titus Andronicus Antony and Cleopatra Timon of Athens Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry the Fifth Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry VIII King John Pericles Troilus and Cressida All's Well... As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Cymbeline A Midsummer... Love's Labour's Lost Measure for Measure The Merry Wives... Much Ado about Nothing The Merchant of Venice Twelfth Night The Taming of... The Tempest The Two Gentlemen... The Winter's Tale    for: SCENE I. The Forest of Arden. Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three Lords, like foresters DUKE SENIOR       Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,       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? 5     Here feel we but 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 10    '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; 15    And this our life exempt from public haunt       Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,       Sermons in stones and good in every thing.       I would not change it. AMIENS       Happy is your grace, 20    That can translate the stubbornness of fortune       Into so quiet and so sweet a style. DUKE SENIOR       Come, shall we go and kill us venison?       And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,       Being native burghers of this desert city, 25    Should in their own confines with forked heads       Have their round haunches gored. First Lord       Indeed, my lord,       The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,       And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp 30    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: 35    To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,       That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,       Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord,       The wretched animal heaved forth such groans       That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat 40    Almost to bursting, and the big round tears       Coursed 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, 45    Augmenting it with tears. DUKE SENIOR       But what said Jaques?       Did he not moralize this spectacle? First Lord       O, yes, into a thousand similes.       First, for his weeping into the needless stream; 50    'Poor deer,' quoth he, 'thou makest a testament       As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more       To that which had too much:' then, being there alone,       Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends,       ''Tis right:' quoth he; 'thus misery doth part 55    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 60    Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?'       Thus most invectively he pierceth through       The body of the country, city, court,       Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we       Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse, 65    To fright the animals and to kill them up       In their assign'd and native dwelling-place. DUKE SENIOR       And did you leave him in this contemplation? Second Lord       We did, my lord, weeping and commenting       Upon the sobbing deer. DUKE SENIOR 70    Show me the place:       I love to cope him in these sullen fits,       For then he's full of matter. First Lord       I'll bring you to him straight. Exeunt Return to top of page ... or ... Go to next scene