of a dinner, if there live any thing in this desert. Cheerly, good Adam! [Exeunt. SCENE VII. A table set out. The same. Enter Duke senior, AMIENS, Lords, and others. Duke S. I think he be transform'd into a beast; For I can no where find him like a man. 1 Lord. My lord, he is but even now gone hence; Here was he merry, hearing of a song. Duke S. If he, compact of jars, grow musical, We shall have shortly discord in the spheres :Go, seek him; tell him, I would speak with him. Enter JAQUES. 1 Lord. He saves my labour by his own approach. Duke S. Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this, That your poor friends must woo your company? What! you look merrily. Jaq. A fool, a fool!I met a fool i'the forest, A motley fool;-a miserable world! As I do live by food, I met a fool; Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, In good set terms, and yet a motley fool. S compact of jars,] i. e. made up of discords. Call me not fool, till heaven hath sent me fortune:] Fortuna favet fatuis, is, as Mr. Upton observes, the saying here alluded to; or, as in Publius Syrus: "Fortuna, nimium quem fovet, stultum facit." And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Thus may we see, quoth he, how the world wags: Jaq. O worthy fool!-One that hath been a courtier ; And says, if ladies be but young, and fair, They have the gift to know it: and in his brain,— Which is as dry as the remainder bisket After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd In mangled forms :-O, that I were a fool! Duke S. Thou shalt have one. Jaq. To blow on whom I please; for so fools have: only suit;] Suit means petition, not dress. Doth very foolishly, although he smart, Even by the squandring glances of the fool." To speak my mind, and I will through and through If they will patiently receive my medicine. Duke S. Fye on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do. Jaq. What, for a counter, would I do, but good? Duke S. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin: For thou thyself hast been a libertine, And all the embossed sores, and headed evils, That says, his bravery1 is not on my cost, 8 —if not, &c.] Unless men have the prudence not to appear touched with the sarcasms of a jester, they subject themselves to his power; and the wise man will have his folly anatomised, that is, dissected and laid open, by the squandring glances or random shots of a fool. JOHNSON. 9 - for a counter,] 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. -his bravery-] i. e. his fine clothes. |