AS YOU LIKE IT
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live anything in this desert. Cheerily, good Adam!

[Exeunt.]



SCENE VII. Another part of the Forest.

[A table set. Enter DUKE Senior, AMIENS, and others.]

DUKE SENIOR.
I think he be transform'd into a beast;
For I can nowhere find him like a man.

FIRST LORD.
My lord, he is but even now gone hence;
Here was he merry, hearing of a song.

DUKE SENIOR.
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.

FIRST LORD.
He saves my labour by his own approach.

[Enter JAQUES.]

DUKE SENIOR.
Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this,
That your poor friends must woo your company?
What! you look merrily!

JAQUES.
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,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms,--and yet a motley fool.
'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I: 'No, sir,' quoth he,
'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.'
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags;
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine;
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep contemplative;
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial.--O noble fool!
A worthy fool!--Motley's the only wear.

DUKE SENIOR.
What fool is this?

JAQUES.
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 biscuit
After a voyage,--he hath strange places cramm'd
With observation, the which he vents
In mangled forms.-O that I were a fool!
I am ambitious for a motley coat.

DUKE SENIOR.