Enter JAQUES DE BOYS.

Jaq. de B. Let me have audience for a word or two:
I am the second son of old Sir Rowland,
That bring these tidings to this fair assembly.
Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day
Men of great worth resorted to this forest,
Address'd a mighty power; which were on foot,
In his own conduct, purposely to take
His brother here and put him to the sword:
And to the skirts of this wild wood he came;
Where meeting with an old religious man,
After some question with him, was converted
Both from his enterprise and from the world;
His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,
And all their lands restored to them again
That were with him exiled. This to be true,
I do engage my life.

Duke S.
Welcome, young man;
Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding:
To one his lands withheld, and to the other
A land itself at large, a potent dukedom.
First, in this forest let us do those ends
That here were well begun and well begot:

And after, every of this happy number

That have endured shrewd days and nights with us
Shall share the good of our returned fortune,
According to the measure of their states.
Meantime, forget this new-fallen dignity
And fall into our rustic revelry.

Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all,
With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall.

Jaq. Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly,
The duke hath put on a religious life

And thrown into neglect the pompous court?
Jaq de B. He hath.

Jaq. To him will I out of these convertites
There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.
[To Duke] You to your former honour I bequeath;

150

160

170

Your patience and your virtue well deserves it:

179

[To Orl.] You to a love that your true faith doth merit: [To Oli.] You to your land and love and great allies: [To Sil.] You to a long and well-deserved bed:

[To Touch.] And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage Is but for two months victualled. So, to your pleasures: I am for other than for dancing measures.

Duke S. Stay, Jaques, stay.

Jaq. To see no pastime I: what you would have I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave.

[Exit.

Duke S. Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites, As we do trust they'll end, in true delights.

EPILOGUE.

[A dance.

Ros. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue; yet to good wine they do use good bushes, and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women—as I perceive by your simpering, none of you hates them-that between you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

[Exeunt.

NOTES.

ACT I.

Scene I.

The play was first printed in the folio of 1623, where it is divided into Acts and Scenes.

I. upon this fashion, after this fashion. See ii. 4. 56.

I, 2. bequeathed me by will. This is the reading of the folios, in which we may either understand bequeathed' as a participle or as the past tense. In the latter case we must supply the nominative 'he' or 'my father.' In the former a stronger stop must be placed at 'fashion.' For instances of the omission of the nominative see v. 4. 153, Abbott, § 399; Hamlet, ii. 2. 67; Lear, ii. 4. 42, 293, &c., and the notes on those passages. Johnson would put a full stop at me.' Warburton substitutes my father' for 'fashion.'.

2. poor a thousand. For this transposition of the indefinite article see Abbott, § 422; The Tempest, iv. 1. 123, 'So rare a wonder'd father.'

3. on his blessing, as a condition of obtaining his blessing. So Heywood, The English Traveller (Works, iv. 49): 'This doe vpon my blessing.' Compare Othello, ii. 3. 178:

'Speak, who began this? on thy love, I charge thee.'

And better, Timon of Athens, iii. 5. 87:

'Urge it no more,

On height of our displeasure.'

Ib. to breed, to educate, bring up. Compare The Merchant of Venice, ii. I. 3:

The burnish'd sun,

To whom I am a neighbour and near bred.'

And Measure for Measure, iv. 2. 135: A Bohemian born, but here nursed up and bred.'

4. Jaques. In the last scene where only he appears he is called 'Second Brother' in the folios, to avoid confusion with the melancholy Jaques.

5. he keeps at school. For school,' in the sense of university, compare Hamlet, i, 2. 113:

'For your intent

In going back to school in Wittenberg,

It is most retrograde to our desire.'

G

!

5. goldenly. Compare Macbeth, i. 7. 33:

He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought

Golden opinions from all sorts of people.'

Ib. profit, proficiency.

II. manage, the training and breaking in of a horse, from Fr. manége Compare I Henry IV, ii. 3. 52:

Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed.

And Richard II, iii. 3. 179.

Ib. dearly hired. For the omission of 'are' see Hamlet, iii. 3. 62 :
But 'tis not so above;

There is no shuffling, there the action lies

In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence.'

And Abbott, § 403.

13. the which. See The Tempest, i. 2. 137; Abbott, § 270.

15. countenance, favour, regard, patronage. Compare Coriolanus, v. 6. 40: He waged me with his countenance, as if

I had been mercenary.'

And Hamlet, iv. 2. 16: 'Ay, sir, that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities.'

It is used still in the

16. hinds, servants (A. S. hina), or farm-labourers. North for a farm bailiff. Chaucer (Prologue, 1. 603) spells the word hyne'; 'Ther nas ballif, ne herde, ne other hyne,

That they ne knewe his sleight and his covyne.'

Compare Merry Wives of Windsor, iii. 5. 99: A couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane.'

Ib. bars me, excludes me from.

17, 18. mines my gentility, undermines the gentleness of my birth and so destroys it. For 'mine' in this sense see Hamlet, iii. 4. 148:

Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,

Infects unseen.'

26. what make you here? what do you here? As in Hamlet, i. 2. 164: 'And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio ?'

For the play upon the words 'make' and 'mar,' and the two senses of 'make,' compare Love's Labour 's Lost, iv. 3: 190-192:

'King. What makes treason here?

Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.

King.

If it mar nothing neither,

The treason and you go in peace away together.'

29. Marry, an exclamation, from the name of the Virgin Mary, used as an oath. Here it keeps up a poor pun upon mar.'