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FAQ. An you will not be answered with reafon, I must die.

DUKE S. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force,

More than your force move us to gentleness.
ORL. I almost die for food, and let me have it.
DUKE S. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our
table.

ORL. Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you:
I thought, that all things had been savage here;
And therefore put I on the countenance
Of stern commandment: But whate'er you are,
That in this defert inaccessible,

Under the fhade of melancholy boughs,
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;
If ever you have look'd on better days;
If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church;
If ever fat at any good man's feast;
If ever from your eye-lids wip'd a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied;
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be:
In the which hope, I blush, and hide my sword.

DUKE S. True is it that we have seen better days;
And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church;
And fat at good men's feasts; and wip'd our eyes
Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd:
And therefore fit you down in gentleness,
And take upon command what help we have,
That to your wanting may be ministred.

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defert inaccessible,] This expreffion I find in The Adventures of Simonides, by Barn. Riche, 1580: and onely acquainted himselfe with the folitarinesse of this unacceffible defert." HENDERSON.

* And take upon command what help we have,] Upon command, is at your own command. STEEVENS.

ORL. Then, but forbear your food a little while, Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn, And give it food. There is an old poor man, Who after me hath many a weary step Limp'd in pure love; till he be first suffic'd,Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger, I will not touch a bit.

DUKE S.

Go find him out,

And we will nothing waste till you return.

ORL. I thank ye; and be bless'd for your good

comfort!

[Exit.

DUKE S. Thou seest, we are not all alone un

happy:

This wide and universal theatre

Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.*

3 Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,

And give it food.] So, in Venus and Adonis:

"Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ake,

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Hafting to feed her fawn." MALONE.

4 Wherein we play in.) Thus the old copy. Mr. Pope more correctly reads:

Wherein we play.

I believe with Mr. Pope, that we should only read

Wherein we play.

and add a word at the beginning of the next speech, to complete

the measure; viz.

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Why, all the world's a stage."

Thus, in Hamlet:

"Hor. So Rofencrantz and Guildenstern go to't.

"Ham. Why, man, they did make love to their employment."

Again, in Measure for Measure:

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Why, all the fouls that were, were forfeit once."

Again, ibid:

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Why, every fault's condemn'd, ere it be done."

In twenty other instances we find the fame adverb introductorily

used. STEEVENS.

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FAR. All the world's a stage,4 And all the men and women merely players: 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,

4 All the world's a stage, &c.] This observation occurs in one of the fragments of Petronius: "Non duco contentionis funem, dum conftet inter nos, quod fere totus mundus exerceat hiftrioniam."

STEEVENS.

This observation had been made in an English drama before the time of Shakspeare. See Damon and Pythias, 1582:

"

"

Pythagoras faid, that this world was like a stage,

"Whereon many play their parts."

In The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, 1597, we find these lines :

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Unhappy man

"Whose life a fad continual tragedie,

" Himself the actor, in the world, the stage,

"While as the acts are measur'd by his age." MALONE.

* His acts being seven ages.] Dr. Warburton observes, that this was no unusual division of a play before our author's time;" but forbears to offer any one example in support of his affertion. I have carefully perused almost every dramatick piece antecedent to Shakspeare, or contemporary with him; but so far from being divided into acts, they are almost all printed in an unbroken continuity of scenes. I should add, that there is one play of fix acts to be met with, and another of twenty-one; but the fecond of these is a tranflation from the Spanish, and never could have been designed for the stage. In God's Promises, 1577, " A Tragedie or Enterlude," (or rather a Mystery) by John Bale, seven acts may indeed be found. STEEVENS.

It

Dr. Warburton boldly afferts that this was " no unusual divifion of a play before our author's time." One of Chapman's plays (Two Wife Men and all the reft Fools) is indeed in feven acts. This, however, is the only dramatick piece that I have found fo divided. But furely it is not neceffary to fuppofe that our author alluded here to any fuch precise division of the drama. His comparisons feldom run on four feet. was fufficient for him that a play was distributed into feveral acts, and that human life, long before his time, had been divided into feven periods. In the Treasury of Ancient and Modern Times, 1613, Proclus, a Greek author, is faid to have divided the life-time of man into SEVEN AGES; over each of which one of the seven planets was fuppofed to rule. "The FIRST AGE is called Infancy, containing

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
And then, the whining school-boy, with his fatchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school: And then, the lover;
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

the space of foure yeares. - The SECOND AGE continueth ten years, untill he attaine to the yeares of fourteene: this age is called Childhood. The THIRD AGE consisteth of eight yeares, being named by our auncients Adolescencie or Youthhood; and it lasteth from fourteene, till two and twenty yeares be fully compleate.The FOURTH AGE paceth on, till a man have accomplished two and fortie yeares, and is tearmed Young Manhood. - The FIFTH AGE, named Mature Manhood, hath (according to the faid authour) fifteene yeares of continuance, and therefore makes his progress so far as fix and fifty yeares. - Afterwards in adding twelve to fiftyfixe, you shall make up fixty-eight yeares, which reach to the end of the SIXT AGE, and is called Old Age. - The SEAVENTH and last of these seven ages is limited from fixty-eight yeares, fo far as four-fcore and eight, being called weak, declining, and Decrepite Age. If any man chance to goe beyond this age, (which is more admired than noted in many,) you shall evidently perceive that he will returne to his first condition of Infancy againe."

Hippocrates likewise divided the life of man into seven ages, but differs from Proclus in the number of years allotted to each period. See Brown's Vulgar Errors, folio, 1686, p. 173.

MALONE.

I have seen, more than once, an old print entitled, The stage of Man's Life, divided into seven ages. As emblematical reprefentations of this fort were formerly stuck up, both for ornament and inftruction, in the generality of houses, it is more probable that Shakspeare took his hint from thence, than from Hippocrates or Proclus. HENLEY.

One of the representations to which Mr. Henley alludes, was formerly in my poffeffion; and confidering the use it is of in explaining the passage before us, " I could have better spared a better print." I well remember that it exhibited the school-boy with his fatchel hanging over his shoulders. STEEVENS.

6 And then,] And, which is wanting in the old copy, was supplied, for the fake of metre, by Mr. Pope. STEEVENS.

1 Sighing like furnace,] So, in Cymbeline: "-he furnaceth the thick fighs from him." MALONE.

Made to his mistress' eye-brow: Then, a soldier;
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,"
Jealous in honour, fudden 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 fevere, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wife faws and modern instances,
And fo he plays his part: The fixth age shifts
Into the lean and flipper'd pantaloon ;*

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Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,] So, in Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonfon:

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Your foldiers face-the grace of this face confifteth much in a beard." STEEVENS.

Beards of different cut were appropriated in our author's time to different characters and professions. The foldier had one fashion, the judge another, the bishop different from both, &c. See a note on K. Henry V. Act III. fc. vi: "And what a beard of the general's cut," &C. MALONE.

४ fudden and quick-] Lest it should be supposed that these epithets are fynonymous, it is necessary to be obferved that one of the ancient senses of fudden, is violent. Thus, in Macbeth:

"I grant him fudden,
"Malicious," &C. STEEVENS.

Full of avise faws and modern i stances,] It is remarkable that Shakspeare uses modern in the double sense that the Greeks used καὶν, both for recens and abfurdus. WARBURTON.

I am in doubt whether modern is in this place used for abfurd: the meaning feems to be, that the justice is full of old fayings and late examples. JOHNSON.

Modern means trite, common. So, in K. John: "And scorns a modern invocation."

Again, in this play, Act IV. fc. i: "

modern cenfure." STEEVENS.

-

betray themselves to

" to make

Again, in another of our author's plays: modern and familiar things fupernatural and causeless." MALONE.

2

The fixth age shifts

Into the lean and flipper'd pantaloon;) There is a greater beauty than appears at first fight in this image. He is here com

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