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Scena Secunda.

Enter Iaques and Lords, Forreflers.

Iaq. Which is he that killed the Deare?
Lord. Sir, it was I.

Iaq. Let's present him to the Duke like a Romane Conquerour, and it would doe well to fet the Deares horns vpon his head, for a branch of victory; haue you no fong Forrester for this purpose ?

Lord. Yes Sir.

Iaq. Sing it 'tis no matter how it bee in tune, fo it make noyse enough.

Muficke, Song.

What shall he haue that kild the Deare?

His Leather skin, and hornes to weare:

Then fing him home, the reft fhall beare this burthen;

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Scene IV. Pope, Han. Warb. Johns.

Scene continued, Theob.

3. Lord.] 1. F. Cap. 1 Lord. Mal. A Lord. Cam.

8. Lord.] For. Rowe +, Cam. 2. F.

Cap. 2 Lord. Mal.

14. For Text. Notes, see p. 231.

I. JOHNSON: This noisy scene was introduced to fill up an interval which is to represent two hours. [See note on Rosalind's first speech in next Scene.] GERVINUS (p. 388): This is characteristic of idle rural life, where nothing of more importance happens than a slaughtered deer and a song about it. [Gervinus presumes also to call this scene a stop-gap.' It is all very well for Dr Johnson to say that this scene is merely to fill up an interval: from him, we accept all notes and rate them as they deserve, but the learned German should have remembered that 'That in the captain's but a cholerick word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.'-ED.]

2. FLOWER (Memorial Theatre Edition): On the occasion of the first representation of As You Like It in the Memorial Theatre, April 30th, 1879, a fallow deer was carried on the stage by the foresters [in this scene] which had been that morning shot by H. S. Lucy, Esq., of Charlecote Park, out of the herd descended from that upon which Shakespeare is credited with having made a raid in his youth. The deer is now stuffed, and carried on whenever the play is acted in Stratford.

4-7. NEIL: Sir Thomas Elyot, in The Governour, 1531, says, regarding the hunting of red deer and fallow : To them which in this huntynge do showe moste prowess and actyvyty, a garlande or some other lyke token to be given in sign of victory, and with a joyful manner to be broughte in the presence of hym that is chiefe of the company there, to receive condigne prayse for their good endeavour.'-Bk. I, chap. xviii. 12, 13. MALONE: Shakespeare seems to have formed this song on a hint afforded

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[the rest shall beare this burthen]

by Lodge's Rosalynde: What newes, forrester? hast thou wounded some deere, and lost him in the fall? Care not, man, for so small a losse; thy fees was but the skinne, the shoulder, and the horns.'

14. In the arrangement of this Song, Rowe and Pope followed the Folio, and their 'sagacity' in so doing was sarcastically pronounced by Theobald 'admirable.' 'One would expect,' he continues, in a tone which was intended to be very bitter, 'when they were Poets, they would at least have taken care of the Rhymes, and not foisted in what has Nothing to answer it. Now where is the Rhyme to "the rest shall bear this Burthen"? Or, to ask another Question, where is the sense of it? Does the Poet mean that He, that kill'd the Deer, shall be sung home, and the Rest shall bear the Deer on their Backs? This is laying a Burthen on the Poet, which We must help him to throw off. In short, the Mystery of the Whole is, that a Marginal Note is wisely thrust into the Text; the Song being design'd to be sung by a single Voice, and the Stanza's to close with a Burthen to be sung by the whole Company.' And so Theobald printed it. The rest shall bear this burthen' was placed as a stage-direction in the margin; and then to show that he too was a Poet he thus patched and pieced out the lines: Then sing him home: take thou no scorn || To wear the horn, the horn, the horn.' Hanmer, Warburton, and Johnson followed him, except that Hanmer, in line 18, read: 'And thy own father bore it.' JOHNSON reprinted Theobald's note as a specimen,' he said, 'of Mr Theobald's jocularity, and of the eloquence with which he recommends his emendations;' but Johnson adopted Theobald's text nevertheless. CAPELL remodelled the whole Song thus, wherein 'I. V.' and '2. V.' stand for First and Second Voice respectively, and 'both' means both voices:

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1. V. What shall he have, that kill'd the deer?

2. V. His leather skin, and horns to wear.

I. V. Then sing him home:—

both.

Take thou no scorn

to wear the horn, the lusty horn

it was a crest ere thou wast born :-
1. V. Thy father's father wore it;
2. V. And thy father bore it :-
cho.

The horn, the horn, the lusty horn,
is not a thing to laugh to scorn.

Capell suggested that if line 18'should be perfected' we might read: 'Ay and thy father,' &c., or 'Ay and his father bore it,'' meaning his father's father's father; which makes the satire the keener, by extending the blot to another generation.' 'Cho.' means the whole band of foresters, ‘Jaques and all.' However much Steevens might laugh at Capell and his crabbed English, and Dr Johnson say of him, 'Sir, if he had come to me, I'd have endowed his purposes with words,' there can be no doubt that Capell's text had deservedly great influence with both of these two editors in their Variorum editions. (Indeed, it is scarcely too much to say that to Theobald and to Capell, more than to any other two editors, is due the largest share of the purity of Shakespeare's text to-day.) Accordingly, in the Variorum of 1773 the lines of the Song were numbered I and 2, as Capell had numbered them, but the imitation was not carried so

[the rest shall beare this burthen]

far as to add 1. V. or 2. V., and 'The rest shall bear this burthen' was retained in the margin, whereas, as we have seen, Capell omitted it altogether. In the next Variorum, 1778, Capell's reading was silently adopted in line 15: To wear the horn, the lusty horn.' This, however, was rejected by Malone in 1790, and the text of the Folio substantially retained, except that 'The rest,' &c. was inserted as a stage-direction, I. and 2. as given by Capell were adopted, and before the last two lines was prefixed 'All.' This arrangement Steevens followed in his own edition of 1793; and Boswell also in Malone's Variorum of 1821. In the latter edition BOSWELL has the following: In Playford's Musical Companion, 1673, where this is to be found set to music, the words "Then sing him home" are omitted. From this we may suppose that they were not then supposed to form any part of the song itself, but spoken by one of the persons as a direction to the rest to commence the chorus. It should be observed, that in the old copy the words in question, and those which the modern editors have regarded as a stage-direction, are given as one line.' KNIGHT, the next critical editor (Caldecott confessedly followed the Folio), omitted this line (line 14) altogether, lines 12 and 17 were numbered 1, and lines 13 and 18 were numbered 2, and to line 19 was prefixed 'All.' Knight's note is as follows: The music to this "song "' [which is here reprinted from Knight at the end of this note] is from a curious and very rare work, entitled Catch that Catch can; or a Choice Collection of Catches, Rounds, &c., collected and published by John Hilton, Batch. in Musicke, 1652; and is there called a catch, though, as in the case of many other compositions of the kind so denominated, it is a round, having no catch or play upon the words, to give it any claim to the former designation. It is written for four bases, but by transposition for other voices would be rather improved than damaged. John Hilton, one of the best and most active composers of his day, was organist of St Margaret's, Westminster. His name is affixed to one of the madrigals in The Triumphs of Oriana, 1601, previously to which he was admitted, by the University of Cambridge, as a Bachelor in Music. Hence he was of Shakespeare's time, and it is as reasonable to presume as agreeable to believe that a piece of vocal harmony so good and so pleasing, its age considered, formed a part of one of the most delightful of the great poet's dramas. In Hilton's round the brief line, "Then sing him home," is rejected. The omission was unavoidable in a round for four voices, because in a composition of such limit, and so arranged, it was necessary to give one couplet, and neither more nor less, to each part. But it is doubtful whether that line really forms part of the original text, [where it is] printed as one line without any variation of type. Is the whole of the line a stage-direction? "Then sing him home" may be a direction for a stage procession. Mr Oliphant, in his useful and entertaining Musa Madrigalesca, 1837, doubts whether the John Hilton, the author of the Oriana madrigal, could have been the same that subsequently published Catch that Catch can, as well as another work which he names. This is a question into which we shall not enter, our only object being to give such music, as part of Shakespeare's plays, as is supposed to have been originally sung in them, or that may have been introduced in them shortly after their production.' COLLIER agrees with Knight that the whole of line 14 is clearly only a stage-direction, printed by error as a part of the song in the old copies, but instead of omitting it he places it in the margin, and has the following note: "Then sing him home" has reference to the carrying of the lord, who killed the deer, to the Duke; and we are to suppose that the foresters sang as they quitted the stage for their "home" in the wood. "The rest shall bear this burden" alludes to the last six

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lines, which are the burden of the song.' DYCE in his first edition says: Much discussion has arisen whether these words [line 14] are a portion of the song or of the stage-direction. It is a question on which I do not feel myself competent to speak with any positiveness.' Accordingly, Dyce prints the line in the margin, in smaller type merely. In his two later editions he has no note, except the remark that Grant White altered 'Then' to They. GRANT WHITE divided the song into two stanzas of four lines each, and marked them I and II; line 14 appears as a stage-direction with 'Then,' as has just been noted, changed to They. At the end, instead of Exeunt,' he reads: [They bear off the deer, singing.'] In his first edition, after giving his reasons for believing line 14 to be a stage-direction, which are the same as those advanced by preceding editors, he says: "Then sing him home" has reference to Jaques's suggestion to present the successful hunter to the Duke "like a Roman conqueror"; for the song was "for this purpose." That there is an alternation of two lines of solo with two of chorus or burthen, the latter being in both cases lusty lines about the lusty horn, no musician or glee-singer, and it would seem no reader with an ear for rhythm, can entertain a doubt. "Then" in the original stage-direction seems plainly a misprint for they.' STAUNTON prints only 'The rest,' &c. in the margin as a stage-direction. We rather take,' he says, "Then sing him home" to form the burden, and conjecture it ought to be repeated after each couplet.' HALLIWELL says: 'There can be little doubt that the greater part of this song, in fact, the last six lines, was originally intended to be sung in chorus, Jaques being indifferent to the tune, "so it make noise enough," wherefore Halliwell divides line 14 after 'beare,' thus keeping up the rhyme to 'weare'; places This burthen' in a line by itself; and assigns the rest to be sung by the whole company. He claims for this arrangement that it 'seems on the whole more likely to be correct than considering any portion of the line as a stage-direction.' BARRON FIELD (Sh. Soc. Papers, 1847, iii, 135) was the first, I think, to suggest that 'This burthen' should be printed by itself, but then he said it should be in a marginal note, wherein his treatment is slightly different from Halliwell's. He also suggested 'Men sing him home,' instead of 'They.'

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I have thus given all, I think, of the diverse textual arrangements of this song. Subsequent editors have ranged themselves under one or the other leader as best suited their fancy. The majority, however, agree in holding 'Then sing him home' as part of the song, and 'The rest shall beare this burthen' as a stage-direction; which is also the belief of Roffe (p. 12) and of the present ED.

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15. horne] COLERIDGE (p. 108): I question whether there exists a parallel instance of a phrase that, like this of 'horns,' is universal in all languages, and yet for which no one has discovered even a plausible origin.

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