Act 2, Scene 1

The Forest of Arden.

[Enter DUKE Senior, AMIENS, and other LORDS, in the dress of foresters.]
Duke Senior
519 Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
520 Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
521 Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
522 More free from peril than the envious court?
523 Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,—
524 The seasons' difference: as the icy fang
525 And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
526 Which when it bites and blows upon my body,
527 Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say,
528 'This is no flattery: these are counsellors
529 That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
530 Sweet are the uses of adversity;
531 Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
532 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
533 And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
534 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
535 Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
536 I would not change it.
Amiens
537 Happy is your grace,
538 That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
539 Into so quiet and so sweet a style.
Duke Senior
540 Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
541 And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools,
542 Being native burghers of this desert city,
543 Should, in their own confines, with forked heads
544 Have their round haunches gor'd.
First Lord
545 Indeed, my lord,
546 The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;
547 And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp
548 Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.
549 To-day my lord of Amiens and myself
550 Did steal behind him as he lay along
551 Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
552 Upon the brook that brawls along this wood:
553 To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,
554 That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
555 Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord,
556 The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans,
557 That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
558 Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
559 Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
560 In piteous chase: and thus the hairy fool,
561 Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
562 Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
563 Augmenting it with tears.
Duke Senior
564 But what said Jaques?
565 Did he not moralize this spectacle?
First Lord
566 O, yes, into a thousand similes.
567 First, for his weeping into the needless stream;
568 'Poor deer,' quoth he 'thou mak'st a testament
569 As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
570 To that which had too much:' then, being there alone,
571 Left and abandoned of his velvet friends;
572 ''Tis right'; quoth he; 'thus misery doth part
573 The flux of company:' anon, a careless herd,
574 Full of the pasture, jumps along by him
575 And never stays to greet him; 'Ay,' quoth Jaques,
576 'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
577 'Tis just the fashion; wherefore do you look
578 Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?'
579 Thus most invectively he pierceth through
580 The body of the country, city, court,
581 Yea, and of this our life: swearing that we
582 Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what's worse,
583 To fright the animals, and to kill them up
584 In their assign'd and native dwelling-place.
Duke Senior
585 And did you leave him in this contemplation?
Second Lord
586 We did, my lord, weeping and commenting
587 Upon the sobbing deer.
Duke Senior
588 Show me the place:
589 I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
590 For then he's full of matter.
First Lord
591 I'll bring you to him straight.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 523biblical allusion
“the penalty of Adam, — The seasons' difference”
Duke Senior alludes to the curse God pronounces on Adam after the Fall: expelled from Eden, Adam must toil in a world of painful seasons and hard labor (Genesis 3:17-19). The Duke's point is wry -- he says the forest's biting cold is not the penalty of Adam but actually welcome, because unlike a flattering court it tells him the truth about his condition.
classical The Golden Age
TLN 531cultural context
“like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head”
Duke Senior draws on the widespread Elizabethan belief that the toad -- thought to be poisonous -- carried a gemstone called a 'toadstone' in its head, which had protective and medicinal powers. The paradox (something loathsome concealing something precious) is his image for adversity: painful on the outside, valuable within.
TLN 541archaic vocab
“poor dappled fools, Being native burghers of this desert city”
Two archaic words compress Duke Senior's unease about hunting. 'Burghers' (from Dutch burger) means citizens or freeholders -- the deer are the rightful inhabitants of this forest, not outsiders. 'Desert' here means deserted or uninhabited (a wilderness), not a sandy waste. Together the phrase casts the deer as lawful townspeople of a wild place the exiles have moved into uninvited.
TLN 543archaic vocab
“with forked heads Have their round haunches gor'd”
'Forked heads' are barbed or forked arrowheads -- the kind that tear flesh on the way out and cannot be cleanly withdrawn. The word 'gor'd' means pierced or stabbed (from the same root as 'gore,' congealed blood). Duke Senior is picturing the deer wounded by broadhead hunting arrows in the buttocks as they flee.
TLN 546historical topical
“The melancholy Jaques grieves at that; And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp Than doth your brother”
This is the play's first mention of Jaques, and 'melancholy' is his defining label from the start. 'Melancholy' in Elizabethan usage was not just sadness but a recognized temperamental type: a person dominated by black bile (one of the four bodily humours), prone to brooding, sharp social criticism, and fashionable gloom. Jaques immediately turns the hunters' pastime into a moral indictment -- the exiles are 'usurpers' of the deer's habitat, worse than the political usurper who banished them.
historical Melancholy and the malcontent
TLN 568biblical allusion
“thou mak'st a testament As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more To that which had too much”
Jaques compares the wounded deer weeping into the stream to a rich man leaving his money to someone already wealthy -- 'giving thy sum of more to that which had too much.' 'Worldlings' means people absorbed in worldly wealth. The image echoes the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:29): 'For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance.' Jaques turns it into a bitter commentary on how the fortunate get more and the wretched are abandoned.
TLN 571wordplay
“Left and abandoned of his velvet friends; ''Tis right'; quoth he; 'thus misery doth part The flux of company'”
Jaques calls the deer's companions 'velvet friends' -- a biting double pun. Deer have a velvet-soft coat, but 'velvet' also signals expensive, soft courtly fabric and the smooth manners of those who flatter the powerful and desert them in misfortune. 'The flux of company' means the unstable, flowing crowd of fair-weather companions. The dying deer, deserted by the herd, becomes a figure for any disgraced person abandoned by those who once attended him.