Page 1923 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Or with a base and boist’rous sword enforce
A thievish living on the common road?
This I must do, or know not what to do;
Yet this I will not do, do how I can. [35]

I rather will subject me to the malice
Of a diverted blood and bloody brother.

ADAM
But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,
The thrifty hire I sav’d under your father,

Which I did store to be my foster-nurse, [40]
When service should in my old limbs lie lame,
And unregarded age in corners thrown.
Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea providently caters for the sparrow,

Be comfort to my age. Here is the gold, [45]
All this I give you. Let me be your servant.
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;

For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo [50]
The means of weakness and debility.
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,

Frosty, but kindly. Let me go with you,
I’ll do the service of a younger man
In all your business and necessities. [55]

ORLANDO
O good old man, how well in thee appears

The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed.
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion, [60]

And having that, do choke their service up
Even with the having; it is not so with thee.
But poor old man, thou prun’st a rotten tree,
That cannot so much as a blossom yield,

In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry. [65]