Page 1936 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

JAQUES

And you will not be answered with reason, I must die.

DUKE SENIOR
What would you have? Your gentleness shall force,
More than your force move us to gentleness.

ORLANDO
I almost die for food, and let me have it. [105]

DUKE SENIOR
Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.

ORLANDO

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 [110]
That in this desert inaccessible

Under the shade 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; [115]
If ever sat at any good man’s feast;
If ever from your eyelids 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. [120]

DUKE SENIOR
True is it that we have seen better days,
And have with holy bell been knoll’d to church,
And sat at good men’s feasts, and wip’d our eyes

Of drops that sacred pity hath engender’d;
And therefore sit you down in gentleness, [125]
And take upon command what help we have
That to your wanting may be minister’d.