As You Like It: Act II, Scene i

As You Like It.         Act 2, Scene 1.      Duke Senior

(This text is featured in our interview with Nick Newlin)

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1. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
2. Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
3. Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
4. More free from peril than the envious court?
5. Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
6. The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
7. And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
8. Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
9. Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
10. ‘This is no flattery: these are counsellors
11. That feelingly persuade me what I am.’
12. Sweet are the uses of adversity,
13. Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
14. Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
15. And this our life exempt from public haunt
16. Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
17. Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
18. I would not change it.