Читать книгу The Complete Works of Shakespeare онлайн

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And looking on it, with lack-lustre eye,

Says very wisely, “It is ten a’ clock.

Thus we may see,” quoth he, “how the world wags.

’Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,

And after one hour more ’twill be eleven,

And so from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,

And then from hour to hour, we rot and rot;

And thereby hangs a tale.” When I did hear

The motley fool thus moral on the time,

My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,

That fools should be so deep contemplative;

And I did laugh sans intermission

An hour by his dial. O noble fool!

A worthy fool! Motley’s the only wear.

Duke S.

What fool is this?

Jaq.

O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier,

And says, if ladies be but young and fair,

They have the gift to know it; and in his brain,

Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit

After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm’d

With observation, the which he vents

In mangled forms. O that I were a fool!

I am ambitious for a motley coat.

Duke S.

Thou shalt have one.

Jaq.

It is my only suit—