AS YOU LIKE IT - Contextual Question 1
Look at the following passage from the play and answer the questions below:
Jaques. Will you sing?
Amiens. More at your request than to please myself.
Jaques. Well then, if ever I thank any man, I’ll thank you.
But that they call compliment is like th’ encounter of two dog-apes, and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks I have given him a penny and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you that will not, hold your tongues.
Amiens. Well, I’ll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the Duke will drink under this tree. He hath been all this day to look you.
Jaques. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is too disputable for my company. I think of as many matters as he, but I give heaven thanks and make no boast of them. Come, warble, come.
Song.
All together here.
Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i’ th’ sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see no enemy
But winter and rough weather.
Jaques. I’ll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in despite of my invention.
Amiens. And I’ll sing it.
Jaques.
Thus it goes.
If it do come to pass
That any man turn ass,
Leaving his wealth and ease
A stubborn will to please,
Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame.
Here shall he see gross fools as he,
An if he will come to me.
Amiens. What’s that “ducdame”?
Jaques. ‘Tis a Greek invocation to call fools into a circle. I’ll go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I’ll rail against all the first-born of Egypt.
Amiens. And I’ll go seek the Duke. His banquet is prepared. [Exit]
A. Explain concisely in your own words the meaning in their context of the following:
1. When a man thanks me heartily, methinks I have given him a penny and he renders me beggarly thanks.
B. I’ll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in despite of my invention. (line 19)
1. Give a brief account of Jaques’s character to show how typical this scene is of him.
2. Discuss the importance of Amiens’s song and Jaques’s parody of it to the wider themes of the play and compare it to any use of song elsewhere in the play.