The Wounded Deer 
weeping into the needless stream ; 
‘Poor deer,’ quoth he, ‘ thou makest a testament 
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more 
To that which had too much;’ then, being there alone, 
Left and abandon’d of his velvet friends ; 
‘Tis right,’ quoth he; ‘thus misery doth part 
The flux of company :’ anon, a careless herd, 
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him 
And never stays to greet him; ‘ Ay,’ quoth Jaques, 
“Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens ; 
Tis just the fashion : wherefore do you look 
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there ?’ 
Thus most invectively he pierceth through 
The body of the country, city, court, 
Yea, and of this our life ; swearing that we 
Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what’s worse, 
To fright the animals and to kill them up 
In their assign’d and native dwelling-place.4 
More detailed and even more full of 
commiseration is the poet’s vivid descrip- 
tion of the hunting of “the purblind 
hare.” 
1y1.1. 46. The dramatist may perhaps have been thinking 
of this scene when he afterwards put into Hamlet’s mouth 
a reiteration of the same view of the indifference of the 
crowd : 7 
Why, let the stricken deer go weep, 
The hart ungalled play, 
For some must watch, while some must sleep : 
Thus runs the world away. 
Hamlet, u1. ii. 265. 
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