As You Like It: Act 4, Scene 2



           Enter JAQUES, Lords, and Foresters.

      JAQUES
  1   Which is he that killed the deer?

      [First] Lord
  2   Sir, it was I.

      JAQUES
3-4. like a Roman conqueror: i.e., in a triumphal procession.
4-5. it . . . branch of victory: Jacques is making a joke; wearing horns was a sign that a man was a cuckold.
  3   Let's present him to the duke, like a Roman
  4   conqueror; and it would do well to set the deer's
  5   horns upon his head, for a branch of victory. Have
  6   you no song, forester, for this purpose?

      [Second] Lord
  7   Yes, sir.

      JAQUES
8. 'tis no matter how it be in tune: i.e., it doesn't matter whether it's good or bad music.
  8   Sing it: 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it
  9   make noise enough.

           Music.

                     SONG

      [Second] Lord
 10        What shall he have that kill'd the deer?
 11        His leather skin and horns to wear.
 12                  Then sing him home;

The rest shall bear this burden: i.e., everybody sing the chorus!
13. Take thou no scorn to wear the horn: do not disdain to wear the horn. —At this point the song becomes a good-natured satire in which it is asserted that every married man wears the horns of a cuckold. 14. crest: heraldic device.
           The rest shall bear this burden.

 13        Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;
 14        It was a crest ere thou wast born:
 15                  Thy father's father wore it,
 16                  And thy father bore it:
 17        The horn, the horn, the lusty horn
 18        Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.

           Exeunt.



As You Like It, Act 4, Scene 2
by
Frederick William Davis