t ways that led through
the vineyards, stole away privily through the province of Bordeaux,
and escaped safe to the forest of Arden. Being come thither, they were
glad they had so good a harbor: but fortune, who is like the
chameleon, variable with every object, and constant in nothing but
inconstancy, thought to make them mirrors of her mutability, and
therefore still crossed them thus contrarily. Thinking still to pass
on by the by-ways to get to Lyons, they chanced on a path that led
into the thick of the forest, where they wandered five or six days
without meat, that they were almost famished finding neither shepherd
nor cottage to relieve them; and hunger growing on so extreme, Adam
Spencer, being old, began first to faint, and sitting him down on a
hill, and looking about him, espied where Rosader lay as feeble and as
ill perplexed: which sight made him shed tears, and to fall into these
bitter terms:

[Footnote 1: crowd.]

ADAM SPENCER'S SPEECH

"Oh, how the life of man may well be compared to the state of the
ocean seas, that for every calm hath a thousand storms, resembling the
rose tree, that for a few fair flowers hath a multitude of sharp
prickles! All our pleasures end in pain, and our highest delights are
crossed with deepest discontents. The joys of man, as they are few, so
are they momentary, scarce ripe before they are rotten, and withering
in the blossom, either parched with the heat of envy or fortune.
Fortune, O inconstant friend, that in all thy deeds art froward and
fickle, delighting, in the poverty of the lowest and the overthrow of
the highest, to decipher thy inconstancy. Thou standest upon a globe,
and thy wings are plumed with Time's feathers, that thou mayest ever
be restless: thou art double-faced like Janus, carrying frowns in the
one to threaten, and smiles in the other to betray: thou profferest an
eel, and performest a scorpion, and where thy greatest favors be,
there is the fear of the extremest misfortunes, so variable are all
thy actions. But why, Adam, dost thou exclaim against Fortune? She
laughs at the plaints of the distressed, and there is nothing more
pleasing unto her, than to hear fools boast in her fading allurements,
or sorrowful men to discover the sour of their passions. Glut her not,
Adam, then with content, but thwart her with brooking all mishaps with
patience. For there is no greater check to the pride of Fortune, than
with a resolute courage to pass over her cros