8

As You Don’t Like It

and Propr found himself in the forest of Arden, among exiled kings and their courtiers, among lovers and melancholy scholars. And among them he was a farmer.

The women were beautiful and scented the air with wit. The men were exiled but mostly happy. They were all happy except him. And one of the exiled kings came up to him and said:

‘My dear Propr, you do not like happiness, you are suspicious of pleasures, you think leisure a waste of time, and you frown on us kings who are exiled and ought to be miserable and yet we seem to be happier than we ever were in our carefree youth. But being a king is not everything. Being human is. The days on this earth are but the shortening shadow of the elm when night dissolves it into darkness, wherein no man can see without aid of light. Those who walk their days on the earth but never sing, never laugh, never caper, are but those who have lived with their feet only, but not their hearts. For life is part walking, part singing. It is a walking part, a walk-on role. And remember that the great poet Virgil said: ‘Singing makes the going easier’. We are happy here in the forest of Arden, living under the branches and the stars, rediscovering the pleasures of comradeship and wine, learning how to be free again without grandeur. And when we recover our kingdom again, which we will, we might be better kings for having been happier, and the land will be better too. You are like us. You are a king disguised as a farmer. But when you frown you make your animals nervous. Free your moustache, and laugh a little. They say that laughter makes death wait for another day. You see, my dear grim Propr, Arden is the school where nature teaches us simplicity. Join us in our revels, for we will not be here long, and then the walking continues all the way to the famous tomb that speaks in Latin.’

And Propr lowered his moustache and smiled and danced through the night with the exiled kings in his beloved forest of Arden.