"
The banished duke is seeking to bring his courtiers to regard their
exile as a part of their moral training. I am aware that I point the
passage differently, while I revert to the old text.
"Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we not the penalty of Adam--
The season's difference, as the icy fang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind?
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say--
This is no flattery; these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity."
The line _Here feel we not the penalty of Adam?_ has given rise to much
perplexity. The expounders of Shakspere do not believe he can mean that
the uses of adversity are really sweet. But the duke sees that _the
penalty_ of Adam is what makes the _woods more free from peril than the
envious court;_ that this penalty is in fact the best blessing, for it
_feelingly persuades_ man _what_ he is; and to know what we are, to have
no false judgments of ourselves, he considers so sweet, that to be thus
taught, the _churlish chiding of the winter's wind_ is well endured.
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