Sweet Adversity

BrBrBrBs a cappella (Also available in other voicings.)

Duration 3:30

Text from As You Like It by William Shakespeare

Notes

Ah, we are in The Time of Covid, and don’t we all love it. This is a text that my wife suggested to me. It is when the Duke has been banished to the Forest of Arden. We thought it was very applicable to our time in 2020. Since I couldn’t do it with a live choir, I set it for “four of me” to record on YouTube. Although set for baritone and bass. I could easily reset it for treble or mixed voices.

Text

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ 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,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

I would not change it.