7 DUKE SENIOR living in banishment.
9 DUKE FREDERICK his brother, an usurper of his dominions.
13 | lords attending on the banished duke.
17 LE BEAU a courtier attending upon Frederick.
19 CHARLES wrestler to Frederick.
24 JAQUES (JAQUES DE BOYS:) | sons of Sir Rowland de Boys.
36 SIR OLIVER MARTEXT a vicar.
44 WILLIAM a country fellow in love with Audrey.
46 A person representing HYMEN. (HYMEN:)
48 ROSALIND daughter to the banished duke.
50 CELIA daughter to Frederick.
54 AUDREY a country wench.
56 Lords, pages, and attendants, &c.
65 SCENE Oliver's house; Duke Frederick's court; and the
78 SCENE I Orchard of Oliver's house.
81 [Enter ORLANDO and ADAM]
83 ORLANDO As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion
84 bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns,
85 and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his
86 blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my
87 sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and
88 report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part,
89 he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more
90 properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you
91 that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that
92 differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses
93 are bred better; for, besides that they are fair
94 with their feeding, they are taught their manage,
95 and to that end riders dearly hired: but I, his
96 brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for the
97 which his animals on his dunghills are as much
98 bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so
99 plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave
100 me his countenance seems to take from me: he lets
101 me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a
102 brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my
103 gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that
104 grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I
105 think is within me, begins to mutiny against this
106 servitude: I will no longer endure it, though yet I
107 know no wise remedy how to avoid it.
109 ADAM Yonder comes my master, your brother.
111 ORLANDO Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will
116 OLIVER Now, sir! what make you here?
118 ORLANDO Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing.
120 OLIVER What mar you then, sir?
122 ORLANDO Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God
123 made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.
125 OLIVER Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile.
127 ORLANDO Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them?
128 What prodigal portion have I spent, that I should
131 OLIVER Know you where your are, sir?
133 ORLANDO O, sir, very well; here in your orchard.
135 OLIVER Know you before whom, sir?
137 ORLANDO Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know
138 you are my eldest brother; and, in the gentle
139 condition of blood, you should so know me. The
140 courtesy of nations allows you my better, in that
141 you are the first-born; but the same tradition
142 takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers
143 betwixt us: I have as much of my father in me as
144 you; albeit, I confess, your coming before me is
145 nearer to his reverence.
149 ORLANDO Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.
151 OLIVER Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?
153 ORLANDO I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir
154 Rowland de Boys; he was my father, and he is thrice
155 a villain that says such a father begot villains.
156 Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand
157 from thy throat till this other had pulled out thy
158 tongue for saying so: thou hast railed on thyself.
160 ADAM Sweet masters, be patient: for your father's
161 remembrance, be at accord.
163 OLIVER Let me go, I say.
165 ORLANDO I will not, till I please: you shall hear me. My
166 father charged you in his will to give me good
167 education: you have trained me like a peasant,
168 obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like
169 qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in
170 me, and I will no longer endure it: therefore allow
171 me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or
172 give me the poor allottery my father left me by
173 testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes.
175 OLIVER And what wilt thou do? beg, when that is spent?
176 Well, sir, get you in: I will not long be troubled
177 with you; you shall have some part of your will: I
180 ORLANDO I will no further offend you than becomes me for my good.
182 OLIVER Get you with him, you old dog.
184 ADAM Is 'old dog' my reward? Most true, I have lost my
185 teeth in your service. God be with my old master!
186 he would not have spoke such a word.
188 [Exeunt ORLANDO and ADAM]
190 OLIVER Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I will
191 physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand
192 crowns neither. Holla, Dennis!
196 DENNIS Calls your worship?
198 OLIVER Was not Charles, the duke's wrestler, here to speak with me?
200 DENNIS So please you, he is here at the door and importunes
207 'Twill be a good way; and to-morrow the wrestling is.
211 CHARLES Good morrow to your worship.
213 OLIVER Good Monsieur Charles, what's the new news at the
216 CHARLES There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news:
217 that is, the old duke is banished by his younger
218 brother the new duke; and three or four loving lords
219 have put themselves into voluntary exile with him,
220 whose lands and revenues enrich the new duke;
221 therefore he gives them good leave to wander.
223 OLIVER Can you tell if Rosalind, the duke's daughter, be
224 banished with her father?
226 CHARLES O, no; for the duke's daughter, her cousin, so loves
227 her, being ever from their cradles bred together,
228 that she would have followed her exile, or have died
229 to stay behind her. She is at the court, and no
230 less beloved of her uncle than his own daughter; and
231 never two ladies loved as they do.
233 OLIVER Where will the old duke live?
235 CHARLES They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and
236 a many merry men with him; and there they live like
237 the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young
238 gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time
239 carelessly, as they did in the golden world.
241 OLIVER What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new duke?
243 CHARLES Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a
244 matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand
245 that your younger brother Orlando hath a disposition
246 to come in disguised against me to try a fall.
247 To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit; and he that
248 escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him
249 well. Your brother is but young and tender; and,
250 for your love, I would be loath to foil him, as I
251 must, for my own honour, if he come in: therefore,
252 out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint you
253 withal, that either you might stay him from his
254 intendment or brook such disgrace well as he shall
255 run into, in that it is a thing of his own search
256 and altogether against my will.
258 OLIVER Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which
259 thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. I had
260 myself notice of my brother's purpose herein and
261 have by underhand means laboured to dissuade him from
262 it, but he is resolute. I'll tell thee, Charles:
263 it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full
264 of ambition, an envious emulator of every man's
265 good parts, a secret and villanous contriver against
266 me his natural brother: therefore use thy
267 discretion; I had as lief thou didst break his neck
268 as his finger. And thou wert best look to't; for if
269 thou dost him any slight disgrace or if he do not
270 mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise
271 against thee by poison, entrap thee by some
272 treacherous device and never leave thee till he
273 hath ta'en thy life by some indirect means or other;
274 for, I assure thee, and almost with tears I speak
275 it, there is not one so young and so villanous this
276 day living. I speak but brotherly of him; but
277 should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I must
278 blush and weep and thou must look pale and wonder.
280 CHARLES I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come
281 to-morrow, I'll give him his payment: if ever he go
282 alone again, I'll never wrestle for prize more: and
283 so God keep your worship!
285 OLIVER Farewell, good Charles.
289 Now will I stir this gamester: I hope I shall see
290 an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why,
291 hates nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle, never
292 schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of
293 all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much
294 in the heart of the world, and especially of my own
295 people, who best know him, that I am altogether
296 misprised: but it shall not be so long; this
297 wrestler shall clear all: nothing remains but that
298 I kindle the boy thither; which now I'll go about.
312 SCENE II Lawn before the Duke's palace.
315 [Enter CELIA and ROSALIND]
317 CELIA I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.
319 ROSALIND Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of;
320 and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could
321 teach me to forget a banished father, you must not
322 learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.
324 CELIA Herein I see thou lovest me not with the full weight
325 that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father,
326 had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, so thou
327 hadst been still with me, I could have taught my
328 love to take thy father for mine: so wouldst thou,
329 if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously
330 tempered as mine is to thee.
332 ROSALIND Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to
335 CELIA You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is
336 like to have: and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt
337 be his heir, for what he hath taken away from thy
338 father perforce, I will render thee again in
339 affection; by mine honour, I will; and when I break
340 that oath, let me turn monster: therefore, my
341 sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.
343 ROSALIND From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let
344 me see; what think you of falling in love?
346 CELIA Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal: but
347 love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport
348 neither than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst
349 in honour come off again.
351 ROSALIND What shall be our sport, then?
353 CELIA Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from
354 her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.
356 ROSALIND I would we could do so, for her benefits are
357 mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman
358 doth most mistake in her gifts to women.
360 CELIA 'Tis true; for those that she makes fair she scarce
361 makes honest, and those that she makes honest she
362 makes very ill-favouredly.
364 ROSALIND Nay, now thou goest from Fortune's office to
365 Nature's: Fortune reigns in gifts of the world,
366 not in the lineaments of Nature.
370 CELIA No? when Nature hath made a fair creature, may she
371 not by Fortune fall into the fire? Though Nature
372 hath given us wit to flout at Fortune, hath not
373 Fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument?
375 ROSALIND Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when
376 Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of
379 CELIA Peradventure this is not Fortune's work neither, but
380 Nature's; who perceiveth our natural wits too dull
381 to reason of such goddesses and hath sent this
382 natural for our whetstone; for always the dulness of
383 the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How now,
384 wit! whither wander you?
386 TOUCHSTONE Mistress, you must come away to your father.
388 CELIA Were you made the messenger?
390 TOUCHSTONE No, by mine honour, but I was bid to come for you.
392 ROSALIND Where learned you that oath, fool?
394 TOUCHSTONE Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they
395 were good pancakes and swore by his honour the
396 mustard was naught: now I'll stand to it, the
397 pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and
398 yet was not the knight forsworn.
400 CELIA How prove you that, in the great heap of your
403 ROSALIND Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.
405 TOUCHSTONE Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and
406 swear by your beards that I am a knave.
408 CELIA By our beards, if we had them, thou art.
410 TOUCHSTONE By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you
411 swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no
412 more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he
413 never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away
414 before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.
416 CELIA Prithee, who is't that thou meanest?
418 TOUCHSTONE One that old Frederick, your father, loves.
420 CELIA My father's love is enough to honour him: enough!
421 speak no more of him; you'll be whipped for taxation
424 TOUCHSTONE The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what
425 wise men do foolishly.
427 CELIA By my troth, thou sayest true; for since the little
428 wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery
429 that wise men have makes a great show. Here comes
432 ROSALIND With his mouth full of news.
434 CELIA Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.
436 ROSALIND Then shall we be news-crammed.
438 CELIA All the better; we shall be the more marketable.
442 Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: what's the news?
444 LE BEAU Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.
446 CELIA Sport! of what colour?
448 LE BEAU What colour, madam! how shall I answer you?
450 ROSALIND As wit and fortune will.
452 TOUCHSTONE Or as the Destinies decree.
454 CELIA Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.
456 TOUCHSTONE Nay, if I keep not my rank,--
458 ROSALIND Thou losest thy old smell.
460 LE BEAU You amaze me, ladies: I would have told you of good
461 wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.
463 ROSALIND You tell us the manner of the wrestling.
465 LE BEAU I will tell you the beginning; and, if it please
466 your ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is
467 yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming
470 CELIA Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried.
472 LE BEAU There comes an old man and his three sons,--
474 CELIA I could match this beginning with an old tale.
476 LE BEAU Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence.
478 ROSALIND With bills on their necks, 'Be it known unto all men
481 LE BEAU The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the
482 duke's wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him
483 and broke three of his ribs, that there is little
484 hope of life in him: so he served the second, and
485 so the third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man,
486 their father, making such pitiful dole over them
487 that all the beholders take his part with weeping.
491 TOUCHSTONE But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies
494 LE BEAU Why, this that I speak of.
496 TOUCHSTONE Thus men may grow wiser every day: it is the first
497 time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport
500 CELIA Or I, I promise thee.
502 ROSALIND But is there any else longs to see this broken music
503 in his sides? is there yet another dotes upon
504 rib-breaking? Shall we see this wrestling, cousin?
506 LE BEAU You must, if you stay here; for here is the place
507 appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to
510 CELIA Yonder, sure, they are coming: let us now stay and see it.
512 [Flourish. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, ORLANDO,
513 CHARLES, and Attendants]
515 DUKE FREDERICK Come on: since the youth will not be entreated, his
516 own peril on his forwardness.
518 ROSALIND Is yonder the man?
520 LE BEAU Even he, madam.
522 CELIA Alas, he is too young! yet he looks successfully.
524 DUKE FREDERICK How now, daughter and cousin! are you crept hither
525 to see the wrestling?
527 ROSALIND Ay, my liege, so please you give us leave.
529 DUKE FREDERICK You will take little delight in it, I can tell you;
530 there is such odds in the man. In pity of the
531 challenger's youth I would fain dissuade him, but he
532 will not be entreated. Speak to him, ladies; see if
535 CELIA Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau.
537 DUKE FREDERICK Do so: I'll not be by.
539 LE BEAU Monsieur the challenger, the princesses call for you.
541 ORLANDO I attend them with all respect and duty.
543 ROSALIND Young man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler?
545 ORLANDO No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I
546 come but in, as others do, to try with him the
547 strength of my youth.
549 CELIA Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your
550 years. You have seen cruel proof of this man's
551 strength: if you saw yourself with your eyes or
552 knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your
553 adventure would counsel you to a more equal
554 enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to
555 embrace your own safety and give over this attempt.
557 ROSALIND Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore
558 be misprised: we will make it our suit to the duke
559 that the wrestling might not go forward.
561 ORLANDO I beseech you, punish me not with your hard
562 thoughts; wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny
563 so fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let
564 your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my
565 trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one
566 shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one
567 dead that was willing to be so: I shall do my
568 friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me, the
569 world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in
570 the world I fill up a place, which may be better
571 supplied when I have made it empty.
573 ROSALIND The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.
575 CELIA And mine, to eke out hers.
577 ROSALIND Fare you well: pray heaven I be deceived in you!
579 CELIA Your heart's desires be with you!
581 CHARLES Come, where is this young gallant that is so
582 desirous to lie with his mother earth?
584 ORLANDO Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working.
586 DUKE FREDERICK You shall try but one fall.
588 CHARLES No, I warrant your grace, you shall not entreat him
589 to a second, that have so mightily persuaded him
592 ORLANDO An you mean to mock me after, you should not have
593 mocked me before: but come your ways.
595 ROSALIND Now Hercules be thy speed, young man!
597 CELIA I would I were invisible, to catch the strong
602 ROSALIND O excellent young man!
604 CELIA If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who
607 [Shout. CHARLES is thrown]
609 DUKE FREDERICK No more, no more.
611 ORLANDO Yes, I beseech your grace: I am not yet well breathed.
613 DUKE FREDERICK How dost thou, Charles?
615 LE BEAU He cannot speak, my lord.
617 DUKE FREDERICK Bear him away. What is thy name, young man?
619 ORLANDO Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys.
621 DUKE FREDERICK I would thou hadst been son to some man else:
622 The world esteem'd thy father honourable,
623 But I did find him still mine enemy:
624 Thou shouldst have better pleased me with this deed,
625 Hadst thou descended from another house.
626 But fare thee well; thou art a gallant youth:
627 I would thou hadst told me of another father.
629 [Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK, train, and LE BEAU]
631 CELIA Were I my father, coz, would I do this?
633 ORLANDO I am more proud to be Sir Rowland's son,
634 His youngest son; and would not change that calling,
635 To be adopted heir to Frederick.
637 ROSALIND My father loved Sir Rowland as his soul,
638 And all the world was of my father's mind:
639 Had I before known this young man his son,
640 I should have given him tears unto entreaties,
641 Ere he should thus have ventured.
644 Let us go thank him and encourage him:
645 My father's rough and envious disposition
646 Sticks me at heart. Sir, you have well deserved:
647 If you do keep your promises in love
648 But justly, as you have exceeded all promise,
649 Your mistress shall be happy.
653 [Giving him a chain from her neck]
655 Wear this for me, one out of suits with fortune,
656 That could give more, but that her hand lacks means.
659 CELIA Ay. Fare you well, fair gentleman.
661 ORLANDO Can I not say, I thank you? My better parts
662 Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up
663 Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block.
665 ROSALIND He calls us back: my pride fell with my fortunes;
666 I'll ask him what he would. Did you call, sir?
667 Sir, you have wrestled well and overthrown
668 More than your enemies.
670 CELIA Will you go, coz?
672 ROSALIND Have with you. Fare you well.
674 [Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA]
676 ORLANDO What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?
677 I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference.
678 O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown!
679 Or Charles or something weaker masters thee.
683 LE BEAU Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you
684 To leave this place. Albeit you have deserved
685 High commendation, true applause and love,
686 Yet such is now the duke's condition
687 That he misconstrues all that you have done.
688 The duke is humorous; what he is indeed,
689 More suits you to conceive than I to speak of.
691 ORLANDO I thank you, sir: and, pray you, tell me this:
692 Which of the two was daughter of the duke
693 That here was at the wrestling?
695 LE BEAU Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners;
696 But yet indeed the lesser is his daughter
697 The other is daughter to the banish'd duke,
698 And here detain'd by her usurping uncle,
699 To keep his daughter company; whose loves
700 Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters.
701 But I can tell you that of late this duke
702 Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece,
703 Grounded upon no other argument
704 But that the people praise her for her virtues
705 And pity her for her good father's sake;
706 And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady
707 Will suddenly break forth. Sir, fare you well:
708 Hereafter, in a better world than this,
709 I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.
711 ORLANDO I rest much bounden to you: fare you well.
715 Thus must I from the smoke into the smother;
716 From tyrant duke unto a tyrant brother:
717 But heavenly Rosalind!
731 SCENE III A room in the palace.
734 [Enter CELIA and ROSALIND]
736 CELIA Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! not a word?
738 ROSALIND Not one to throw at a dog.
740 CELIA No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon
741 curs; throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.
743 ROSALIND Then there were two cousins laid up; when the one
744 should be lamed with reasons and the other mad
747 CELIA But is all this for your father?
749 ROSALIND No, some of it is for my child's father. O, how
750 full of briers is this working-day world!
752 CELIA They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in
753 holiday foolery: if we walk not in the trodden
754 paths our very petticoats will catch them.
756 ROSALIND I could shake them off my coat: these burs are in my heart.
760 ROSALIND I would try, if I could cry 'hem' and have him.
762 CELIA Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.
764 ROSALIND O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself!
766 CELIA O, a good wish upon you! you will try in time, in
767 despite of a fall. But, turning these jests out of
768 service, let us talk in good earnest: is it
769 possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so
770 strong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest son?
772 ROSALIND The duke my father loved his father dearly.
774 CELIA Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son
775 dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him,
776 for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate
779 ROSALIND No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.
781 CELIA Why should I not? doth he not deserve well?
783 ROSALIND Let me love him for that, and do you love him
784 because I do. Look, here comes the duke.
786 CELIA With his eyes full of anger.
788 [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords]
790 DUKE FREDERICK Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste
791 And get you from our court.
795 DUKE FREDERICK You, cousin
796 Within these ten days if that thou be'st found
797 So near our public court as twenty miles,
800 ROSALIND I do beseech your grace,
801 Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me:
802 If with myself I hold intelligence
803 Or have acquaintance with mine own desires,
804 If that I do not dream or be not frantic,--
805 As I do trust I am not--then, dear uncle,
806 Never so much as in a thought unborn
807 Did I offend your highness.
809 DUKE FREDERICK Thus do all traitors:
810 If their purgation did consist in words,
811 They are as innocent as grace itself:
812 Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.
814 ROSALIND Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor:
815 Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.
817 DUKE FREDERICK Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough.
819 ROSALIND So was I when your highness took his dukedom;
820 So was I when your highness banish'd him:
821 Treason is not inherited, my lord;
822 Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
823 What's that to me? my father was no traitor:
824 Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
825 To think my poverty is treacherous.
827 CELIA Dear sovereign, hear me speak.
829 DUKE FREDERICK Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake,
830 Else had she with her father ranged along.
832 CELIA I did not then entreat to have her stay;
833 It was your pleasure and your own remorse:
834 I was too young that time to value her;
835 But now I know her: if she be a traitor,
836 Why so am I; we still have slept together,
837 Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together,
838 And wheresoever we went, like Juno's swans,
839 Still we went coupled and inseparable.
841 DUKE FREDERICK She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,
842 Her very silence and her patience
843 Speak to the people, and they pity her.
844 Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name;
845 And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
846 When she is gone. Then open not thy lips:
847 Firm and irrevocable is my doom
848 Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd.
850 CELIA Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege:
851 I cannot live out of her company.
853 DUKE FREDERICK You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself:
854 If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,
855 And in the greatness of my word, you die.
857 [Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK and Lords]
859 CELIA O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go?
860 Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
861 I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.
863 ROSALIND I have more cause.
865 CELIA Thou hast not, cousin;
866 Prithee be cheerful: know'st thou not, the duke
867 Hath banish'd me, his daughter?
869 ROSALIND That he hath not.
871 CELIA No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love
872 Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one:
873 Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl?
874 No: let my father seek another heir.
875 Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
876 Whither to go and what to bear with us;
877 And do not seek to take your change upon you,
878 To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out;
879 For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
880 Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.
882 ROSALIND Why, whither shall we go?
884 CELIA To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden.
886 ROSALIND Alas, what danger will it be to us,
887 Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
888 Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
890 CELIA I'll put myself in poor and mean attire
891 And with a kind of umber smirch my face;
892 The like do you: so shall we pass along
893 And never stir assailants.
895 ROSALIND Were it not better,
896 Because that I am more than common tall,
897 That I did suit me all points like a man?
898 A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
899 A boar-spear in my hand; and--in my heart
900 Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will--
901 We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,
902 As many other mannish cowards have
903 That do outface it with their semblances.
905 CELIA What shall I call thee when thou art a man?
907 ROSALIND I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page;
908 And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
909 But what will you be call'd?
911 CELIA Something that hath a reference to my state
912 No longer Celia, but Aliena.
914 ROSALIND But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal
915 The clownish fool out of your father's court?
916 Would he not be a comfort to our travel?
918 CELIA He'll go along o'er the wide world with me;
919 Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away,
920 And get our jewels and our wealth together,
921 Devise the fittest time and safest way
922 To hide us from pursuit that will be made
923 After my flight. Now go we in content
924 To liberty and not to banishment.
938 SCENE I The Forest of Arden.
941 [Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three Lords,
944 DUKE SENIOR Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
945 Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
946 Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
947 More free from peril than the envious court?
948 Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
949 The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
950 And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
951 Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
952 Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
953 'This is no flattery: these are counsellors
954 That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
955 Sweet are the uses of adversity,
956 Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
957 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
958 And this our life exempt from public haunt
959 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
960 Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
961 I would not change it.
963 AMIENS Happy is your grace,
964 That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
965 Into so quiet and so sweet a style.
967 DUKE SENIOR Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
968 And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
969 Being native burghers of this desert city,
970 Should in their own confines with forked heads
971 Have their round haunches gored.
973 First Lord Indeed, my lord,
974 The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,
975 And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp
976 Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.
977 To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself
978 Did steal behind him as he lay along
979 Under an oak whose antique root peeps out
980 Upon the brook that brawls along this wood:
981 To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,
982 That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
983 Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord,
984 The wretched animal heaved forth such groans
985 That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
986 Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
987 Coursed one another down his innocent nose
988 In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool
989 Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
990 Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
991 Augmenting it with tears.
993 DUKE SENIOR But what said Jaques?
994 Did he not moralize this spectacle?
996 First Lord O, yes, into a thousand similes.
997 First, for his weeping into the needless stream;
998 'Poor deer,' quoth he, 'thou makest a testament
999 As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
1000 To that which had too much:' then, being there alone,
1001 Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends,
1002 ''Tis right:' quoth he; 'thus misery doth part
1003 The flux of company:' anon a careless herd,
1004 Full of the pasture, jumps along by him
1005 And never stays to greet him; 'Ay' quoth Jaques,
1006 'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
1007 'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you look
1008 Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?'
1009 Thus most invectively he pierceth through
1010 The body of the country, city, court,
1011 Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we
1012 Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse,
1013 To fright the animals and to kill them up
1014 In their assign'd and native dwelling-place.
1016 DUKE SENIOR And did you leave him in this contemplation?
1018 Second Lord We did, my lord, weeping and commenting
1019 Upon the sobbing deer.
1021 DUKE SENIOR Show me the place:
1022 I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
1023 For then he's full of matter.
1025 First Lord I'll bring you to him straight.
1039 SCENE II A room in the palace.
1042 [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords]
1044 DUKE FREDERICK Can it be possible that no man saw them?
1045 It cannot be: some villains of my court
1046 Are of consent and sufferance in this.
1048 First Lord I cannot hear of any that did see her.
1049 The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,
1050 Saw her abed, and in the morning early
1051 They found the bed untreasured of their mistress.
1053 Second Lord My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft
1054 Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.
1055 Hisperia, the princess' gentlewoman,
1056 Confesses that she secretly o'erheard
1057 Your daughter and her cousin much commend
1058 The parts and graces of the wrestler
1059 That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles;
1060 And she believes, wherever they are gone,
1061 That youth is surely in their company.
1063 DUKE FREDERICK Send to his brother; fetch that gallant hither;
1064 If he be absent, bring his brother to me;
1065 I'll make him find him: do this suddenly,
1066 And let not search and inquisition quail
1067 To bring again these foolish runaways.
1081 SCENE III Before OLIVER'S house.
1084 [Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting]
1086 ORLANDO Who's there?
1088 ADAM What, my young master? O, my gentle master!
1089 O my sweet master! O you memory
1090 Of old Sir Rowland! why, what make you here?
1091 Why are you virtuous? why do people love you?
1092 And wherefore are you gentle, strong and valiant?
1093 Why would you be so fond to overcome
1094 The bonny priser of the humorous duke?
1095 Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.
1096 Know you not, master, to some kind of men
1097 Their graces serve them but as enemies?
1098 No more do yours: your virtues, gentle master,
1099 Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.
1100 O, what a world is this, when what is comely
1101 Envenoms him that bears it!
1103 ORLANDO Why, what's the matter?
1105 ADAM O unhappy youth!
1106 Come not within these doors; within this roof
1107 The enemy of all your graces lives:
1108 Your brother--no, no brother; yet the son--
1109 Yet not the son, I will not call him son
1110 Of him I was about to call his father--
1111 Hath heard your praises, and this night he means
1112 To burn the lodging where you use to lie
1113 And you within it: if he fail of that,
1114 He will have other means to cut you off.
1115 I overheard him and his practises.
1116 This is no place; this house is but a butchery:
1117 Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.
1119 ORLANDO Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?
1121 ADAM No matter whither, so you come not here.
1123 ORLANDO What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food?
1124 Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce
1125 A thievish living on the common road?
1126 This I must do, or know not what to do:
1127 Yet this I will not do, do how I can;
1128 I rather will subject me to the malice
1129 Of a diverted blood and bloody brother.
1131 ADAM But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,
1132 The thrifty hire I saved under your father,
1133 Which I did store to be my foster-nurse
1134 When service should in my old limbs lie lame
1135 And unregarded age in corners thrown:
1136 Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed,
1137 Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
1138 Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold;
1139 And all this I give you. Let me be your servant:
1140 Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
1141 For in my youth I never did apply
1142 Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
1143 Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
1144 The means of weakness and debility;
1145 Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
1146 Frosty, but kindly: let me go with you;
1147 I'll do the service of a younger man
1148 In all your business and necessities.
1150 ORLANDO O good old man, how well in thee appears
1151 The constant service of the antique world,
1152 When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
1153 Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
1154 Where none will sweat but for promotion,
1155 And having that, do choke their service up
1156 Even with the having: it is not so with thee.
1157 But, poor old man, thou prunest a rotten tree,
1158 That cannot so much as a blossom yield
1159 In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry
1160 But come thy ways; well go along together,
1161 And ere we have thy youthful wages spent,
1162 We'll light upon some settled low content.
1164 ADAM Master, go on, and I will follow thee,
1165 To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.
1166 From seventeen years till now almost fourscore
1167 Here lived I, but now live here no more.
1168 At seventeen years many their fortunes seek;
1169 But at fourscore it is too late a week:
1170 Yet fortune cannot recompense me better
1171 Than to die well and not my master's debtor.
1185 SCENE IV The Forest of Arden.
1188 [Enter ROSALIND for Ganymede, CELIA for Aliena,
1191 ROSALIND O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!
1193 TOUCHSTONE I care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary.
1195 ROSALIND I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's
1196 apparel and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort
1197 the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show
1198 itself courageous to petticoat: therefore courage,
1201 CELIA I pray you, bear with me; I cannot go no further.
1203 TOUCHSTONE For my part, I had rather bear with you than bear
1204 you; yet I should bear no cross if I did bear you,
1205 for I think you have no money in your purse.
1207 ROSALIND Well, this is the forest of Arden.
1209 TOUCHSTONE Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was
1210 at home, I was in a better place: but travellers
1213 ROSALIND Ay, be so, good Touchstone.
1215 [Enter CORIN and SILVIUS]
1217 Look you, who comes here; a young man and an old in
1220 CORIN That is the way to make her scorn you still.
1222 SILVIUS O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love her!
1224 CORIN I partly guess; for I have loved ere now.
1226 SILVIUS No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess,
1227 Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover
1228 As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow:
1229 But if thy love were ever like to mine--
1230 As sure I think did never man love so--
1231 How many actions most ridiculous
1232 Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?
1234 CORIN Into a thousand that I have forgotten.
1236 SILVIUS O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily!
1237 If thou remember'st not the slightest folly
1238 That ever love did make thee run into,
1239 Thou hast not loved:
1240 Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,
1241 Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,
1242 Thou hast not loved:
1243 Or if thou hast not broke from company
1244 Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,
1245 Thou hast not loved.
1246 O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe!
1250 ROSALIND Alas, poor shepherd! searching of thy wound,
1251 I have by hard adventure found mine own.
1253 TOUCHSTONE And I mine. I remember, when I was in love I broke
1254 my sword upon a stone and bid him take that for
1255 coming a-night to Jane Smile; and I remember the
1256 kissing of her batlet and the cow's dugs that her
1257 pretty chopt hands had milked; and I remember the
1258 wooing of a peascod instead of her, from whom I took
1259 two cods and, giving her them again, said with
1260 weeping tears 'Wear these for my sake.' We that are
1261 true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is
1262 mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.
1264 ROSALIND Thou speakest wiser than thou art ware of.
1266 TOUCHSTONE Nay, I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till I
1267 break my shins against it.
1269 ROSALIND Jove, Jove! this shepherd's passion
1270 Is much upon my fashion.
1272 TOUCHSTONE And mine; but it grows something stale with me.
1274 CELIA I pray you, one of you question yond man
1275 If he for gold will give us any food:
1276 I faint almost to death.
1278 TOUCHSTONE Holla, you clown!
1280 ROSALIND Peace, fool: he's not thy kinsman.
1284 TOUCHSTONE Your betters, sir.
1286 CORIN Else are they very wretched.
1288 ROSALIND Peace, I say. Good even to you, friend.
1290 CORIN And to you, gentle sir, and to you all.
1292 ROSALIND I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold
1293 Can in this desert place buy entertainment,
1294 Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed:
1295 Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd
1296 And faints for succor.
1298 CORIN Fair sir, I pity her
1299 And wish, for her sake more than for mine own,
1300 My fortunes were more able to relieve her;
1301 But I am shepherd to another man
1302 And do not shear the fleeces that I graze:
1303 My master is of churlish disposition
1304 And little recks to find the way to heaven
1305 By doing deeds of hospitality:
1306 Besides, his cote, his flocks and bounds of feed
1307 Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now,
1308 By reason of his absence, there is nothing
1309 That you will feed on; but what is, come see.
1310 And in my voice most welcome shall you be.
1312 ROSALIND What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture?
1314 CORIN That young swain that you saw here but erewhile,
1315 That little cares for buying any thing.
1317 ROSALIND I pray thee, if it stand with honesty,
1318 Buy thou the cottage, pasture and the flock,
1319 And thou shalt have to pay for it of us.
1321 CELIA And we will mend thy wages. I like this place.
1322 And willingly could waste my time in it.
1324 CORIN Assuredly the thing is to be sold:
1325 Go with me: if you like upon report
1326 The soil, the profit and this kind of life,
1327 I will your very faithful feeder be
1328 And buy it with your gold right suddenly.
1345 [Enter AMIENS, JAQUES, and others]
1348 AMIENS Under the greenwood tree
1349 Who loves to lie with me,
1350 And turn his merry note
1351 Unto the sweet bird's throat,
1352 Come hither, come hither, come hither:
1353 Here shall he see No enemy
1354 But winter and rough weather.
1356 JAQUES More, more, I prithee, more.
1358 AMIENS It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.
1360 JAQUES I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck
1361 melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs.
1362 More, I prithee, more.
1364 AMIENS My voice is ragged: I know I cannot please you.
1366 JAQUES I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to
1367 sing. Come, more; another stanzo: call you 'em stanzos?
1369 AMIENS What you will, Monsieur Jaques.
1371 JAQUES Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me
1372 nothing. Will you sing?
1374 AMIENS More at your request than to please myself.
1376 JAQUES Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank you;
1377 but that they call compliment is like the encounter
1378 of two dog-apes, and when a man thanks me heartily,
1379 methinks I have given him a penny and he renders me
1380 the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you that will
1381 not, hold your tongues.
1383 AMIENS Well, I'll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the
1384 duke will drink under this tree. He hath been all
1385 this day to look you.
1387 JAQUES And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is
1388 too disputable for my company: I think of as many
1389 matters as he, but I give heaven thanks and make no
1390 boast of them. Come, warble, come.
1393 Who doth ambition shun
1397 And loves to live i' the sun,
1398 Seeking the food he eats
1399 And pleased with what he gets,
1400 Come hither, come hither, come hither:
1401 Here shall he see No enemy
1402 But winter and rough weather.
1404 JAQUES I'll give you a verse to this note that I made
1405 yesterday in despite of my invention.
1407 AMIENS And I'll sing it.
1409 JAQUES Thus it goes:--
1411 If it do come to pass
1412 That any man turn ass,
1413 Leaving his wealth and ease,
1414 A stubborn will to please,
1415 Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame:
1418 An if he will come to me.
1420 AMIENS What's that 'ducdame'?
1422 JAQUES 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a
1423 circle. I'll go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I'll
1424 rail against all the first-born of Egypt.
1426 AMIENS And I'll go seek the duke: his banquet is prepared.
1440 SCENE VI The forest.
1443 [Enter ORLANDO and ADAM]
1445 ADAM Dear master, I can go no further. O, I die for food!
1446 Here lie I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell,
1449 ORLANDO Why, how now, Adam! no greater heart in thee? Live
1450 a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little.
1451 If this uncouth forest yield any thing savage, I
1452 will either be food for it or bring it for food to
1453 thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy powers.
1454 For my sake be comfortable; hold death awhile at
1455 the arm's end: I will here be with thee presently;
1456 and if I bring thee not something to eat, I will
1457 give thee leave to die: but if thou diest before I
1458 come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said!
1459 thou lookest cheerly, and I'll be with thee quickly.
1460 Yet thou liest in the bleak air: come, I will bear
1461 thee to some shelter; and thou shalt not die for
1462 lack of a dinner, if there live any thing in this
1463 desert. Cheerly, good Adam!
1477 SCENE VII The forest.
1480 [A table set out. Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and
1483 DUKE SENIOR I think he be transform'd into a beast;
1484 For I can no where find him like a man.
1486 First Lord My lord, he is but even now gone hence:
1487 Here was he merry, hearing of a song.
1489 DUKE SENIOR If he, compact of jars, grow musical,
1490 We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.
1491 Go, seek him: tell him I would speak with him.
1495 First Lord He saves my labour by his own approach.
1497 DUKE SENIOR Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this,
1498 That your poor friends must woo your company?
1499 What, you look merrily!
1501 JAQUES A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest,
1502 A motley fool; a miserable world!
1503 As I do live by food, I met a fool
1504 Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
1505 And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
1506 In good set terms and yet a motley fool.
1507 'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I. 'No, sir,' quoth he,
1508 'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:'
1509 And then he drew a dial from his poke,
1510 And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
1511 Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:
1512 Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags:
1513 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
1514 And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
1515 And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
1516 And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
1517 And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
1518 The motley fool thus moral on the time,
1519 My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
1520 That fools should be so deep-contemplative,
1521 And I did laugh sans intermission
1522 An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
1523 A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.
1525 DUKE SENIOR What fool is this?
1527 JAQUES O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier,
1528 And says, if ladies be but young and fair,
1529 They have the gift to know it: and in his brain,
1530 Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit
1531 After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd
1532 With observation, the which he vents
1533 In mangled forms. O that I were a fool!
1534 I am ambitious for a motley coat.
1536 DUKE SENIOR Thou shalt have one.
1538 JAQUES It is my only suit;
1539 Provided that you weed your better judgments
1540 Of all opinion that grows rank in them
1541 That I am wise. I must have liberty
1542 Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
1543 To blow on whom I please; for so fools have;
1544 And they that are most galled with my folly,
1545 They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?
1546 The 'why' is plain as way to parish church:
1547 He that a fool doth very wisely hit
1548 Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
1549 Not to seem senseless of the bob: if not,
1550 The wise man's folly is anatomized
1551 Even by the squandering glances of the fool.
1552 Invest me in my motley; give me leave
1553 To speak my mind, and I will through and through
1554 Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,
1555 If they will patiently receive my medicine.
1557 DUKE SENIOR Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.
1559 JAQUES What, for a counter, would I do but good?
1561 DUKE SENIOR Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin:
1562 For thou thyself hast been a libertine,
1563 As sensual as the brutish sting itself;
1564 And all the embossed sores and headed evils,
1565 That thou with licence of free foot hast caught,
1566 Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.
1568 JAQUES Why, who cries out on pride,
1569 That can therein tax any private party?
1570 Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,
1571 Till that the weary very means do ebb?
1572 What woman in the city do I name,
1573 When that I say the city-woman bears
1574 The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
1575 Who can come in and say that I mean her,
1576 When such a one as she such is her neighbour?
1577 Or what is he of basest function
1578 That says his bravery is not of my cost,
1579 Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits
1580 His folly to the mettle of my speech?
1581 There then; how then? what then? Let me see wherein
1582 My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right,
1583 Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free,
1584 Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies,
1585 Unclaim'd of any man. But who comes here?
1587 [Enter ORLANDO, with his sword drawn]
1589 ORLANDO Forbear, and eat no more.
1591 JAQUES Why, I have eat none yet.
1593 ORLANDO Nor shalt not, till necessity be served.
1595 JAQUES Of what kind should this cock come of?
1597 DUKE SENIOR Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress,
1598 Or else a rude despiser of good manners,
1599 That in civility thou seem'st so empty?
1601 ORLANDO You touch'd my vein at first: the thorny point
1602 Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show
1603 Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred
1604 And know some nurture. But forbear, I say:
1605 He dies that touches any of this fruit
1606 Till I and my affairs are answered.
1608 JAQUES An you will not be answered with reason, I must die.
1610 DUKE SENIOR What would you have? Your gentleness shall force
1611 More than your force move us to gentleness.
1613 ORLANDO I almost die for food; and let me have it.
1615 DUKE SENIOR Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.
1617 ORLANDO Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you:
1618 I thought that all things had been savage here;
1619 And therefore put I on the countenance
1620 Of stern commandment. But whate'er you are
1621 That in this desert inaccessible,
1622 Under the shade of melancholy boughs,
1623 Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time
1624 If ever you have look'd on better days,
1625 If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church,
1626 If ever sat at any good man's feast,
1627 If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear
1628 And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied,
1629 Let gentleness my strong enforcement be:
1630 In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword.
1632 DUKE SENIOR True is it that we have seen better days,
1633 And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church
1634 And sat at good men's feasts and wiped our eyes
1635 Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd:
1636 And therefore sit you down in gentleness
1637 And take upon command what help we have
1638 That to your wanting may be minister'd.
1640 ORLANDO Then but forbear your food a little while,
1641 Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn
1642 And give it food. There is an old poor man,
1643 Who after me hath many a weary step
1644 Limp'd in pure love: till he be first sufficed,
1645 Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger,
1646 I will not touch a bit.
1648 DUKE SENIOR Go find him out,
1649 And we will nothing waste till you return.
1651 ORLANDO I thank ye; and be blest for your good comfort!
1655 DUKE SENIOR Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
1656 This wide and universal theatre
1657 Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
1660 JAQUES All the world's a stage,
1661 And all the men and women merely players:
1662 They have their exits and their entrances;
1663 And one man in his time plays many parts,
1664 His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
1665 Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
1666 And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
1667 And shining morning face, creeping like snail
1668 Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
1669 Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
1670 Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
1671 Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
1672 Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
1673 Seeking the bubble reputation
1674 Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
1675 In fair round belly with good capon lined,
1676 With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
1677 Full of wise saws and modern instances;
1678 And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
1679 Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
1680 With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
1681 His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
1682 For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
1683 Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
1684 And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
1685 That ends this strange eventful history,
1686 Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
1687 Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
1689 [Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM]
1691 DUKE SENIOR Welcome. Set down your venerable burthen,
1694 ORLANDO I thank you most for him.
1696 ADAM So had you need:
1697 I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.
1699 DUKE SENIOR Welcome; fall to: I will not trouble you
1700 As yet, to question you about your fortunes.
1701 Give us some music; and, good cousin, sing.
1704 AMIENS Blow, blow, thou winter wind.
1705 Thou art not so unkind
1706 As man's ingratitude;
1707 Thy tooth is not so keen,
1708 Because thou art not seen,
1709 Although thy breath be rude.
1710 Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
1711 Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
1712 Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
1713 This life is most jolly.
1714 Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
1715 That dost not bite so nigh
1717 Though thou the waters warp,
1718 Thy sting is not so sharp
1719 As friend remember'd not.
1722 DUKE SENIOR If that you were the good Sir Rowland's son,
1723 As you have whisper'd faithfully you were,
1724 And as mine eye doth his effigies witness
1725 Most truly limn'd and living in your face,
1726 Be truly welcome hither: I am the duke
1727 That loved your father: the residue of your fortune,
1728 Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man,
1729 Thou art right welcome as thy master is.
1730 Support him by the arm. Give me your hand,
1731 And let me all your fortunes understand.
1745 SCENE I A room in the palace.
1748 [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, and OLIVER]
1750 DUKE FREDERICK Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be:
1751 But were I not the better part made mercy,
1752 I should not seek an absent argument
1753 Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it:
1754 Find out thy brother, wheresoe'er he is;
1755 Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living
1756 Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more
1757 To seek a living in our territory.
1758 Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine
1759 Worth seizure do we seize into our hands,
1760 Till thou canst quit thee by thy brothers mouth
1761 Of what we think against thee.
1763 OLIVER O that your highness knew my heart in this!
1764 I never loved my brother in my life.
1766 DUKE FREDERICK More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors;
1767 And let my officers of such a nature
1768 Make an extent upon his house and lands:
1769 Do this expediently and turn him going.
1783 SCENE II The forest.
1786 [Enter ORLANDO, with a paper]
1788 ORLANDO Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love:
1789 And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey
1790 With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
1791 Thy huntress' name that my full life doth sway.
1792 O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books
1793 And in their barks my thoughts I'll character;
1794 That every eye which in this forest looks
1795 Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where.
1796 Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree
1797 The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she.
1801 [Enter CORIN and TOUCHSTONE]
1803 CORIN And how like you this shepherd's life, Master Touchstone?
1805 TOUCHSTONE Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good
1806 life, but in respect that it is a shepherd's life,
1807 it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I
1808 like it very well; but in respect that it is
1809 private, it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it
1810 is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in
1811 respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As
1812 is it a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well;
1813 but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much
1814 against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?
1816 CORIN No more but that I know the more one sickens the
1817 worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money,
1818 means and content is without three good friends;
1819 that the property of rain is to wet and fire to
1820 burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and that a
1821 great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that
1822 he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may
1823 complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.
1825 TOUCHSTONE Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in
1830 TOUCHSTONE Then thou art damned.
1834 TOUCHSTONE Truly, thou art damned like an ill-roasted egg, all
1837 CORIN For not being at court? Your reason.
1839 TOUCHSTONE Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never sawest
1840 good manners; if thou never sawest good manners,
1841 then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is
1842 sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous
1845 CORIN Not a whit, Touchstone: those that are good manners
1846 at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the
1847 behavior of the country is most mockable at the
1848 court. You told me you salute not at the court, but
1849 you kiss your hands: that courtesy would be
1850 uncleanly, if courtiers were shepherds.
1852 TOUCHSTONE Instance, briefly; come, instance.
1854 CORIN Why, we are still handling our ewes, and their
1855 fells, you know, are greasy.
1857 TOUCHSTONE Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? and is not
1858 the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of
1859 a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance, I say; come.
1861 CORIN Besides, our hands are hard.
1863 TOUCHSTONE Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again.
1864 A more sounder instance, come.
1866 CORIN And they are often tarred over with the surgery of
1867 our sheep: and would you have us kiss tar? The
1868 courtier's hands are perfumed with civet.
1870 TOUCHSTONE Most shallow man! thou worms-meat, in respect of a
1871 good piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the wise, and
1872 perpend: civet is of a baser birth than tar, the
1873 very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd.
1875 CORIN You have too courtly a wit for me: I'll rest.
1877 TOUCHSTONE Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man!
1878 God make incision in thee! thou art raw.
1880 CORIN Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get
1881 that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's
1882 happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my
1883 harm, and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes
1884 graze and my lambs suck.
1886 TOUCHSTONE That is another simple sin in you, to bring the ewes
1887 and the rams together and to offer to get your
1888 living by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a
1889 bell-wether, and to betray a she-lamb of a
1890 twelvemonth to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram,
1891 out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not
1892 damned for this, the devil himself will have no
1893 shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst
1896 CORIN Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother.
1898 [Enter ROSALIND, with a paper, reading]
1900 ROSALIND From the east to western Ind,
1901 No jewel is like Rosalind.
1902 Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
1903 Through all the world bears Rosalind.
1904 All the pictures fairest lined
1905 Are but black to Rosalind.
1906 Let no fair be kept in mind
1907 But the fair of Rosalind.
1909 TOUCHSTONE I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and
1910 suppers and sleeping-hours excepted: it is the
1911 right butter-women's rank to market.
1915 TOUCHSTONE For a taste:
1916 If a hart do lack a hind,
1917 Let him seek out Rosalind.
1918 If the cat will after kind,
1919 So be sure will Rosalind.
1920 Winter garments must be lined,
1921 So must slender Rosalind.
1922 They that reap must sheaf and bind;
1923 Then to cart with Rosalind.
1924 Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
1925 Such a nut is Rosalind.
1926 He that sweetest rose will find
1927 Must find love's prick and Rosalind.
1928 This is the very false gallop of verses: why do you
1929 infect yourself with them?
1931 ROSALIND Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.
1933 TOUCHSTONE Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.
1935 ROSALIND I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it
1936 with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit
1937 i' the country; for you'll be rotten ere you be half
1938 ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar.
1940 TOUCHSTONE You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the
1943 [Enter CELIA, with a writing]
1945 ROSALIND Peace! Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside.
1949 Why should this a desert be?
1950 For it is unpeopled? No:
1951 Tongues I'll hang on every tree,
1952 That shall civil sayings show:
1953 Some, how brief the life of man
1954 Runs his erring pilgrimage,
1955 That the stretching of a span
1956 Buckles in his sum of age;
1957 Some, of violated vows
1958 'Twixt the souls of friend and friend:
1959 But upon the fairest boughs,
1960 Or at every sentence end,
1961 Will I Rosalinda write,
1962 Teaching all that read to know
1963 The quintessence of every sprite
1964 Heaven would in little show.
1965 Therefore Heaven Nature charged
1966 That one body should be fill'd
1967 With all graces wide-enlarged:
1968 Nature presently distill'd
1969 Helen's cheek, but not her heart,
1970 Cleopatra's majesty,
1971 Atalanta's better part,
1972 Sad Lucretia's modesty.
1973 Thus Rosalind of many parts
1974 By heavenly synod was devised,
1975 Of many faces, eyes and hearts,
1976 To have the touches dearest prized.
1977 Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
1978 And I to live and die her slave.
1980 ROSALIND O most gentle pulpiter! what tedious homily of love
1981 have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never
1982 cried 'Have patience, good people!'
1984 CELIA How now! back, friends! Shepherd, go off a little.
1985 Go with him, sirrah.
1987 TOUCHSTONE Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat;
1988 though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.
1990 [Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE]
1992 CELIA Didst thou hear these verses?
1994 ROSALIND O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of
1995 them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.
1997 CELIA That's no matter: the feet might bear the verses.
1999 ROSALIND Ay, but the feet were lame and could not bear
2000 themselves without the verse and therefore stood
2001 lamely in the verse.
2003 CELIA But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name
2004 should be hanged and carved upon these trees?
2006 ROSALIND I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder
2007 before you came; for look here what I found on a
2008 palm-tree. I was never so be-rhymed since
2009 Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I
2010 can hardly remember.
2012 CELIA Trow you who hath done this?
2014 ROSALIND Is it a man?
2016 CELIA And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck.
2019 ROSALIND I prithee, who?
2021 CELIA O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for friends to
2022 meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes
2025 ROSALIND Nay, but who is it?
2027 CELIA Is it possible?
2029 ROSALIND Nay, I prithee now with most petitionary vehemence,
2032 CELIA O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful
2033 wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that,
2036 ROSALIND Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am
2037 caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in
2038 my disposition? One inch of delay more is a
2039 South-sea of discovery; I prithee, tell me who is it
2040 quickly, and speak apace. I would thou couldst
2041 stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man
2042 out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-
2043 mouthed bottle, either too much at once, or none at
2044 all. I prithee, take the cork out of thy mouth that
2045 may drink thy tidings.
2047 CELIA So you may put a man in your belly.
2049 ROSALIND Is he of God's making? What manner of man? Is his
2050 head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard?
2052 CELIA Nay, he hath but a little beard.
2054 ROSALIND Why, God will send more, if the man will be
2055 thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if
2056 thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin.
2058 CELIA It is young Orlando, that tripped up the wrestler's
2059 heels and your heart both in an instant.
2061 ROSALIND Nay, but the devil take mocking: speak, sad brow and
2064 CELIA I' faith, coz, 'tis he.
2070 ROSALIND Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and
2071 hose? What did he when thou sawest him? What said
2072 he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes
2073 him here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he?
2074 How parted he with thee? and when shalt thou see
2075 him again? Answer me in one word.
2077 CELIA You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first: 'tis a
2078 word too great for any mouth of this age's size. To
2079 say ay and no to these particulars is more than to
2080 answer in a catechism.
2082 ROSALIND But doth he know that I am in this forest and in
2083 man's apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the
2086 CELIA It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the
2087 propositions of a lover; but take a taste of my
2088 finding him, and relish it with good observance.
2089 I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn.
2091 ROSALIND It may well be called Jove's tree, when it drops
2094 CELIA Give me audience, good madam.
2098 CELIA There lay he, stretched along, like a wounded knight.
2100 ROSALIND Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well
2103 CELIA Cry 'holla' to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets
2104 unseasonably. He was furnished like a hunter.
2106 ROSALIND O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart.
2108 CELIA I would sing my song without a burden: thou bringest
2111 ROSALIND Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must
2112 speak. Sweet, say on.
2114 CELIA You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here?
2116 [Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES]
2118 ROSALIND 'Tis he: slink by, and note him.
2120 JAQUES I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had
2121 as lief have been myself alone.
2123 ORLANDO And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you
2124 too for your society.
2126 JAQUES God be wi' you: let's meet as little as we can.
2128 ORLANDO I do desire we may be better strangers.
2130 JAQUES I pray you, mar no more trees with writing
2131 love-songs in their barks.
2133 ORLANDO I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading
2134 them ill-favouredly.
2136 JAQUES Rosalind is your love's name?
2140 JAQUES I do not like her name.
2142 ORLANDO There was no thought of pleasing you when she was
2145 JAQUES What stature is she of?
2147 ORLANDO Just as high as my heart.
2149 JAQUES You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been
2150 acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conned them
2153 ORLANDO Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from
2154 whence you have studied your questions.
2156 JAQUES You have a nimble wit: I think 'twas made of
2157 Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me? and
2158 we two will rail against our mistress the world and
2161 ORLANDO I will chide no breather in the world but myself,
2162 against whom I know most faults.
2164 JAQUES The worst fault you have is to be in love.
2166 ORLANDO 'Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue.
2169 JAQUES By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found
2172 ORLANDO He is drowned in the brook: look but in, and you
2175 JAQUES There I shall see mine own figure.
2177 ORLANDO Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.
2179 JAQUES I'll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good
2182 ORLANDO I am glad of your departure: adieu, good Monsieur
2187 ROSALIND [Aside to CELIA] I will speak to him, like a saucy
2188 lackey and under that habit play the knave with him.
2189 Do you hear, forester?
2191 ORLANDO Very well: what would you?
2193 ROSALIND I pray you, what is't o'clock?
2195 ORLANDO You should ask me what time o' day: there's no clock
2198 ROSALIND Then there is no true lover in the forest; else
2199 sighing every minute and groaning every hour would
2200 detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a clock.
2202 ORLANDO And why not the swift foot of Time? had not that
2205 ROSALIND By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with
2206 divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles
2207 withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops
2208 withal and who he stands still withal.
2210 ORLANDO I prithee, who doth he trot withal?
2212 ROSALIND Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the
2213 contract of her marriage and the day it is
2214 solemnized: if the interim be but a se'nnight,
2215 Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of
2218 ORLANDO Who ambles Time withal?
2220 ROSALIND With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that
2221 hath not the gout, for the one sleeps easily because
2222 he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because
2223 he feels no pain, the one lacking the burden of lean
2224 and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden
2225 of heavy tedious penury; these Time ambles withal.
2227 ORLANDO Who doth he gallop withal?
2229 ROSALIND With a thief to the gallows, for though he go as
2230 softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.
2232 ORLANDO Who stays it still withal?
2234 ROSALIND With lawyers in the vacation, for they sleep between
2235 term and term and then they perceive not how Time moves.
2237 ORLANDO Where dwell you, pretty youth?
2239 ROSALIND With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the
2240 skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.
2242 ORLANDO Are you native of this place?
2244 ROSALIND As the cony that you see dwell where she is kindled.
2246 ORLANDO Your accent is something finer than you could
2247 purchase in so removed a dwelling.
2249 ROSALIND I have been told so of many: but indeed an old
2250 religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was
2251 in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship
2252 too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard
2253 him read many lectures against it, and I thank God
2254 I am not a woman, to be touched with so many
2255 giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their
2258 ORLANDO Can you remember any of the principal evils that he
2259 laid to the charge of women?
2261 ROSALIND There were none principal; they were all like one
2262 another as half-pence are, every one fault seeming
2263 monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it.
2265 ORLANDO I prithee, recount some of them.
2267 ROSALIND No, I will not cast away my physic but on those that
2268 are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that
2269 abuses our young plants with carving 'Rosalind' on
2270 their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies
2271 on brambles, all, forsooth, deifying the name of
2272 Rosalind: if I could meet that fancy-monger I would
2273 give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the
2274 quotidian of love upon him.
2276 ORLANDO I am he that is so love-shaked: I pray you tell me
2279 ROSALIND There is none of my uncle's marks upon you: he
2280 taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage
2281 of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner.
2283 ORLANDO What were his marks?
2285 ROSALIND A lean cheek, which you have not, a blue eye and
2286 sunken, which you have not, an unquestionable
2287 spirit, which you have not, a beard neglected,
2288 which you have not; but I pardon you for that, for
2289 simply your having in beard is a younger brother's
2290 revenue: then your hose should be ungartered, your
2291 bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe
2292 untied and every thing about you demonstrating a
2293 careless desolation; but you are no such man; you
2294 are rather point-device in your accoutrements as
2295 loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other.
2297 ORLANDO Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.
2299 ROSALIND Me believe it! you may as soon make her that you
2300 love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to
2301 do than to confess she does: that is one of the
2302 points in the which women still give the lie to
2303 their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he
2304 that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind
2307 ORLANDO I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of
2308 Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he.
2310 ROSALIND But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?
2312 ORLANDO Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.
2314 ROSALIND Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves
2315 as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and
2316 the reason why they are not so punished and cured
2317 is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers
2318 are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel.
2320 ORLANDO Did you ever cure any so?
2322 ROSALIND Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me
2323 his love, his mistress; and I set him every day to
2324 woo me: at which time would I, being but a moonish
2325 youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing
2326 and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow,
2327 inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles, for every
2328 passion something and for no passion truly any
2329 thing, as boys and women are for the most part
2330 cattle of this colour; would now like him, now loathe
2331 him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep
2332 for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor
2333 from his mad humour of love to a living humour of
2334 madness; which was, to forswear the full stream of
2335 the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic.
2336 And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon
2337 me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's
2338 heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't.
2340 ORLANDO I would not be cured, youth.
2342 ROSALIND I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind
2343 and come every day to my cote and woo me.
2345 ORLANDO Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me
2348 ROSALIND Go with me to it and I'll show it you and by the way
2349 you shall tell me where in the forest you live.
2352 ORLANDO With all my heart, good youth.
2354 ROSALIND Nay you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go?
2368 SCENE III The forest.
2371 [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES behind]
2373 TOUCHSTONE Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your
2374 goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet?
2375 doth my simple feature content you?
2377 AUDREY Your features! Lord warrant us! what features!
2379 TOUCHSTONE I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most
2380 capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.
2382 JAQUES [Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove
2383 in a thatched house!
2385 TOUCHSTONE When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a
2386 man's good wit seconded with the forward child
2387 Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a
2388 great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would
2389 the gods had made thee poetical.
2391 AUDREY I do not know what 'poetical' is: is it honest in
2392 deed and word? is it a true thing?
2394 TOUCHSTONE No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most
2395 feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what
2396 they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign.
2398 AUDREY Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?
2400 TOUCHSTONE I do, truly; for thou swearest to me thou art
2401 honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some
2402 hope thou didst feign.
2404 AUDREY Would you not have me honest?
2406 TOUCHSTONE No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for
2407 honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.
2409 JAQUES [Aside] A material fool!
2411 AUDREY Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods
2414 TOUCHSTONE Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut
2415 were to put good meat into an unclean dish.
2417 AUDREY I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
2419 TOUCHSTONE Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness!
2420 sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may
2421 be, I will marry thee, and to that end I have been
2422 with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next
2423 village, who hath promised to meet me in this place
2424 of the forest and to couple us.
2426 JAQUES [Aside] I would fain see this meeting.
2428 AUDREY Well, the gods give us joy!
2430 TOUCHSTONE Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart,
2431 stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple
2432 but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what
2433 though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are
2434 necessary. It is said, 'many a man knows no end of
2435 his goods:' right; many a man has good horns, and
2436 knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of
2437 his wife; 'tis none of his own getting. Horns?
2438 Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer
2439 hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man
2440 therefore blessed? No: as a walled town is more
2441 worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a
2442 married man more honourable than the bare brow of a
2443 bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no
2444 skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to
2445 want. Here comes Sir Oliver.
2447 [Enter SIR OLIVER MARTEXT]
2449 Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met: will you
2450 dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go
2451 with you to your chapel?
2453 SIR OLIVER MARTEXT Is there none here to give the woman?
2455 TOUCHSTONE I will not take her on gift of any man.
2457 SIR OLIVER MARTEXT Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.
2461 Proceed, proceed I'll give her.
2463 TOUCHSTONE Good even, good Master What-ye-call't: how do you,
2464 sir? You are very well met: God 'ild you for your
2465 last company: I am very glad to see you: even a
2466 toy in hand here, sir: nay, pray be covered.
2468 JAQUES Will you be married, motley?
2470 TOUCHSTONE As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb and
2471 the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and
2472 as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.
2474 JAQUES And will you, being a man of your breeding, be
2475 married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to
2476 church, and have a good priest that can tell you
2477 what marriage is: this fellow will but join you
2478 together as they join wainscot; then one of you will
2479 prove a shrunk panel and, like green timber, warp, warp.
2481 TOUCHSTONE [Aside] I am not in the mind but I were better to be
2482 married of him than of another: for he is not like
2483 to marry me well; and not being well married, it
2484 will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife.
2486 JAQUES Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.
2488 TOUCHSTONE 'Come, sweet Audrey:
2489 We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.
2490 Farewell, good Master Oliver: not,--
2493 Leave me not behind thee: but,--
2496 I will not to wedding with thee.
2498 [Exeunt JAQUES, TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY]
2500 SIR OLIVER MARTEXT 'Tis no matter: ne'er a fantastical knave of them
2501 all shall flout me out of my calling.
2515 SCENE IV The forest.
2518 [Enter ROSALIND and CELIA]
2520 ROSALIND Never talk to me; I will weep.
2522 CELIA Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider
2523 that tears do not become a man.
2525 ROSALIND But have I not cause to weep?
2527 CELIA As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.
2529 ROSALIND His very hair is of the dissembling colour.
2531 CELIA Something browner than Judas's marry, his kisses are
2532 Judas's own children.
2534 ROSALIND I' faith, his hair is of a good colour.
2536 CELIA An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour.
2538 ROSALIND And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch
2541 CELIA He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana: a nun
2542 of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously;
2543 the very ice of chastity is in them.
2545 ROSALIND But why did he swear he would come this morning, and
2548 CELIA Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.
2550 ROSALIND Do you think so?
2552 CELIA Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a
2553 horse-stealer, but for his verity in love, I do
2554 think him as concave as a covered goblet or a
2557 ROSALIND Not true in love?
2559 CELIA Yes, when he is in; but I think he is not in.
2561 ROSALIND You have heard him swear downright he was.
2563 CELIA 'Was' is not 'is:' besides, the oath of a lover is
2564 no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are
2565 both the confirmer of false reckonings. He attends
2566 here in the forest on the duke your father.
2568 ROSALIND I met the duke yesterday and had much question with
2569 him: he asked me of what parentage I was; I told
2570 him, of as good as he; so he laughed and let me go.
2571 But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a
2574 CELIA O, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses,
2575 speaks brave words, swears brave oaths and breaks
2576 them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of
2577 his lover; as a puisny tilter, that spurs his horse
2578 but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble
2579 goose: but all's brave that youth mounts and folly
2580 guides. Who comes here?
2584 CORIN Mistress and master, you have oft inquired
2585 After the shepherd that complain'd of love,
2586 Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
2587 Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
2588 That was his mistress.
2590 CELIA Well, and what of him?
2592 CORIN If you will see a pageant truly play'd,
2593 Between the pale complexion of true love
2594 And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,
2595 Go hence a little and I shall conduct you,
2596 If you will mark it.
2598 ROSALIND O, come, let us remove:
2599 The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
2600 Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
2601 I'll prove a busy actor in their play.
2615 SCENE V Another part of the forest.
2618 [Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE]
2620 SILVIUS Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe;
2621 Say that you love me not, but say not so
2622 In bitterness. The common executioner,
2623 Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard,
2624 Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
2625 But first begs pardon: will you sterner be
2626 Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?
2628 [Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, behind]
2630 PHEBE I would not be thy executioner:
2631 I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.
2632 Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye:
2633 'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,
2634 That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,
2635 Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
2636 Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!
2637 Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
2638 And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee:
2639 Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down;
2640 Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
2641 Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers!
2642 Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee:
2643 Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
2644 Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush,
2645 The cicatrice and capable impressure
2646 Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,
2647 Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not,
2648 Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes
2651 SILVIUS O dear Phebe,
2652 If ever,--as that ever may be near,--
2653 You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
2654 Then shall you know the wounds invisible
2655 That love's keen arrows make.
2657 PHEBE But till that time
2658 Come not thou near me: and when that time comes,
2659 Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;
2660 As till that time I shall not pity thee.
2662 ROSALIND And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother,
2663 That you insult, exult, and all at once,
2664 Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty,--
2665 As, by my faith, I see no more in you
2666 Than without candle may go dark to bed--
2667 Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
2668 Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
2669 I see no more in you than in the ordinary
2670 Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life,
2671 I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
2672 No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it:
2673 'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
2674 Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,
2675 That can entame my spirits to your worship.
2676 You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
2677 Like foggy south puffing with wind and rain?
2678 You are a thousand times a properer man
2679 Than she a woman: 'tis such fools as you
2680 That makes the world full of ill-favour'd children:
2681 'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;
2682 And out of you she sees herself more proper
2683 Than any of her lineaments can show her.
2684 But, mistress, know yourself: down on your knees,
2685 And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love:
2686 For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
2687 Sell when you can: you are not for all markets:
2688 Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer:
2689 Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
2690 So take her to thee, shepherd: fare you well.
2692 PHEBE Sweet youth, I pray you, chide a year together:
2693 I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.
2695 ROSALIND He's fallen in love with your foulness and she'll
2696 fall in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as
2697 she answers thee with frowning looks, I'll sauce her
2698 with bitter words. Why look you so upon me?
2700 PHEBE For no ill will I bear you.
2702 ROSALIND I pray you, do not fall in love with me,
2703 For I am falser than vows made in wine:
2704 Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,
2705 'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.
2706 Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.
2707 Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,
2708 And be not proud: though all the world could see,
2709 None could be so abused in sight as he.
2712 [Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA and CORIN]
2714 PHEBE Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,
2715 'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'
2717 SILVIUS Sweet Phebe,--
2719 PHEBE Ha, what say'st thou, Silvius?
2721 SILVIUS Sweet Phebe, pity me.
2723 PHEBE Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.
2725 SILVIUS Wherever sorrow is, relief would be:
2726 If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
2727 By giving love your sorrow and my grief
2728 Were both extermined.
2730 PHEBE Thou hast my love: is not that neighbourly?
2732 SILVIUS I would have you.
2734 PHEBE Why, that were covetousness.
2735 Silvius, the time was that I hated thee,
2736 And yet it is not that I bear thee love;
2737 But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
2738 Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,
2739 I will endure, and I'll employ thee too:
2740 But do not look for further recompense
2741 Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd.
2743 SILVIUS So holy and so perfect is my love,
2744 And I in such a poverty of grace,
2745 That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
2746 To glean the broken ears after the man
2747 That the main harvest reaps: loose now and then
2748 A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon.
2750 PHEBE Know'st now the youth that spoke to me erewhile?
2752 SILVIUS Not very well, but I have met him oft;
2753 And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds
2754 That the old carlot once was master of.
2756 PHEBE Think not I love him, though I ask for him:
2757 'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well;
2758 But what care I for words? yet words do well
2759 When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
2760 It is a pretty youth: not very pretty:
2761 But, sure, he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him:
2762 He'll make a proper man: the best thing in him
2763 Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
2764 Did make offence his eye did heal it up.
2765 He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall:
2766 His leg is but so so; and yet 'tis well:
2767 There was a pretty redness in his lip,
2768 A little riper and more lusty red
2769 Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference
2770 Between the constant red and mingled damask.
2771 There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him
2772 In parcels as I did, would have gone near
2773 To fall in love with him; but, for my part,
2774 I love him not nor hate him not; and yet
2775 I have more cause to hate him than to love him:
2776 For what had he to do to chide at me?
2777 He said mine eyes were black and my hair black:
2778 And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me:
2779 I marvel why I answer'd not again:
2780 But that's all one; omittance is no quittance.
2781 I'll write to him a very taunting letter,
2782 And thou shalt bear it: wilt thou, Silvius?
2784 SILVIUS Phebe, with all my heart.
2786 PHEBE I'll write it straight;
2787 The matter's in my head and in my heart:
2788 I will be bitter with him and passing short.
2789 Go with me, Silvius.
2806 [Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES]
2808 JAQUES I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted
2811 ROSALIND They say you are a melancholy fellow.
2813 JAQUES I am so; I do love it better than laughing.
2815 ROSALIND Those that are in extremity of either are abominable
2816 fellows and betray themselves to every modern
2817 censure worse than drunkards.
2819 JAQUES Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.
2821 ROSALIND Why then, 'tis good to be a post.
2823 JAQUES I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is
2824 emulation, nor the musician's, which is fantastical,
2825 nor the courtier's, which is proud, nor the
2826 soldier's, which is ambitious, nor the lawyer's,
2827 which is politic, nor the lady's, which is nice, nor
2828 the lover's, which is all these: but it is a
2829 melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples,
2830 extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry's
2831 contemplation of my travels, in which my often
2832 rumination wraps me m a most humorous sadness.
2834 ROSALIND A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to
2835 be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see
2836 other men's; then, to have seen much and to have
2837 nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.
2839 JAQUES Yes, I have gained my experience.
2841 ROSALIND And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have
2842 a fool to make me merry than experience to make me
2843 sad; and to travel for it too!
2847 ORLANDO Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!
2849 JAQUES Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse.
2853 ROSALIND Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and
2854 wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your
2855 own country, be out of love with your nativity and
2856 almost chide God for making you that countenance you
2857 are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a
2858 gondola. Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been
2859 all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such
2860 another trick, never come in my sight more.
2862 ORLANDO My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.
2864 ROSALIND Break an hour's promise in love! He that will
2865 divide a minute into a thousand parts and break but
2866 a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the
2867 affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid
2868 hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant
2871 ORLANDO Pardon me, dear Rosalind.
2873 ROSALIND Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I
2874 had as lief be wooed of a snail.
2878 ROSALIND Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he
2879 carries his house on his head; a better jointure,
2880 I think, than you make a woman: besides he brings
2881 his destiny with him.
2883 ORLANDO What's that?
2885 ROSALIND Why, horns, which such as you are fain to be
2886 beholding to your wives for: but he comes armed in
2887 his fortune and prevents the slander of his wife.
2889 ORLANDO Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.
2891 ROSALIND And I am your Rosalind.
2893 CELIA It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a
2894 Rosalind of a better leer than you.
2896 ROSALIND Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday
2897 humour and like enough to consent. What would you
2898 say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind?
2900 ORLANDO I would kiss before I spoke.
2902 ROSALIND Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were
2903 gravelled for lack of matter, you might take
2904 occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are
2905 out, they will spit; and for lovers lacking--God
2906 warn us!--matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.
2908 ORLANDO How if the kiss be denied?
2910 ROSALIND Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.
2912 ORLANDO Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?
2914 ROSALIND Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or
2915 I should think my honesty ranker than my wit.
2917 ORLANDO What, of my suit?
2919 ROSALIND Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit.
2920 Am not I your Rosalind?
2922 ORLANDO I take some joy to say you are, because I would be
2925 ROSALIND Well in her person I say I will not have you.
2927 ORLANDO Then in mine own person I die.
2929 ROSALIND No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is
2930 almost six thousand years old, and in all this time
2931 there was not any man died in his own person,
2932 videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains
2933 dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he
2934 could to die before, and he is one of the patterns
2935 of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair
2936 year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been
2937 for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went
2938 but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being
2939 taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish
2940 coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.'
2941 But these are all lies: men have died from time to
2942 time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
2944 ORLANDO I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind,
2945 for, I protest, her frown might kill me.
2947 ROSALIND By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now
2948 I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on
2949 disposition, and ask me what you will. I will grant
2952 ORLANDO Then love me, Rosalind.
2954 ROSALIND Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all.
2956 ORLANDO And wilt thou have me?
2958 ROSALIND Ay, and twenty such.
2960 ORLANDO What sayest thou?
2962 ROSALIND Are you not good?
2966 ROSALIND Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?
2967 Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.
2968 Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?
2970 ORLANDO Pray thee, marry us.
2972 CELIA I cannot say the words.
2974 ROSALIND You must begin, 'Will you, Orlando--'
2976 CELIA Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?
2980 ROSALIND Ay, but when?
2982 ORLANDO Why now; as fast as she can marry us.
2984 ROSALIND Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.'
2986 ORLANDO I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.
2988 ROSALIND I might ask you for your commission; but I do take
2989 thee, Orlando, for my husband: there's a girl goes
2990 before the priest; and certainly a woman's thought
2991 runs before her actions.
2993 ORLANDO So do all thoughts; they are winged.
2995 ROSALIND Now tell me how long you would have her after you
2998 ORLANDO For ever and a day.
3000 ROSALIND Say 'a day,' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando;
3001 men are April when they woo, December when they wed:
3002 maids are May when they are maids, but the sky
3003 changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous
3004 of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen,
3005 more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more
3006 new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires
3007 than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana
3008 in the fountain, and I will do that when you are
3009 disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and
3010 that when thou art inclined to sleep.
3012 ORLANDO But will my Rosalind do so?
3014 ROSALIND By my life, she will do as I do.
3016 ORLANDO O, but she is wise.
3018 ROSALIND Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the
3019 wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's
3020 wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and
3021 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly
3022 with the smoke out at the chimney.
3024 ORLANDO A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say
3025 'Wit, whither wilt?'
3027 ROSALIND Nay, you might keep that cheque for it till you met
3028 your wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.
3030 ORLANDO And what wit could wit have to excuse that?
3032 ROSALIND Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall
3033 never take her without her answer, unless you take
3034 her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot
3035 make her fault her husband's occasion, let her
3036 never nurse her child herself, for she will breed
3039 ORLANDO For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.
3041 ROSALIND Alas! dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.
3043 ORLANDO I must attend the duke at dinner: by two o'clock I
3044 will be with thee again.
3046 ROSALIND Ay, go your ways, go your ways; I knew what you
3047 would prove: my friends told me as much, and I
3048 thought no less: that flattering tongue of yours
3049 won me: 'tis but one cast away, and so, come,
3050 death! Two o'clock is your hour?
3052 ORLANDO Ay, sweet Rosalind.
3054 ROSALIND By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend
3055 me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous,
3056 if you break one jot of your promise or come one
3057 minute behind your hour, I will think you the most
3058 pathetical break-promise and the most hollow lover
3059 and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind that
3060 may be chosen out of the gross band of the
3061 unfaithful: therefore beware my censure and keep
3064 ORLANDO With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my
3067 ROSALIND Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such
3068 offenders, and let Time try: adieu.
3072 CELIA You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate:
3073 we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your
3074 head, and show the world what the bird hath done to
3077 ROSALIND O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou
3078 didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But
3079 it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown
3080 bottom, like the bay of Portugal.
3082 CELIA Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour
3083 affection in, it runs out.
3085 ROSALIND No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot
3086 of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness,
3087 that blind rascally boy that abuses every one's eyes
3088 because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I
3089 am in love. I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out
3090 of the sight of Orlando: I'll go find a shadow and
3093 CELIA And I'll sleep.
3107 SCENE II The forest.
3110 [Enter JAQUES, Lords, and Foresters]
3112 JAQUES Which is he that killed the deer?
3114 A Lord Sir, it was I.
3116 JAQUES Let's present him to the duke, like a Roman
3117 conqueror; and it would do well to set the deer's
3118 horns upon his head, for a branch of victory. Have
3119 you no song, forester, for this purpose?
3123 JAQUES Sing it: 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it
3127 Forester What shall he have that kill'd the deer?
3128 His leather skin and horns to wear.
3131 [The rest shall bear this burden]
3133 Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;
3134 It was a crest ere thou wast born:
3135 Thy father's father wore it,
3136 And thy father bore it:
3137 The horn, the horn, the lusty horn
3138 Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.
3152 SCENE III The forest.
3155 [Enter ROSALIND and CELIA]
3157 ROSALIND How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock? and
3160 CELIA I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he
3161 hath ta'en his bow and arrows and is gone forth to
3162 sleep. Look, who comes here.
3166 SILVIUS My errand is to you, fair youth;
3167 My gentle Phebe bid me give you this:
3168 I know not the contents; but, as I guess
3169 By the stern brow and waspish action
3170 Which she did use as she was writing of it,
3171 It bears an angry tenor: pardon me:
3172 I am but as a guiltless messenger.
3174 ROSALIND Patience herself would startle at this letter
3175 And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all:
3176 She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;
3177 She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
3178 Were man as rare as phoenix. 'Od's my will!
3179 Her love is not the hare that I do hunt:
3180 Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,
3181 This is a letter of your own device.
3183 SILVIUS No, I protest, I know not the contents:
3186 ROSALIND Come, come, you are a fool
3187 And turn'd into the extremity of love.
3188 I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand.
3189 A freestone-colour'd hand; I verily did think
3190 That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands:
3191 She has a huswife's hand; but that's no matter:
3192 I say she never did invent this letter;
3193 This is a man's invention and his hand.
3195 SILVIUS Sure, it is hers.
3197 ROSALIND Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style.
3198 A style for-challengers; why, she defies me,
3199 Like Turk to Christian: women's gentle brain
3200 Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention
3201 Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect
3202 Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?
3204 SILVIUS So please you, for I never heard it yet;
3205 Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty.
3207 ROSALIND She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes.
3211 Art thou god to shepherd turn'd,
3212 That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?
3213 Can a woman rail thus?
3215 SILVIUS Call you this railing?
3219 Why, thy godhead laid apart,
3220 Warr'st thou with a woman's heart?
3221 Did you ever hear such railing?
3222 Whiles the eye of man did woo me,
3223 That could do no vengeance to me.
3225 If the scorn of your bright eyne
3226 Have power to raise such love in mine,
3227 Alack, in me what strange effect
3228 Would they work in mild aspect!
3229 Whiles you chid me, I did love;
3230 How then might your prayers move!
3231 He that brings this love to thee
3232 Little knows this love in me:
3233 And by him seal up thy mind;
3234 Whether that thy youth and kind
3235 Will the faithful offer take
3236 Of me and all that I can make;
3237 Or else by him my love deny,
3238 And then I'll study how to die.
3240 SILVIUS Call you this chiding?
3242 CELIA Alas, poor shepherd!
3244 ROSALIND Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity. Wilt
3245 thou love such a woman? What, to make thee an
3246 instrument and play false strains upon thee! not to
3247 be endured! Well, go your way to her, for I see
3248 love hath made thee a tame snake, and say this to
3249 her: that if she love me, I charge her to love
3250 thee; if she will not, I will never have her unless
3251 thou entreat for her. If you be a true lover,
3252 hence, and not a word; for here comes more company.
3258 OLIVER Good morrow, fair ones: pray you, if you know,
3259 Where in the purlieus of this forest stands
3260 A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees?
3262 CELIA West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom:
3263 The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream
3264 Left on your right hand brings you to the place.
3265 But at this hour the house doth keep itself;
3266 There's none within.
3268 OLIVER If that an eye may profit by a tongue,
3269 Then should I know you by description;
3270 Such garments and such years: 'The boy is fair,
3271 Of female favour, and bestows himself
3272 Like a ripe sister: the woman low
3273 And browner than her brother.' Are not you
3274 The owner of the house I did inquire for?
3276 CELIA It is no boast, being ask'd, to say we are.
3278 OLIVER Orlando doth commend him to you both,
3279 And to that youth he calls his Rosalind
3280 He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?
3282 ROSALIND I am: what must we understand by this?
3284 OLIVER Some of my shame; if you will know of me
3285 What man I am, and how, and why, and where
3286 This handkercher was stain'd.
3288 CELIA I pray you, tell it.
3290 OLIVER When last the young Orlando parted from you
3291 He left a promise to return again
3292 Within an hour, and pacing through the forest,
3293 Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
3294 Lo, what befell! he threw his eye aside,
3295 And mark what object did present itself:
3296 Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age
3297 And high top bald with dry antiquity,
3298 A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,
3299 Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck
3300 A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself,
3301 Who with her head nimble in threats approach'd
3302 The opening of his mouth; but suddenly,
3303 Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself,
3304 And with indented glides did slip away
3305 Into a bush: under which bush's shade
3306 A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,
3307 Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch,
3308 When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis
3309 The royal disposition of that beast
3310 To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead:
3311 This seen, Orlando did approach the man
3312 And found it was his brother, his elder brother.
3314 CELIA O, I have heard him speak of that same brother;
3315 And he did render him the most unnatural
3316 That lived amongst men.
3318 OLIVER And well he might so do,
3319 For well I know he was unnatural.
3321 ROSALIND But, to Orlando: did he leave him there,
3322 Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness?
3324 OLIVER Twice did he turn his back and purposed so;
3325 But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,
3326 And nature, stronger than his just occasion,
3327 Made him give battle to the lioness,
3328 Who quickly fell before him: in which hurtling
3329 From miserable slumber I awaked.
3331 CELIA Are you his brother?
3333 ROSALIND Wast you he rescued?
3335 CELIA Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him?
3337 OLIVER 'Twas I; but 'tis not I I do not shame
3338 To tell you what I was, since my conversion
3339 So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.
3341 ROSALIND But, for the bloody napkin?
3344 When from the first to last betwixt us two
3345 Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed,
3346 As how I came into that desert place:--
3347 In brief, he led me to the gentle duke,
3348 Who gave me fresh array and entertainment,
3349 Committing me unto my brother's love;
3350 Who led me instantly unto his cave,
3351 There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm
3352 The lioness had torn some flesh away,
3353 Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted
3354 And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind.
3355 Brief, I recover'd him, bound up his wound;
3356 And, after some small space, being strong at heart,
3357 He sent me hither, stranger as I am,
3358 To tell this story, that you might excuse
3359 His broken promise, and to give this napkin
3360 Dyed in his blood unto the shepherd youth
3361 That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.
3365 CELIA Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede!
3367 OLIVER Many will swoon when they do look on blood.
3369 CELIA There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede!
3371 OLIVER Look, he recovers.
3373 ROSALIND I would I were at home.
3375 CELIA We'll lead you thither.
3376 I pray you, will you take him by the arm?
3378 OLIVER Be of good cheer, youth: you a man! you lack a
3381 ROSALIND I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would
3382 think this was well counterfeited! I pray you, tell
3383 your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!
3385 OLIVER This was not counterfeit: there is too great
3386 testimony in your complexion that it was a passion
3389 ROSALIND Counterfeit, I assure you.
3391 OLIVER Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man.
3393 ROSALIND So I do: but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by right.
3395 CELIA Come, you look paler and paler: pray you, draw
3396 homewards. Good sir, go with us.
3398 OLIVER That will I, for I must bear answer back
3399 How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.
3401 ROSALIND I shall devise something: but, I pray you, commend
3402 my counterfeiting to him. Will you go?
3419 [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY]
3421 TOUCHSTONE We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey.
3423 AUDREY Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old
3426 TOUCHSTONE A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile
3427 Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the
3428 forest lays claim to you.
3430 AUDREY Ay, I know who 'tis; he hath no interest in me in
3431 the world: here comes the man you mean.
3433 TOUCHSTONE It is meat and drink to me to see a clown: by my
3434 troth, we that have good wits have much to answer
3435 for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold.
3439 WILLIAM Good even, Audrey.
3441 AUDREY God ye good even, William.
3443 WILLIAM And good even to you, sir.
3445 TOUCHSTONE Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy
3446 head; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend?
3448 WILLIAM Five and twenty, sir.
3450 TOUCHSTONE A ripe age. Is thy name William?
3452 WILLIAM William, sir.
3454 TOUCHSTONE A fair name. Wast born i' the forest here?
3456 WILLIAM Ay, sir, I thank God.
3458 TOUCHSTONE 'Thank God;' a good answer. Art rich?
3460 WILLIAM Faith, sir, so so.
3462 TOUCHSTONE 'So so' is good, very good, very excellent good; and
3463 yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise?
3465 WILLIAM Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.
3467 TOUCHSTONE Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying,
3468 'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man
3469 knows himself to be a fool.' The heathen
3470 philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape,
3471 would open his lips when he put it into his mouth;
3472 meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and
3473 lips to open. You do love this maid?
3477 TOUCHSTONE Give me your hand. Art thou learned?
3481 TOUCHSTONE Then learn this of me: to have, is to have; for it
3482 is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out
3483 of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty
3484 the other; for all your writers do consent that ipse
3485 is he: now, you are not ipse, for I am he.
3487 WILLIAM Which he, sir?
3489 TOUCHSTONE He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you
3490 clown, abandon,--which is in the vulgar leave,--the
3491 society,--which in the boorish is company,--of this
3492 female,--which in the common is woman; which
3493 together is, abandon the society of this female, or,
3494 clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better
3495 understanding, diest; or, to wit I kill thee, make
3496 thee away, translate thy life into death, thy
3497 liberty into bondage: I will deal in poison with
3498 thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy
3499 with thee in faction; I will o'errun thee with
3500 policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways:
3501 therefore tremble and depart.
3503 AUDREY Do, good William.
3505 WILLIAM God rest you merry, sir.
3511 CORIN Our master and mistress seeks you; come, away, away!
3513 TOUCHSTONE Trip, Audrey! trip, Audrey! I attend, I attend.
3527 SCENE II The forest.
3530 [Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER]
3532 ORLANDO Is't possible that on so little acquaintance you
3533 should like her? that but seeing you should love
3534 her? and loving woo? and, wooing, she should
3535 grant? and will you persever to enjoy her?
3537 OLIVER Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the
3538 poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden
3539 wooing, nor her sudden consenting; but say with me,
3540 I love Aliena; say with her that she loves me;
3541 consent with both that we may enjoy each other: it
3542 shall be to your good; for my father's house and all
3543 the revenue that was old Sir Rowland's will I
3544 estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.
3546 ORLANDO You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow:
3547 thither will I invite the duke and all's contented
3548 followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for look
3549 you, here comes my Rosalind.
3553 ROSALIND God save you, brother.
3555 OLIVER And you, fair sister.
3559 ROSALIND O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee
3560 wear thy heart in a scarf!
3562 ORLANDO It is my arm.
3564 ROSALIND I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws
3567 ORLANDO Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.
3569 ROSALIND Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to
3570 swoon when he showed me your handkerchief?
3572 ORLANDO Ay, and greater wonders than that.
3574 ROSALIND O, I know where you are: nay, 'tis true: there was
3575 never any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams
3576 and Caesar's thrasonical brag of 'I came, saw, and
3577 overcame:' for your brother and my sister no sooner
3578 met but they looked, no sooner looked but they
3579 loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner
3580 sighed but they asked one another the reason, no
3581 sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy;
3582 and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs
3583 to marriage which they will climb incontinent, or
3584 else be incontinent before marriage: they are in
3585 the very wrath of love and they will together; clubs
3588 ORLANDO They shall be married to-morrow, and I will bid the
3589 duke to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it
3590 is to look into happiness through another man's
3591 eyes! By so much the more shall I to-morrow be at
3592 the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall
3593 think my brother happy in having what he wishes for.
3595 ROSALIND Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?
3597 ORLANDO I can live no longer by thinking.
3599 ROSALIND I will weary you then no longer with idle talking.
3600 Know of me then, for now I speak to some purpose,
3601 that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I
3602 speak not this that you should bear a good opinion
3603 of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know you are;
3604 neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in
3605 some little measure draw a belief from you, to do
3606 yourself good and not to grace me. Believe then, if
3607 you please, that I can do strange things: I have,
3608 since I was three year old, conversed with a
3609 magician, most profound in his art and yet not
3610 damnable. If you do love Rosalind so near the heart
3611 as your gesture cries it out, when your brother
3612 marries Aliena, shall you marry her: I know into
3613 what straits of fortune she is driven; and it is
3614 not impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient
3615 to you, to set her before your eyes tomorrow human
3616 as she is and without any danger.
3618 ORLANDO Speakest thou in sober meanings?
3620 ROSALIND By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I
3621 say I am a magician. Therefore, put you in your
3622 best array: bid your friends; for if you will be
3623 married to-morrow, you shall, and to Rosalind, if you will.
3625 [Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE]
3627 Look, here comes a lover of mine and a lover of hers.
3629 PHEBE Youth, you have done me much ungentleness,
3630 To show the letter that I writ to you.
3632 ROSALIND I care not if I have: it is my study
3633 To seem despiteful and ungentle to you:
3634 You are there followed by a faithful shepherd;
3635 Look upon him, love him; he worships you.
3637 PHEBE Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.
3639 SILVIUS It is to be all made of sighs and tears;
3640 And so am I for Phebe.
3642 PHEBE And I for Ganymede.
3644 ORLANDO And I for Rosalind.
3646 ROSALIND And I for no woman.
3648 SILVIUS It is to be all made of faith and service;
3649 And so am I for Phebe.
3651 PHEBE And I for Ganymede.
3653 ORLANDO And I for Rosalind.
3655 ROSALIND And I for no woman.
3657 SILVIUS It is to be all made of fantasy,
3658 All made of passion and all made of wishes,
3659 All adoration, duty, and observance,
3660 All humbleness, all patience and impatience,
3661 All purity, all trial, all observance;
3662 And so am I for Phebe.
3664 PHEBE And so am I for Ganymede.
3666 ORLANDO And so am I for Rosalind.
3668 ROSALIND And so am I for no woman.
3670 PHEBE If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
3672 SILVIUS If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
3674 ORLANDO If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
3676 ROSALIND Who do you speak to, 'Why blame you me to love you?'
3678 ORLANDO To her that is not here, nor doth not hear.
3680 ROSALIND Pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling
3681 of Irish wolves against the moon.
3685 I will help you, if I can:
3689 I would love you, if I could. To-morrow meet me all together.
3693 I will marry you, if ever I marry woman, and I'll be
3698 I will satisfy you, if ever I satisfied man, and you
3699 shall be married to-morrow:
3703 I will content you, if what pleases you contents
3704 you, and you shall be married to-morrow.
3708 As you love Rosalind, meet:
3712 as you love Phebe, meet: and as I love no woman,
3713 I'll meet. So fare you well: I have left you commands.
3715 SILVIUS I'll not fail, if I live.
3733 SCENE III The forest.
3736 [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY]
3738 TOUCHSTONE To-morrow is the joyful day, Audrey; to-morrow will
3741 AUDREY I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is
3742 no dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the
3743 world. Here comes two of the banished duke's pages.
3747 First Page Well met, honest gentleman.
3749 TOUCHSTONE By my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, and a song.
3751 Second Page We are for you: sit i' the middle.
3753 First Page Shall we clap into't roundly, without hawking or
3754 spitting or saying we are hoarse, which are the only
3755 prologues to a bad voice?
3757 Second Page I'faith, i'faith; and both in a tune, like two
3761 It was a lover and his lass,
3762 With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
3763 That o'er the green corn-field did pass
3764 In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
3765 When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
3766 Sweet lovers love the spring.
3768 Between the acres of the rye,
3769 With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino
3770 These pretty country folks would lie,
3773 This carol they began that hour,
3774 With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
3775 How that a life was but a flower
3778 And therefore take the present time,
3779 With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino;
3780 For love is crowned with the prime
3783 TOUCHSTONE Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great
3784 matter in the ditty, yet the note was very
3787 First Page You are deceived, sir: we kept time, we lost not our time.
3789 TOUCHSTONE By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear
3790 such a foolish song. God be wi' you; and God mend
3791 your voices! Come, Audrey.
3805 SCENE IV The forest.
3808 [Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, JAQUES, ORLANDO, OLIVER,
3811 DUKE SENIOR Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy
3812 Can do all this that he hath promised?
3814 ORLANDO I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not;
3815 As those that fear they hope, and know they fear.
3817 [Enter ROSALIND, SILVIUS, and PHEBE]
3819 ROSALIND Patience once more, whiles our compact is urged:
3820 You say, if I bring in your Rosalind,
3821 You will bestow her on Orlando here?
3823 DUKE SENIOR That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her.
3825 ROSALIND And you say, you will have her, when I bring her?
3827 ORLANDO That would I, were I of all kingdoms king.
3829 ROSALIND You say, you'll marry me, if I be willing?
3831 PHEBE That will I, should I die the hour after.
3833 ROSALIND But if you do refuse to marry me,
3834 You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?
3836 PHEBE So is the bargain.
3838 ROSALIND You say, that you'll have Phebe, if she will?
3840 SILVIUS Though to have her and death were both one thing.
3842 ROSALIND I have promised to make all this matter even.
3843 Keep you your word, O duke, to give your daughter;
3844 You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter:
3845 Keep your word, Phebe, that you'll marry me,
3846 Or else refusing me, to wed this shepherd:
3847 Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her.
3848 If she refuse me: and from hence I go,
3849 To make these doubts all even.
3851 [Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA]
3853 DUKE SENIOR I do remember in this shepherd boy
3854 Some lively touches of my daughter's favour.
3856 ORLANDO My lord, the first time that I ever saw him
3857 Methought he was a brother to your daughter:
3858 But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born,
3859 And hath been tutor'd in the rudiments
3860 Of many desperate studies by his uncle,
3861 Whom he reports to be a great magician,
3862 Obscured in the circle of this forest.
3864 [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY]
3866 JAQUES There is, sure, another flood toward, and these
3867 couples are coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of
3868 very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools.
3870 TOUCHSTONE Salutation and greeting to you all!
3872 JAQUES Good my lord, bid him welcome: this is the
3873 motley-minded gentleman that I have so often met in
3874 the forest: he hath been a courtier, he swears.
3876 TOUCHSTONE If any man doubt that, let him put me to my
3877 purgation. I have trod a measure; I have flattered
3878 a lady; I have been politic with my friend, smooth
3879 with mine enemy; I have undone three tailors; I have
3880 had four quarrels, and like to have fought one.
3882 JAQUES And how was that ta'en up?
3884 TOUCHSTONE Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the
3887 JAQUES How seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow.
3889 DUKE SENIOR I like him very well.
3891 TOUCHSTONE God 'ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I
3892 press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country
3893 copulatives, to swear and to forswear: according as
3894 marriage binds and blood breaks: a poor virgin,
3895 sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor
3896 humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else
3897 will: rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a
3898 poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster.
3900 DUKE SENIOR By my faith, he is very swift and sententious.
3902 TOUCHSTONE According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet diseases.
3904 JAQUES But, for the seventh cause; how did you find the
3905 quarrel on the seventh cause?
3907 TOUCHSTONE Upon a lie seven times removed:--bear your body more
3908 seeming, Audrey:--as thus, sir. I did dislike the
3909 cut of a certain courtier's beard: he sent me word,
3910 if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the
3911 mind it was: this is called the Retort Courteous.
3912 If I sent him word again 'it was not well cut,' he
3913 would send me word, he cut it to please himself:
3914 this is called the Quip Modest. If again 'it was
3915 not well cut,' he disabled my judgment: this is
3916 called the Reply Churlish. If again 'it was not
3917 well cut,' he would answer, I spake not true: this
3918 is called the Reproof Valiant. If again 'it was not
3919 well cut,' he would say I lied: this is called the
3920 Counter-cheque Quarrelsome: and so to the Lie
3921 Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.
3923 JAQUES And how oft did you say his beard was not well cut?
3925 TOUCHSTONE I durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial,
3926 nor he durst not give me the Lie Direct; and so we
3927 measured swords and parted.
3929 JAQUES Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?
3931 TOUCHSTONE O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have
3932 books for good manners: I will name you the degrees.
3933 The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the
3934 Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the
3935 fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
3936 Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with
3937 Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All
3938 these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may
3939 avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven
3940 justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the
3941 parties were met themselves, one of them thought but
3942 of an If, as, 'If you said so, then I said so;' and
3943 they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the
3944 only peacemaker; much virtue in If.
3946 JAQUES Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? he's as good at
3947 any thing and yet a fool.
3949 DUKE SENIOR He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under
3950 the presentation of that he shoots his wit.
3952 [Enter HYMEN, ROSALIND, and CELIA]
3956 HYMEN Then is there mirth in heaven,
3957 When earthly things made even
3959 Good duke, receive thy daughter
3960 Hymen from heaven brought her,
3961 Yea, brought her hither,
3962 That thou mightst join her hand with his
3963 Whose heart within his bosom is.
3965 ROSALIND [To DUKE SENIOR] To you I give myself, for I am yours.
3969 To you I give myself, for I am yours.
3971 DUKE SENIOR If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter.
3973 ORLANDO If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind.
3975 PHEBE If sight and shape be true,
3976 Why then, my love adieu!
3978 ROSALIND I'll have no father, if you be not he:
3979 I'll have no husband, if you be not he:
3980 Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she.
3982 HYMEN Peace, ho! I bar confusion:
3983 'Tis I must make conclusion
3984 Of these most strange events:
3985 Here's eight that must take hands
3986 To join in Hymen's bands,
3987 If truth holds true contents.
3988 You and you no cross shall part:
3989 You and you are heart in heart
3990 You to his love must accord,
3991 Or have a woman to your lord:
3992 You and you are sure together,
3993 As the winter to foul weather.
3994 Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing,
3995 Feed yourselves with questioning;
3996 That reason wonder may diminish,
3997 How thus we met, and these things finish.
4000 Wedding is great Juno's crown:
4001 O blessed bond of board and bed!
4002 'Tis Hymen peoples every town;
4003 High wedlock then be honoured:
4004 Honour, high honour and renown,
4005 To Hymen, god of every town!
4007 DUKE SENIOR O my dear niece, welcome thou art to me!
4008 Even daughter, welcome, in no less degree.
4010 PHEBE I will not eat my word, now thou art mine;
4011 Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.
4013 [Enter JAQUES DE BOYS]
4015 JAQUES DE BOYS Let me have audience for a word or two:
4016 I am the second son of old Sir Rowland,
4017 That bring these tidings to this fair assembly.
4018 Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day
4019 Men of great worth resorted to this forest,
4020 Address'd a mighty power; which were on foot,
4021 In his own conduct, purposely to take
4022 His brother here and put him to the sword:
4023 And to the skirts of this wild wood he came;
4024 Where meeting with an old religious man,
4025 After some question with him, was converted
4026 Both from his enterprise and from the world,
4027 His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,
4028 And all their lands restored to them again
4029 That were with him exiled. This to be true,
4030 I do engage my life.
4032 DUKE SENIOR Welcome, young man;
4033 Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding:
4034 To one his lands withheld, and to the other
4035 A land itself at large, a potent dukedom.
4036 First, in this forest, let us do those ends
4037 That here were well begun and well begot:
4038 And after, every of this happy number
4039 That have endured shrewd days and nights with us
4040 Shall share the good of our returned fortune,
4041 According to the measure of their states.
4042 Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity
4043 And fall into our rustic revelry.
4044 Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all,
4045 With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall.
4047 JAQUES Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly,
4048 The duke hath put on a religious life
4049 And thrown into neglect the pompous court?
4051 JAQUES DE BOYS He hath.
4053 JAQUES To him will I : out of these convertites
4054 There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.
4058 You to your former honour I bequeath;
4059 Your patience and your virtue well deserves it:
4063 You to a love that your true faith doth merit:
4067 You to your land and love and great allies:
4071 You to a long and well-deserved bed:
4075 And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage
4076 Is but for two months victuall'd. So, to your pleasures:
4077 I am for other than for dancing measures.
4079 DUKE SENIOR Stay, Jaques, stay.
4081 JAQUES To see no pastime I what you would have
4082 I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave.
4086 DUKE SENIOR Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites,
4087 As we do trust they'll end, in true delights.
4099 ROSALIND It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue;
4100 but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord
4101 the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs
4102 no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no
4103 epilogue; yet to good wine they do use good bushes,
4104 and good plays prove the better by the help of good
4105 epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am
4106 neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with
4107 you in the behalf of a good play! I am not
4108 furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not
4109 become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin
4110 with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love
4111 you bear to men, to like as much of this play as
4112 please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love
4113 you bear to women--as I perceive by your simpering,
4114 none of you hates them--that between you and the
4115 women the play may please. If I were a woman I
4116 would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased
4117 me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I
4118 defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good
4119 beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my
4120 kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.