| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| DRAMATIS PERSONAE | |
| DUKE SENIOR living in banishment. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK his brother, an usurper of his dominions. | |
| AMIENS | | |
| | lords attending on the banished duke. | |
| JAQUES | | |
| LE BEAU a courtier attending upon Frederick. | |
| CHARLES wrestler to Frederick. | |
| OLIVER | | |
| | | |
| JAQUES (JAQUES DE BOYS:) | sons of Sir Rowland de Boys. | |
| | | |
| ORLANDO | | |
| ADAM | | |
| | servants to Oliver. | |
| DENNIS | | |
| TOUCHSTONE a clown. | |
| SIR OLIVER MARTEXT a vicar. | |
| CORIN | | |
| | shepherds. | |
| SILVIUS | | |
| WILLIAM a country fellow in love with Audrey. | |
| A person representing HYMEN. (HYMEN:) | |
| ROSALIND daughter to the banished duke. | |
| CELIA daughter to Frederick. | |
| PHEBE a shepherdess. | |
| AUDREY a country wench. | |
| Lords, pages, and attendants, &c. | |
| (Forester:) | |
| (A Lord:) | |
| (First Lord:) | |
| (Second Lord:) | |
| (First Page:) | |
| (Second Page:) | |
| SCENE Oliver's house; Duke Frederick's court; and the | |
| Forest of Arden. | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT I | |
| SCENE I Orchard of Oliver's house. | |
| [Enter ORLANDO and ADAM] | |
| ORLANDO As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion | |
| bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, | |
| and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his | |
| blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my | |
| sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and | |
| report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part, | |
| he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more | |
| properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you | |
| that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that | |
| differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses | |
| are bred better; for, besides that they are fair | |
| with their feeding, they are taught their manage, | |
| and to that end riders dearly hired: but I, his | |
| brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for the | |
| which his animals on his dunghills are as much | |
| bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so | |
| plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave | |
| me his countenance seems to take from me: he lets | |
| me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a | |
| brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my | |
| gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that | |
| grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I | |
| think is within me, begins to mutiny against this | |
| servitude: I will no longer endure it, though yet I | |
| know no wise remedy how to avoid it. | |
| ADAM Yonder comes my master, your brother. | |
| ORLANDO Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will | |
| shake me up. | |
| [Enter OLIVER] | |
| OLIVER Now, sir! what make you here? | |
| ORLANDO Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing. | |
| OLIVER What mar you then, sir? | |
| ORLANDO Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God | |
| made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness. | |
| OLIVER Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile. | |
| ORLANDO Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them? | |
| What prodigal portion have I spent, that I should | |
| come to such penury? | |
| OLIVER Know you where your are, sir? | |
| ORLANDO O, sir, very well; here in your orchard. | |
| OLIVER Know you before whom, sir? | |
| ORLANDO Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know | |
| you are my eldest brother; and, in the gentle | |
| condition of blood, you should so know me. The | |
| courtesy of nations allows you my better, in that | |
| you are the first-born; but the same tradition | |
| takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers | |
| betwixt us: I have as much of my father in me as | |
| you; albeit, I confess, your coming before me is | |
| nearer to his reverence. | |
| OLIVER What, boy! | |
| ORLANDO Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this. | |
| OLIVER Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain? | |
| ORLANDO I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir | |
| Rowland de Boys; he was my father, and he is thrice | |
| a villain that says such a father begot villains. | |
| Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand | |
| from thy throat till this other had pulled out thy | |
| tongue for saying so: thou hast railed on thyself. | |
| ADAM Sweet masters, be patient: for your father's | |
| remembrance, be at accord. | |
| OLIVER Let me go, I say. | |
| ORLANDO I will not, till I please: you shall hear me. My | |
| father charged you in his will to give me good | |
| education: you have trained me like a peasant, | |
| obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like | |
| qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in | |
| me, and I will no longer endure it: therefore allow | |
| me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or | |
| give me the poor allottery my father left me by | |
| testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes. | |
| OLIVER And what wilt thou do? beg, when that is spent? | |
| Well, sir, get you in: I will not long be troubled | |
| with you; you shall have some part of your will: I | |
| pray you, leave me. | |
| ORLANDO I will no further offend you than becomes me for my good. | |
| OLIVER Get you with him, you old dog. | |
| ADAM Is 'old dog' my reward? Most true, I have lost my | |
| teeth in your service. God be with my old master! | |
| he would not have spoke such a word. | |
| [Exeunt ORLANDO and ADAM] | |
| OLIVER Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I will | |
| physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand | |
| crowns neither. Holla, Dennis! | |
| [Enter DENNIS] | |
| DENNIS Calls your worship? | |
| OLIVER Was not Charles, the duke's wrestler, here to speak with me? | |
| DENNIS So please you, he is here at the door and importunes | |
| access to you. | |
| OLIVER Call him in. | |
| [Exit DENNIS] | |
| 'Twill be a good way; and to-morrow the wrestling is. | |
| [Enter CHARLES] | |
| CHARLES Good morrow to your worship. | |
| OLIVER Good Monsieur Charles, what's the new news at the | |
| new court? | |
| CHARLES There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news: | |
| that is, the old duke is banished by his younger | |
| brother the new duke; and three or four loving lords | |
| have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, | |
| whose lands and revenues enrich the new duke; | |
| therefore he gives them good leave to wander. | |
| OLIVER Can you tell if Rosalind, the duke's daughter, be | |
| banished with her father? | |
| CHARLES O, no; for the duke's daughter, her cousin, so loves | |
| her, being ever from their cradles bred together, | |
| that she would have followed her exile, or have died | |
| to stay behind her. She is at the court, and no | |
| less beloved of her uncle than his own daughter; and | |
| never two ladies loved as they do. | |
| OLIVER Where will the old duke live? | |
| CHARLES They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and | |
| a many merry men with him; and there they live like | |
| the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young | |
| gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time | |
| carelessly, as they did in the golden world. | |
| OLIVER What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new duke? | |
| CHARLES Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a | |
| matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand | |
| that your younger brother Orlando hath a disposition | |
| to come in disguised against me to try a fall. | |
| To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit; and he that | |
| escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him | |
| well. Your brother is but young and tender; and, | |
| for your love, I would be loath to foil him, as I | |
| must, for my own honour, if he come in: therefore, | |
| out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint you | |
| withal, that either you might stay him from his | |
| intendment or brook such disgrace well as he shall | |
| run into, in that it is a thing of his own search | |
| and altogether against my will. | |
| OLIVER Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which | |
| thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. I had | |
| myself notice of my brother's purpose herein and | |
| have by underhand means laboured to dissuade him from | |
| it, but he is resolute. I'll tell thee, Charles: | |
| it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full | |
| of ambition, an envious emulator of every man's | |
| good parts, a secret and villanous contriver against | |
| me his natural brother: therefore use thy | |
| discretion; I had as lief thou didst break his neck | |
| as his finger. And thou wert best look to't; for if | |
| thou dost him any slight disgrace or if he do not | |
| mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise | |
| against thee by poison, entrap thee by some | |
| treacherous device and never leave thee till he | |
| hath ta'en thy life by some indirect means or other; | |
| for, I assure thee, and almost with tears I speak | |
| it, there is not one so young and so villanous this | |
| day living. I speak but brotherly of him; but | |
| should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I must | |
| blush and weep and thou must look pale and wonder. | |
| CHARLES I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come | |
| to-morrow, I'll give him his payment: if ever he go | |
| alone again, I'll never wrestle for prize more: and | |
| so God keep your worship! | |
| OLIVER Farewell, good Charles. | |
| [Exit CHARLES] | |
| Now will I stir this gamester: I hope I shall see | |
| an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, | |
| hates nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle, never | |
| schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of | |
| all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much | |
| in the heart of the world, and especially of my own | |
| people, who best know him, that I am altogether | |
| misprised: but it shall not be so long; this | |
| wrestler shall clear all: nothing remains but that | |
| I kindle the boy thither; which now I'll go about. | |
| [Exit] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT I | |
| SCENE II Lawn before the Duke's palace. | |
| [Enter CELIA and ROSALIND] | |
| CELIA I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry. | |
| ROSALIND Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; | |
| and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could | |
| teach me to forget a banished father, you must not | |
| learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure. | |
| CELIA Herein I see thou lovest me not with the full weight | |
| that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, | |
| had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, so thou | |
| hadst been still with me, I could have taught my | |
| love to take thy father for mine: so wouldst thou, | |
| if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously | |
| tempered as mine is to thee. | |
| ROSALIND Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to | |
| rejoice in yours. | |
| CELIA You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is | |
| like to have: and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt | |
| be his heir, for what he hath taken away from thy | |
| father perforce, I will render thee again in | |
| affection; by mine honour, I will; and when I break | |
| that oath, let me turn monster: therefore, my | |
| sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry. | |
| ROSALIND From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let | |
| me see; what think you of falling in love? | |
| CELIA Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal: but | |
| love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport | |
| neither than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst | |
| in honour come off again. | |
| ROSALIND What shall be our sport, then? | |
| CELIA Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from | |
| her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally. | |
| ROSALIND I would we could do so, for her benefits are | |
| mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman | |
| doth most mistake in her gifts to women. | |
| CELIA 'Tis true; for those that she makes fair she scarce | |
| makes honest, and those that she makes honest she | |
| makes very ill-favouredly. | |
| ROSALIND Nay, now thou goest from Fortune's office to | |
| Nature's: Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, | |
| not in the lineaments of Nature. | |
| [Enter TOUCHSTONE] | |
| CELIA No? when Nature hath made a fair creature, may she | |
| not by Fortune fall into the fire? Though Nature | |
| hath given us wit to flout at Fortune, hath not | |
| Fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument? | |
| ROSALIND Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when | |
| Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of | |
| Nature's wit. | |
| CELIA Peradventure this is not Fortune's work neither, but | |
| Nature's; who perceiveth our natural wits too dull | |
| to reason of such goddesses and hath sent this | |
| natural for our whetstone; for always the dulness of | |
| the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How now, | |
| wit! whither wander you? | |
| TOUCHSTONE Mistress, you must come away to your father. | |
| CELIA Were you made the messenger? | |
| TOUCHSTONE No, by mine honour, but I was bid to come for you. | |
| ROSALIND Where learned you that oath, fool? | |
| TOUCHSTONE Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they | |
| were good pancakes and swore by his honour the | |
| mustard was naught: now I'll stand to it, the | |
| pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and | |
| yet was not the knight forsworn. | |
| CELIA How prove you that, in the great heap of your | |
| knowledge? | |
| ROSALIND Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and | |
| swear by your beards that I am a knave. | |
| CELIA By our beards, if we had them, thou art. | |
| TOUCHSTONE By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you | |
| swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no | |
| more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he | |
| never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away | |
| before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard. | |
| CELIA Prithee, who is't that thou meanest? | |
| TOUCHSTONE One that old Frederick, your father, loves. | |
| CELIA My father's love is enough to honour him: enough! | |
| speak no more of him; you'll be whipped for taxation | |
| one of these days. | |
| TOUCHSTONE The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what | |
| wise men do foolishly. | |
| CELIA By my troth, thou sayest true; for since the little | |
| wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery | |
| that wise men have makes a great show. Here comes | |
| Monsieur Le Beau. | |
| ROSALIND With his mouth full of news. | |
| CELIA Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young. | |
| ROSALIND Then shall we be news-crammed. | |
| CELIA All the better; we shall be the more marketable. | |
| [Enter LE BEAU] | |
| Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: what's the news? | |
| LE BEAU Fair princess, you have lost much good sport. | |
| CELIA Sport! of what colour? | |
| LE BEAU What colour, madam! how shall I answer you? | |
| ROSALIND As wit and fortune will. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Or as the Destinies decree. | |
| CELIA Well said: that was laid on with a trowel. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Nay, if I keep not my rank,-- | |
| ROSALIND Thou losest thy old smell. | |
| LE BEAU You amaze me, ladies: I would have told you of good | |
| wrestling, which you have lost the sight of. | |
| ROSALIND You tell us the manner of the wrestling. | |
| LE BEAU I will tell you the beginning; and, if it please | |
| your ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is | |
| yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming | |
| to perform it. | |
| CELIA Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried. | |
| LE BEAU There comes an old man and his three sons,-- | |
| CELIA I could match this beginning with an old tale. | |
| LE BEAU Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence. | |
| ROSALIND With bills on their necks, 'Be it known unto all men | |
| by these presents.' | |
| LE BEAU The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the | |
| duke's wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him | |
| and broke three of his ribs, that there is little | |
| hope of life in him: so he served the second, and | |
| so the third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man, | |
| their father, making such pitiful dole over them | |
| that all the beholders take his part with weeping. | |
| ROSALIND Alas! | |
| TOUCHSTONE But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies | |
| have lost? | |
| LE BEAU Why, this that I speak of. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Thus men may grow wiser every day: it is the first | |
| time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport | |
| for ladies. | |
| CELIA Or I, I promise thee. | |
| ROSALIND But is there any else longs to see this broken music | |
| in his sides? is there yet another dotes upon | |
| rib-breaking? Shall we see this wrestling, cousin? | |
| LE BEAU You must, if you stay here; for here is the place | |
| appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to | |
| perform it. | |
| CELIA Yonder, sure, they are coming: let us now stay and see it. | |
| [Flourish. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, ORLANDO, | |
| CHARLES, and Attendants] | |
| DUKE FREDERICK Come on: since the youth will not be entreated, his | |
| own peril on his forwardness. | |
| ROSALIND Is yonder the man? | |
| LE BEAU Even he, madam. | |
| CELIA Alas, he is too young! yet he looks successfully. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK How now, daughter and cousin! are you crept hither | |
| to see the wrestling? | |
| ROSALIND Ay, my liege, so please you give us leave. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK You will take little delight in it, I can tell you; | |
| there is such odds in the man. In pity of the | |
| challenger's youth I would fain dissuade him, but he | |
| will not be entreated. Speak to him, ladies; see if | |
| you can move him. | |
| CELIA Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK Do so: I'll not be by. | |
| LE BEAU Monsieur the challenger, the princesses call for you. | |
| ORLANDO I attend them with all respect and duty. | |
| ROSALIND Young man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler? | |
| ORLANDO No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I | |
| come but in, as others do, to try with him the | |
| strength of my youth. | |
| CELIA Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your | |
| years. You have seen cruel proof of this man's | |
| strength: if you saw yourself with your eyes or | |
| knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your | |
| adventure would counsel you to a more equal | |
| enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to | |
| embrace your own safety and give over this attempt. | |
| ROSALIND Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore | |
| be misprised: we will make it our suit to the duke | |
| that the wrestling might not go forward. | |
| ORLANDO I beseech you, punish me not with your hard | |
| thoughts; wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny | |
| so fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let | |
| your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my | |
| trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one | |
| shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one | |
| dead that was willing to be so: I shall do my | |
| friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me, the | |
| world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in | |
| the world I fill up a place, which may be better | |
| supplied when I have made it empty. | |
| ROSALIND The little strength that I have, I would it were with you. | |
| CELIA And mine, to eke out hers. | |
| ROSALIND Fare you well: pray heaven I be deceived in you! | |
| CELIA Your heart's desires be with you! | |
| CHARLES Come, where is this young gallant that is so | |
| desirous to lie with his mother earth? | |
| ORLANDO Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK You shall try but one fall. | |
| CHARLES No, I warrant your grace, you shall not entreat him | |
| to a second, that have so mightily persuaded him | |
| from a first. | |
| ORLANDO An you mean to mock me after, you should not have | |
| mocked me before: but come your ways. | |
| ROSALIND Now Hercules be thy speed, young man! | |
| CELIA I would I were invisible, to catch the strong | |
| fellow by the leg. | |
| [They wrestle] | |
| ROSALIND O excellent young man! | |
| CELIA If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who | |
| should down. | |
| [Shout. CHARLES is thrown] | |
| DUKE FREDERICK No more, no more. | |
| ORLANDO Yes, I beseech your grace: I am not yet well breathed. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK How dost thou, Charles? | |
| LE BEAU He cannot speak, my lord. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK Bear him away. What is thy name, young man? | |
| ORLANDO Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK I would thou hadst been son to some man else: | |
| The world esteem'd thy father honourable, | |
| But I did find him still mine enemy: | |
| Thou shouldst have better pleased me with this deed, | |
| Hadst thou descended from another house. | |
| But fare thee well; thou art a gallant youth: | |
| I would thou hadst told me of another father. | |
| [Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK, train, and LE BEAU] | |
| CELIA Were I my father, coz, would I do this? | |
| ORLANDO I am more proud to be Sir Rowland's son, | |
| His youngest son; and would not change that calling, | |
| To be adopted heir to Frederick. | |
| ROSALIND My father loved Sir Rowland as his soul, | |
| And all the world was of my father's mind: | |
| Had I before known this young man his son, | |
| I should have given him tears unto entreaties, | |
| Ere he should thus have ventured. | |
| CELIA Gentle cousin, | |
| Let us go thank him and encourage him: | |
| My father's rough and envious disposition | |
| Sticks me at heart. Sir, you have well deserved: | |
| If you do keep your promises in love | |
| But justly, as you have exceeded all promise, | |
| Your mistress shall be happy. | |
| ROSALIND Gentleman, | |
| [Giving him a chain from her neck] | |
| Wear this for me, one out of suits with fortune, | |
| That could give more, but that her hand lacks means. | |
| Shall we go, coz? | |
| CELIA Ay. Fare you well, fair gentleman. | |
| ORLANDO Can I not say, I thank you? My better parts | |
| Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up | |
| Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block. | |
| ROSALIND He calls us back: my pride fell with my fortunes; | |
| I'll ask him what he would. Did you call, sir? | |
| Sir, you have wrestled well and overthrown | |
| More than your enemies. | |
| CELIA Will you go, coz? | |
| ROSALIND Have with you. Fare you well. | |
| [Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA] | |
| ORLANDO What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue? | |
| I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference. | |
| O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown! | |
| Or Charles or something weaker masters thee. | |
| [Re-enter LE BEAU] | |
| LE BEAU Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you | |
| To leave this place. Albeit you have deserved | |
| High commendation, true applause and love, | |
| Yet such is now the duke's condition | |
| That he misconstrues all that you have done. | |
| The duke is humorous; what he is indeed, | |
| More suits you to conceive than I to speak of. | |
| ORLANDO I thank you, sir: and, pray you, tell me this: | |
| Which of the two was daughter of the duke | |
| That here was at the wrestling? | |
| LE BEAU Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners; | |
| But yet indeed the lesser is his daughter | |
| The other is daughter to the banish'd duke, | |
| And here detain'd by her usurping uncle, | |
| To keep his daughter company; whose loves | |
| Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters. | |
| But I can tell you that of late this duke | |
| Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece, | |
| Grounded upon no other argument | |
| But that the people praise her for her virtues | |
| And pity her for her good father's sake; | |
| And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady | |
| Will suddenly break forth. Sir, fare you well: | |
| Hereafter, in a better world than this, | |
| I shall desire more love and knowledge of you. | |
| ORLANDO I rest much bounden to you: fare you well. | |
| [Exit LE BEAU] | |
| Thus must I from the smoke into the smother; | |
| From tyrant duke unto a tyrant brother: | |
| But heavenly Rosalind! | |
| [Exit] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT I | |
| SCENE III A room in the palace. | |
| [Enter CELIA and ROSALIND] | |
| CELIA Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! not a word? | |
| ROSALIND Not one to throw at a dog. | |
| CELIA No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon | |
| curs; throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons. | |
| ROSALIND Then there were two cousins laid up; when the one | |
| should be lamed with reasons and the other mad | |
| without any. | |
| CELIA But is all this for your father? | |
| ROSALIND No, some of it is for my child's father. O, how | |
| full of briers is this working-day world! | |
| CELIA They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in | |
| holiday foolery: if we walk not in the trodden | |
| paths our very petticoats will catch them. | |
| ROSALIND I could shake them off my coat: these burs are in my heart. | |
| CELIA Hem them away. | |
| ROSALIND I would try, if I could cry 'hem' and have him. | |
| CELIA Come, come, wrestle with thy affections. | |
| ROSALIND O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself! | |
| CELIA O, a good wish upon you! you will try in time, in | |
| despite of a fall. But, turning these jests out of | |
| service, let us talk in good earnest: is it | |
| possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so | |
| strong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest son? | |
| ROSALIND The duke my father loved his father dearly. | |
| CELIA Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son | |
| dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him, | |
| for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate | |
| not Orlando. | |
| ROSALIND No, faith, hate him not, for my sake. | |
| CELIA Why should I not? doth he not deserve well? | |
| ROSALIND Let me love him for that, and do you love him | |
| because I do. Look, here comes the duke. | |
| CELIA With his eyes full of anger. | |
| [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords] | |
| DUKE FREDERICK Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste | |
| And get you from our court. | |
| ROSALIND Me, uncle? | |
| DUKE FREDERICK You, cousin | |
| Within these ten days if that thou be'st found | |
| So near our public court as twenty miles, | |
| Thou diest for it. | |
| ROSALIND I do beseech your grace, | |
| Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me: | |
| If with myself I hold intelligence | |
| Or have acquaintance with mine own desires, | |
| If that I do not dream or be not frantic,-- | |
| As I do trust I am not--then, dear uncle, | |
| Never so much as in a thought unborn | |
| Did I offend your highness. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK Thus do all traitors: | |
| If their purgation did consist in words, | |
| They are as innocent as grace itself: | |
| Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not. | |
| ROSALIND Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor: | |
| Tell me whereon the likelihood depends. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough. | |
| ROSALIND So was I when your highness took his dukedom; | |
| So was I when your highness banish'd him: | |
| Treason is not inherited, my lord; | |
| Or, if we did derive it from our friends, | |
| What's that to me? my father was no traitor: | |
| Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much | |
| To think my poverty is treacherous. | |
| CELIA Dear sovereign, hear me speak. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake, | |
| Else had she with her father ranged along. | |
| CELIA I did not then entreat to have her stay; | |
| It was your pleasure and your own remorse: | |
| I was too young that time to value her; | |
| But now I know her: if she be a traitor, | |
| Why so am I; we still have slept together, | |
| Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together, | |
| And wheresoever we went, like Juno's swans, | |
| Still we went coupled and inseparable. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness, | |
| Her very silence and her patience | |
| Speak to the people, and they pity her. | |
| Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name; | |
| And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous | |
| When she is gone. Then open not thy lips: | |
| Firm and irrevocable is my doom | |
| Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd. | |
| CELIA Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege: | |
| I cannot live out of her company. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself: | |
| If you outstay the time, upon mine honour, | |
| And in the greatness of my word, you die. | |
| [Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK and Lords] | |
| CELIA O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go? | |
| Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine. | |
| I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am. | |
| ROSALIND I have more cause. | |
| CELIA Thou hast not, cousin; | |
| Prithee be cheerful: know'st thou not, the duke | |
| Hath banish'd me, his daughter? | |
| ROSALIND That he hath not. | |
| CELIA No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love | |
| Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one: | |
| Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl? | |
| No: let my father seek another heir. | |
| Therefore devise with me how we may fly, | |
| Whither to go and what to bear with us; | |
| And do not seek to take your change upon you, | |
| To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out; | |
| For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale, | |
| Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee. | |
| ROSALIND Why, whither shall we go? | |
| CELIA To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden. | |
| ROSALIND Alas, what danger will it be to us, | |
| Maids as we are, to travel forth so far! | |
| Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. | |
| CELIA I'll put myself in poor and mean attire | |
| And with a kind of umber smirch my face; | |
| The like do you: so shall we pass along | |
| And never stir assailants. | |
| ROSALIND Were it not better, | |
| Because that I am more than common tall, | |
| That I did suit me all points like a man? | |
| A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh, | |
| A boar-spear in my hand; and--in my heart | |
| Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will-- | |
| We'll have a swashing and a martial outside, | |
| As many other mannish cowards have | |
| That do outface it with their semblances. | |
| CELIA What shall I call thee when thou art a man? | |
| ROSALIND I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page; | |
| And therefore look you call me Ganymede. | |
| But what will you be call'd? | |
| CELIA Something that hath a reference to my state | |
| No longer Celia, but Aliena. | |
| ROSALIND But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal | |
| The clownish fool out of your father's court? | |
| Would he not be a comfort to our travel? | |
| CELIA He'll go along o'er the wide world with me; | |
| Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away, | |
| And get our jewels and our wealth together, | |
| Devise the fittest time and safest way | |
| To hide us from pursuit that will be made | |
| After my flight. Now go we in content | |
| To liberty and not to banishment. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT II | |
| SCENE I The Forest of Arden. | |
| [Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three Lords, | |
| like foresters] | |
| DUKE SENIOR Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, | |
| Hath not old custom made this life more sweet | |
| Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods | |
| More free from peril than the envious court? | |
| Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, | |
| The seasons' difference, as the icy fang | |
| And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, | |
| Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, | |
| Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say | |
| 'This is no flattery: these are counsellors | |
| That feelingly persuade me what I am.' | |
| Sweet are the uses of adversity, | |
| Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, | |
| Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; | |
| And this our life exempt from public haunt | |
| Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, | |
| Sermons in stones and good in every thing. | |
| I would not change it. | |
| AMIENS Happy is your grace, | |
| That can translate the stubbornness of fortune | |
| Into so quiet and so sweet a style. | |
| DUKE SENIOR Come, shall we go and kill us venison? | |
| And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, | |
| Being native burghers of this desert city, | |
| Should in their own confines with forked heads | |
| Have their round haunches gored. | |
| First Lord Indeed, my lord, | |
| The melancholy Jaques grieves at that, | |
| And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp | |
| Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you. | |
| To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself | |
| Did steal behind him as he lay along | |
| Under an oak whose antique root peeps out | |
| Upon the brook that brawls along this wood: | |
| To the which place a poor sequester'd stag, | |
| That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, | |
| Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord, | |
| The wretched animal heaved forth such groans | |
| That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat | |
| Almost to bursting, and the big round tears | |
| Coursed one another down his innocent nose | |
| In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool | |
| Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, | |
| Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook, | |
| Augmenting it with tears. | |
| DUKE SENIOR But what said Jaques? | |
| Did he not moralize this spectacle? | |
| First Lord O, yes, into a thousand similes. | |
| First, for his weeping into the needless stream; | |
| 'Poor deer,' quoth he, 'thou makest a testament | |
| As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more | |
| To that which had too much:' then, being there alone, | |
| Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends, | |
| ''Tis right:' quoth he; 'thus misery doth part | |
| The flux of company:' anon a careless herd, | |
| Full of the pasture, jumps along by him | |
| And never stays to greet him; 'Ay' quoth Jaques, | |
| 'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens; | |
| 'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you look | |
| Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?' | |
| Thus most invectively he pierceth through | |
| The body of the country, city, court, | |
| Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we | |
| Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse, | |
| To fright the animals and to kill them up | |
| In their assign'd and native dwelling-place. | |
| DUKE SENIOR And did you leave him in this contemplation? | |
| Second Lord We did, my lord, weeping and commenting | |
| Upon the sobbing deer. | |
| DUKE SENIOR Show me the place: | |
| I love to cope him in these sullen fits, | |
| For then he's full of matter. | |
| First Lord I'll bring you to him straight. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT II | |
| SCENE II A room in the palace. | |
| [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords] | |
| DUKE FREDERICK Can it be possible that no man saw them? | |
| It cannot be: some villains of my court | |
| Are of consent and sufferance in this. | |
| First Lord I cannot hear of any that did see her. | |
| The ladies, her attendants of her chamber, | |
| Saw her abed, and in the morning early | |
| They found the bed untreasured of their mistress. | |
| Second Lord My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft | |
| Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing. | |
| Hisperia, the princess' gentlewoman, | |
| Confesses that she secretly o'erheard | |
| Your daughter and her cousin much commend | |
| The parts and graces of the wrestler | |
| That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles; | |
| And she believes, wherever they are gone, | |
| That youth is surely in their company. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK Send to his brother; fetch that gallant hither; | |
| If he be absent, bring his brother to me; | |
| I'll make him find him: do this suddenly, | |
| And let not search and inquisition quail | |
| To bring again these foolish runaways. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT II | |
| SCENE III Before OLIVER'S house. | |
| [Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting] | |
| ORLANDO Who's there? | |
| ADAM What, my young master? O, my gentle master! | |
| O my sweet master! O you memory | |
| Of old Sir Rowland! why, what make you here? | |
| Why are you virtuous? why do people love you? | |
| And wherefore are you gentle, strong and valiant? | |
| Why would you be so fond to overcome | |
| The bonny priser of the humorous duke? | |
| Your praise is come too swiftly home before you. | |
| Know you not, master, to some kind of men | |
| Their graces serve them but as enemies? | |
| No more do yours: your virtues, gentle master, | |
| Are sanctified and holy traitors to you. | |
| O, what a world is this, when what is comely | |
| Envenoms him that bears it! | |
| ORLANDO Why, what's the matter? | |
| ADAM O unhappy youth! | |
| Come not within these doors; within this roof | |
| The enemy of all your graces lives: | |
| Your brother--no, no brother; yet the son-- | |
| Yet not the son, I will not call him son | |
| Of him I was about to call his father-- | |
| Hath heard your praises, and this night he means | |
| To burn the lodging where you use to lie | |
| And you within it: if he fail of that, | |
| He will have other means to cut you off. | |
| I overheard him and his practises. | |
| This is no place; this house is but a butchery: | |
| Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it. | |
| ORLANDO Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go? | |
| ADAM No matter whither, so you come not here. | |
| ORLANDO What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food? | |
| Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce | |
| A thievish living on the common road? | |
| This I must do, or know not what to do: | |
| Yet this I will not do, do how I can; | |
| I rather will subject me to the malice | |
| Of a diverted blood and bloody brother. | |
| ADAM But do not so. I have five hundred crowns, | |
| The thrifty hire I saved under your father, | |
| Which I did store to be my foster-nurse | |
| When service should in my old limbs lie lame | |
| And unregarded age in corners thrown: | |
| Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed, | |
| Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, | |
| Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold; | |
| And all this I give you. Let me be your servant: | |
| Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; | |
| For in my youth I never did apply | |
| Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, | |
| Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo | |
| The means of weakness and debility; | |
| Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, | |
| Frosty, but kindly: let me go with you; | |
| I'll do the service of a younger man | |
| In all your business and necessities. | |
| ORLANDO O good old man, how well in thee appears | |
| The constant service of the antique world, | |
| When service sweat for duty, not for meed! | |
| Thou art not for the fashion of these times, | |
| Where none will sweat but for promotion, | |
| And having that, do choke their service up | |
| Even with the having: it is not so with thee. | |
| But, poor old man, thou prunest a rotten tree, | |
| That cannot so much as a blossom yield | |
| In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry | |
| But come thy ways; well go along together, | |
| And ere we have thy youthful wages spent, | |
| We'll light upon some settled low content. | |
| ADAM Master, go on, and I will follow thee, | |
| To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. | |
| From seventeen years till now almost fourscore | |
| Here lived I, but now live here no more. | |
| At seventeen years many their fortunes seek; | |
| But at fourscore it is too late a week: | |
| Yet fortune cannot recompense me better | |
| Than to die well and not my master's debtor. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT II | |
| SCENE IV The Forest of Arden. | |
| [Enter ROSALIND for Ganymede, CELIA for Aliena, | |
| and TOUCHSTONE] | |
| ROSALIND O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits! | |
| TOUCHSTONE I care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary. | |
| ROSALIND I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's | |
| apparel and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort | |
| the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show | |
| itself courageous to petticoat: therefore courage, | |
| good Aliena! | |
| CELIA I pray you, bear with me; I cannot go no further. | |
| TOUCHSTONE For my part, I had rather bear with you than bear | |
| you; yet I should bear no cross if I did bear you, | |
| for I think you have no money in your purse. | |
| ROSALIND Well, this is the forest of Arden. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was | |
| at home, I was in a better place: but travellers | |
| must be content. | |
| ROSALIND Ay, be so, good Touchstone. | |
| [Enter CORIN and SILVIUS] | |
| Look you, who comes here; a young man and an old in | |
| solemn talk. | |
| CORIN That is the way to make her scorn you still. | |
| SILVIUS O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love her! | |
| CORIN I partly guess; for I have loved ere now. | |
| SILVIUS No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess, | |
| Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover | |
| As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow: | |
| But if thy love were ever like to mine-- | |
| As sure I think did never man love so-- | |
| How many actions most ridiculous | |
| Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy? | |
| CORIN Into a thousand that I have forgotten. | |
| SILVIUS O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily! | |
| If thou remember'st not the slightest folly | |
| That ever love did make thee run into, | |
| Thou hast not loved: | |
| Or if thou hast not sat as I do now, | |
| Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise, | |
| Thou hast not loved: | |
| Or if thou hast not broke from company | |
| Abruptly, as my passion now makes me, | |
| Thou hast not loved. | |
| O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe! | |
| [Exit] | |
| ROSALIND Alas, poor shepherd! searching of thy wound, | |
| I have by hard adventure found mine own. | |
| TOUCHSTONE And I mine. I remember, when I was in love I broke | |
| my sword upon a stone and bid him take that for | |
| coming a-night to Jane Smile; and I remember the | |
| kissing of her batlet and the cow's dugs that her | |
| pretty chopt hands had milked; and I remember the | |
| wooing of a peascod instead of her, from whom I took | |
| two cods and, giving her them again, said with | |
| weeping tears 'Wear these for my sake.' We that are | |
| true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is | |
| mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly. | |
| ROSALIND Thou speakest wiser than thou art ware of. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Nay, I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till I | |
| break my shins against it. | |
| ROSALIND Jove, Jove! this shepherd's passion | |
| Is much upon my fashion. | |
| TOUCHSTONE And mine; but it grows something stale with me. | |
| CELIA I pray you, one of you question yond man | |
| If he for gold will give us any food: | |
| I faint almost to death. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Holla, you clown! | |
| ROSALIND Peace, fool: he's not thy kinsman. | |
| CORIN Who calls? | |
| TOUCHSTONE Your betters, sir. | |
| CORIN Else are they very wretched. | |
| ROSALIND Peace, I say. Good even to you, friend. | |
| CORIN And to you, gentle sir, and to you all. | |
| ROSALIND I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold | |
| Can in this desert place buy entertainment, | |
| Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed: | |
| Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd | |
| And faints for succor. | |
| CORIN Fair sir, I pity her | |
| And wish, for her sake more than for mine own, | |
| My fortunes were more able to relieve her; | |
| But I am shepherd to another man | |
| And do not shear the fleeces that I graze: | |
| My master is of churlish disposition | |
| And little recks to find the way to heaven | |
| By doing deeds of hospitality: | |
| Besides, his cote, his flocks and bounds of feed | |
| Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now, | |
| By reason of his absence, there is nothing | |
| That you will feed on; but what is, come see. | |
| And in my voice most welcome shall you be. | |
| ROSALIND What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture? | |
| CORIN That young swain that you saw here but erewhile, | |
| That little cares for buying any thing. | |
| ROSALIND I pray thee, if it stand with honesty, | |
| Buy thou the cottage, pasture and the flock, | |
| And thou shalt have to pay for it of us. | |
| CELIA And we will mend thy wages. I like this place. | |
| And willingly could waste my time in it. | |
| CORIN Assuredly the thing is to be sold: | |
| Go with me: if you like upon report | |
| The soil, the profit and this kind of life, | |
| I will your very faithful feeder be | |
| And buy it with your gold right suddenly. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT II | |
| SCENE V The Forest. | |
| [Enter AMIENS, JAQUES, and others] | |
| SONG. | |
| AMIENS Under the greenwood tree | |
| Who loves to lie with me, | |
| And turn his merry note | |
| Unto the sweet bird's throat, | |
| Come hither, come hither, come hither: | |
| Here shall he see No enemy | |
| But winter and rough weather. | |
| JAQUES More, more, I prithee, more. | |
| AMIENS It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques. | |
| JAQUES I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck | |
| melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. | |
| More, I prithee, more. | |
| AMIENS My voice is ragged: I know I cannot please you. | |
| JAQUES I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to | |
| sing. Come, more; another stanzo: call you 'em stanzos? | |
| AMIENS What you will, Monsieur Jaques. | |
| JAQUES Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me | |
| nothing. Will you sing? | |
| AMIENS More at your request than to please myself. | |
| JAQUES Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank you; | |
| but that they call compliment is like the encounter | |
| of two dog-apes, and when a man thanks me heartily, | |
| methinks I have given him a penny and he renders me | |
| the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you that will | |
| not, hold your tongues. | |
| AMIENS Well, I'll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the | |
| duke will drink under this tree. He hath been all | |
| this day to look you. | |
| JAQUES And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is | |
| too disputable for my company: I think of as many | |
| matters as he, but I give heaven thanks and make no | |
| boast of them. Come, warble, come. | |
| SONG. | |
| Who doth ambition shun | |
| [All together here] | |
| And loves to live i' the sun, | |
| Seeking the food he eats | |
| And pleased with what he gets, | |
| Come hither, come hither, come hither: | |
| Here shall he see No enemy | |
| But winter and rough weather. | |
| JAQUES I'll give you a verse to this note that I made | |
| yesterday in despite of my invention. | |
| AMIENS And I'll sing it. | |
| JAQUES Thus it goes:-- | |
| If it do come to pass | |
| That any man turn ass, | |
| Leaving his wealth and ease, | |
| A stubborn will to please, | |
| Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame: | |
| Here shall he see | |
| Gross fools as he, | |
| An if he will come to me. | |
| AMIENS What's that 'ducdame'? | |
| JAQUES 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a | |
| circle. I'll go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I'll | |
| rail against all the first-born of Egypt. | |
| AMIENS And I'll go seek the duke: his banquet is prepared. | |
| [Exeunt severally] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT II | |
| SCENE VI The forest. | |
| [Enter ORLANDO and ADAM] | |
| ADAM Dear master, I can go no further. O, I die for food! | |
| Here lie I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, | |
| kind master. | |
| ORLANDO Why, how now, Adam! no greater heart in thee? Live | |
| a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little. | |
| If this uncouth forest yield any thing savage, I | |
| will either be food for it or bring it for food to | |
| thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy powers. | |
| For my sake be comfortable; hold death awhile at | |
| the arm's end: I will here be with thee presently; | |
| and if I bring thee not something to eat, I will | |
| give thee leave to die: but if thou diest before I | |
| come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said! | |
| thou lookest cheerly, and I'll be with thee quickly. | |
| Yet thou liest in the bleak air: come, I will bear | |
| thee to some shelter; and thou shalt not die for | |
| lack of a dinner, if there live any thing in this | |
| desert. Cheerly, good Adam! | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT II | |
| SCENE VII The forest. | |
| [A table set out. Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and | |
| Lords like outlaws] | |
| DUKE SENIOR I think he be transform'd into a beast; | |
| For I can no where find him like a man. | |
| First Lord My lord, he is but even now gone hence: | |
| Here was he merry, hearing of a song. | |
| DUKE SENIOR If he, compact of jars, grow musical, | |
| We shall have shortly discord in the spheres. | |
| Go, seek him: tell him I would speak with him. | |
| [Enter JAQUES] | |
| First Lord He saves my labour by his own approach. | |
| DUKE SENIOR Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this, | |
| That your poor friends must woo your company? | |
| What, you look merrily! | |
| JAQUES A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest, | |
| A motley fool; a miserable world! | |
| As I do live by food, I met a fool | |
| Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, | |
| And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms, | |
| In good set terms and yet a motley fool. | |
| 'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I. 'No, sir,' quoth he, | |
| 'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:' | |
| And then he drew a dial from his poke, | |
| And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye, | |
| Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock: | |
| Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags: | |
| 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, | |
| And after one hour more 'twill be eleven; | |
| And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, | |
| And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; | |
| And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear | |
| The motley fool thus moral on the time, | |
| My lungs began to crow like chanticleer, | |
| That fools should be so deep-contemplative, | |
| And I did laugh sans intermission | |
| An hour by his dial. O noble fool! | |
| A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear. | |
| DUKE SENIOR What fool is this? | |
| JAQUES O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier, | |
| And says, if ladies be but young and fair, | |
| They have the gift to know it: and in his brain, | |
| Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit | |
| After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd | |
| With observation, the which he vents | |
| In mangled forms. O that I were a fool! | |
| I am ambitious for a motley coat. | |
| DUKE SENIOR Thou shalt have one. | |
| JAQUES It is my only suit; | |
| Provided that you weed your better judgments | |
| Of all opinion that grows rank in them | |
| That I am wise. I must have liberty | |
| Withal, as large a charter as the wind, | |
| To blow on whom I please; for so fools have; | |
| And they that are most galled with my folly, | |
| They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so? | |
| The 'why' is plain as way to parish church: | |
| He that a fool doth very wisely hit | |
| Doth very foolishly, although he smart, | |
| Not to seem senseless of the bob: if not, | |
| The wise man's folly is anatomized | |
| Even by the squandering glances of the fool. | |
| Invest me in my motley; give me leave | |
| To speak my mind, and I will through and through | |
| Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, | |
| If they will patiently receive my medicine. | |
| DUKE SENIOR Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do. | |
| JAQUES What, for a counter, would I do but good? | |
| DUKE SENIOR Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin: | |
| For thou thyself hast been a libertine, | |
| As sensual as the brutish sting itself; | |
| And all the embossed sores and headed evils, | |
| That thou with licence of free foot hast caught, | |
| Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world. | |
| JAQUES Why, who cries out on pride, | |
| That can therein tax any private party? | |
| Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea, | |
| Till that the weary very means do ebb? | |
| What woman in the city do I name, | |
| When that I say the city-woman bears | |
| The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders? | |
| Who can come in and say that I mean her, | |
| When such a one as she such is her neighbour? | |
| Or what is he of basest function | |
| That says his bravery is not of my cost, | |
| Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits | |
| His folly to the mettle of my speech? | |
| There then; how then? what then? Let me see wherein | |
| My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right, | |
| Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free, | |
| Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies, | |
| Unclaim'd of any man. But who comes here? | |
| [Enter ORLANDO, with his sword drawn] | |
| ORLANDO Forbear, and eat no more. | |
| JAQUES Why, I have eat none yet. | |
| ORLANDO Nor shalt not, till necessity be served. | |
| JAQUES Of what kind should this cock come of? | |
| DUKE SENIOR Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress, | |
| Or else a rude despiser of good manners, | |
| That in civility thou seem'st so empty? | |
| ORLANDO You touch'd my vein at first: the thorny point | |
| Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show | |
| Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred | |
| And know some nurture. But forbear, I say: | |
| He dies that touches any of this fruit | |
| Till I and my affairs are answered. | |
| JAQUES An you will not be answered with reason, I must die. | |
| DUKE SENIOR What would you have? Your gentleness shall force | |
| More than your force move us to gentleness. | |
| ORLANDO I almost die for food; and let me have it. | |
| DUKE SENIOR Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table. | |
| ORLANDO Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you: | |
| I thought that all things had been savage here; | |
| And therefore put I on the countenance | |
| Of stern commandment. But whate'er you are | |
| That in this desert inaccessible, | |
| Under the shade of melancholy boughs, | |
| Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time | |
| If ever you have look'd on better days, | |
| If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church, | |
| If ever sat at any good man's feast, | |
| If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear | |
| And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied, | |
| Let gentleness my strong enforcement be: | |
| In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword. | |
| DUKE SENIOR True is it that we have seen better days, | |
| And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church | |
| And sat at good men's feasts and wiped our eyes | |
| Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd: | |
| And therefore sit you down in gentleness | |
| And take upon command what help we have | |
| That to your wanting may be minister'd. | |
| ORLANDO Then but forbear your food a little while, | |
| Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn | |
| And give it food. There is an old poor man, | |
| Who after me hath many a weary step | |
| Limp'd in pure love: till he be first sufficed, | |
| Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger, | |
| I will not touch a bit. | |
| DUKE SENIOR Go find him out, | |
| And we will nothing waste till you return. | |
| ORLANDO I thank ye; and be blest for your good comfort! | |
| [Exit] | |
| DUKE SENIOR Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy: | |
| This wide and universal theatre | |
| Presents more woeful pageants than the scene | |
| Wherein we play in. | |
| JAQUES All the world's a stage, | |
| And all the men and women merely players: | |
| They have their exits and their entrances; | |
| And one man in his time plays many parts, | |
| His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, | |
| Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. | |
| And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel | |
| And shining morning face, creeping like snail | |
| Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, | |
| Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad | |
| Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, | |
| Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, | |
| Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, | |
| Seeking the bubble reputation | |
| Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, | |
| In fair round belly with good capon lined, | |
| With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, | |
| Full of wise saws and modern instances; | |
| And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts | |
| Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, | |
| With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, | |
| His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide | |
| For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, | |
| Turning again toward childish treble, pipes | |
| And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, | |
| That ends this strange eventful history, | |
| Is second childishness and mere oblivion, | |
| Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. | |
| [Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM] | |
| DUKE SENIOR Welcome. Set down your venerable burthen, | |
| And let him feed. | |
| ORLANDO I thank you most for him. | |
| ADAM So had you need: | |
| I scarce can speak to thank you for myself. | |
| DUKE SENIOR Welcome; fall to: I will not trouble you | |
| As yet, to question you about your fortunes. | |
| Give us some music; and, good cousin, sing. | |
| SONG. | |
| AMIENS Blow, blow, thou winter wind. | |
| Thou art not so unkind | |
| As man's ingratitude; | |
| Thy tooth is not so keen, | |
| Because thou art not seen, | |
| Although thy breath be rude. | |
| Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: | |
| Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: | |
| Then, heigh-ho, the holly! | |
| This life is most jolly. | |
| Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, | |
| That dost not bite so nigh | |
| As benefits forgot: | |
| Though thou the waters warp, | |
| Thy sting is not so sharp | |
| As friend remember'd not. | |
| Heigh-ho! sing, &c. | |
| DUKE SENIOR If that you were the good Sir Rowland's son, | |
| As you have whisper'd faithfully you were, | |
| And as mine eye doth his effigies witness | |
| Most truly limn'd and living in your face, | |
| Be truly welcome hither: I am the duke | |
| That loved your father: the residue of your fortune, | |
| Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man, | |
| Thou art right welcome as thy master is. | |
| Support him by the arm. Give me your hand, | |
| And let me all your fortunes understand. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT III | |
| SCENE I A room in the palace. | |
| [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, and OLIVER] | |
| DUKE FREDERICK Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be: | |
| But were I not the better part made mercy, | |
| I should not seek an absent argument | |
| Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it: | |
| Find out thy brother, wheresoe'er he is; | |
| Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living | |
| Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more | |
| To seek a living in our territory. | |
| Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine | |
| Worth seizure do we seize into our hands, | |
| Till thou canst quit thee by thy brothers mouth | |
| Of what we think against thee. | |
| OLIVER O that your highness knew my heart in this! | |
| I never loved my brother in my life. | |
| DUKE FREDERICK More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors; | |
| And let my officers of such a nature | |
| Make an extent upon his house and lands: | |
| Do this expediently and turn him going. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT III | |
| SCENE II The forest. | |
| [Enter ORLANDO, with a paper] | |
| ORLANDO Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love: | |
| And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey | |
| With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above, | |
| Thy huntress' name that my full life doth sway. | |
| O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books | |
| And in their barks my thoughts I'll character; | |
| That every eye which in this forest looks | |
| Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where. | |
| Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree | |
| The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she. | |
| [Exit] | |
| [Enter CORIN and TOUCHSTONE] | |
| CORIN And how like you this shepherd's life, Master Touchstone? | |
| TOUCHSTONE Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good | |
| life, but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, | |
| it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I | |
| like it very well; but in respect that it is | |
| private, it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it | |
| is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in | |
| respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As | |
| is it a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; | |
| but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much | |
| against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd? | |
| CORIN No more but that I know the more one sickens the | |
| worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, | |
| means and content is without three good friends; | |
| that the property of rain is to wet and fire to | |
| burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and that a | |
| great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that | |
| he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may | |
| complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in | |
| court, shepherd? | |
| CORIN No, truly. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Then thou art damned. | |
| CORIN Nay, I hope. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Truly, thou art damned like an ill-roasted egg, all | |
| on one side. | |
| CORIN For not being at court? Your reason. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never sawest | |
| good manners; if thou never sawest good manners, | |
| then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is | |
| sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous | |
| state, shepherd. | |
| CORIN Not a whit, Touchstone: those that are good manners | |
| at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the | |
| behavior of the country is most mockable at the | |
| court. You told me you salute not at the court, but | |
| you kiss your hands: that courtesy would be | |
| uncleanly, if courtiers were shepherds. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Instance, briefly; come, instance. | |
| CORIN Why, we are still handling our ewes, and their | |
| fells, you know, are greasy. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? and is not | |
| the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of | |
| a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance, I say; come. | |
| CORIN Besides, our hands are hard. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again. | |
| A more sounder instance, come. | |
| CORIN And they are often tarred over with the surgery of | |
| our sheep: and would you have us kiss tar? The | |
| courtier's hands are perfumed with civet. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Most shallow man! thou worms-meat, in respect of a | |
| good piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the wise, and | |
| perpend: civet is of a baser birth than tar, the | |
| very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd. | |
| CORIN You have too courtly a wit for me: I'll rest. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man! | |
| God make incision in thee! thou art raw. | |
| CORIN Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get | |
| that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's | |
| happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my | |
| harm, and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes | |
| graze and my lambs suck. | |
| TOUCHSTONE That is another simple sin in you, to bring the ewes | |
| and the rams together and to offer to get your | |
| living by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a | |
| bell-wether, and to betray a she-lamb of a | |
| twelvemonth to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, | |
| out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not | |
| damned for this, the devil himself will have no | |
| shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst | |
| 'scape. | |
| CORIN Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother. | |
| [Enter ROSALIND, with a paper, reading] | |
| ROSALIND From the east to western Ind, | |
| No jewel is like Rosalind. | |
| Her worth, being mounted on the wind, | |
| Through all the world bears Rosalind. | |
| All the pictures fairest lined | |
| Are but black to Rosalind. | |
| Let no fair be kept in mind | |
| But the fair of Rosalind. | |
| TOUCHSTONE I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and | |
| suppers and sleeping-hours excepted: it is the | |
| right butter-women's rank to market. | |
| ROSALIND Out, fool! | |
| TOUCHSTONE For a taste: | |
| If a hart do lack a hind, | |
| Let him seek out Rosalind. | |
| If the cat will after kind, | |
| So be sure will Rosalind. | |
| Winter garments must be lined, | |
| So must slender Rosalind. | |
| They that reap must sheaf and bind; | |
| Then to cart with Rosalind. | |
| Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, | |
| Such a nut is Rosalind. | |
| He that sweetest rose will find | |
| Must find love's prick and Rosalind. | |
| This is the very false gallop of verses: why do you | |
| infect yourself with them? | |
| ROSALIND Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Truly, the tree yields bad fruit. | |
| ROSALIND I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it | |
| with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit | |
| i' the country; for you'll be rotten ere you be half | |
| ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar. | |
| TOUCHSTONE You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the | |
| forest judge. | |
| [Enter CELIA, with a writing] | |
| ROSALIND Peace! Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside. | |
| CELIA [Reads] | |
| Why should this a desert be? | |
| For it is unpeopled? No: | |
| Tongues I'll hang on every tree, | |
| That shall civil sayings show: | |
| Some, how brief the life of man | |
| Runs his erring pilgrimage, | |
| That the stretching of a span | |
| Buckles in his sum of age; | |
| Some, of violated vows | |
| 'Twixt the souls of friend and friend: | |
| But upon the fairest boughs, | |
| Or at every sentence end, | |
| Will I Rosalinda write, | |
| Teaching all that read to know | |
| The quintessence of every sprite | |
| Heaven would in little show. | |
| Therefore Heaven Nature charged | |
| That one body should be fill'd | |
| With all graces wide-enlarged: | |
| Nature presently distill'd | |
| Helen's cheek, but not her heart, | |
| Cleopatra's majesty, | |
| Atalanta's better part, | |
| Sad Lucretia's modesty. | |
| Thus Rosalind of many parts | |
| By heavenly synod was devised, | |
| Of many faces, eyes and hearts, | |
| To have the touches dearest prized. | |
| Heaven would that she these gifts should have, | |
| And I to live and die her slave. | |
| ROSALIND O most gentle pulpiter! what tedious homily of love | |
| have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never | |
| cried 'Have patience, good people!' | |
| CELIA How now! back, friends! Shepherd, go off a little. | |
| Go with him, sirrah. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; | |
| though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage. | |
| [Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE] | |
| CELIA Didst thou hear these verses? | |
| ROSALIND O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of | |
| them had in them more feet than the verses would bear. | |
| CELIA That's no matter: the feet might bear the verses. | |
| ROSALIND Ay, but the feet were lame and could not bear | |
| themselves without the verse and therefore stood | |
| lamely in the verse. | |
| CELIA But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name | |
| should be hanged and carved upon these trees? | |
| ROSALIND I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder | |
| before you came; for look here what I found on a | |
| palm-tree. I was never so be-rhymed since | |
| Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I | |
| can hardly remember. | |
| CELIA Trow you who hath done this? | |
| ROSALIND Is it a man? | |
| CELIA And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck. | |
| Change you colour? | |
| ROSALIND I prithee, who? | |
| CELIA O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for friends to | |
| meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes | |
| and so encounter. | |
| ROSALIND Nay, but who is it? | |
| CELIA Is it possible? | |
| ROSALIND Nay, I prithee now with most petitionary vehemence, | |
| tell me who it is. | |
| CELIA O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful | |
| wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, | |
| out of all hooping! | |
| ROSALIND Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am | |
| caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in | |
| my disposition? One inch of delay more is a | |
| South-sea of discovery; I prithee, tell me who is it | |
| quickly, and speak apace. I would thou couldst | |
| stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man | |
| out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow- | |
| mouthed bottle, either too much at once, or none at | |
| all. I prithee, take the cork out of thy mouth that | |
| may drink thy tidings. | |
| CELIA So you may put a man in your belly. | |
| ROSALIND Is he of God's making? What manner of man? Is his | |
| head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard? | |
| CELIA Nay, he hath but a little beard. | |
| ROSALIND Why, God will send more, if the man will be | |
| thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if | |
| thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin. | |
| CELIA It is young Orlando, that tripped up the wrestler's | |
| heels and your heart both in an instant. | |
| ROSALIND Nay, but the devil take mocking: speak, sad brow and | |
| true maid. | |
| CELIA I' faith, coz, 'tis he. | |
| ROSALIND Orlando? | |
| CELIA Orlando. | |
| ROSALIND Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and | |
| hose? What did he when thou sawest him? What said | |
| he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes | |
| him here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? | |
| How parted he with thee? and when shalt thou see | |
| him again? Answer me in one word. | |
| CELIA You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first: 'tis a | |
| word too great for any mouth of this age's size. To | |
| say ay and no to these particulars is more than to | |
| answer in a catechism. | |
| ROSALIND But doth he know that I am in this forest and in | |
| man's apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the | |
| day he wrestled? | |
| CELIA It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the | |
| propositions of a lover; but take a taste of my | |
| finding him, and relish it with good observance. | |
| I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn. | |
| ROSALIND It may well be called Jove's tree, when it drops | |
| forth such fruit. | |
| CELIA Give me audience, good madam. | |
| ROSALIND Proceed. | |
| CELIA There lay he, stretched along, like a wounded knight. | |
| ROSALIND Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well | |
| becomes the ground. | |
| CELIA Cry 'holla' to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets | |
| unseasonably. He was furnished like a hunter. | |
| ROSALIND O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart. | |
| CELIA I would sing my song without a burden: thou bringest | |
| me out of tune. | |
| ROSALIND Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must | |
| speak. Sweet, say on. | |
| CELIA You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here? | |
| [Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES] | |
| ROSALIND 'Tis he: slink by, and note him. | |
| JAQUES I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had | |
| as lief have been myself alone. | |
| ORLANDO And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you | |
| too for your society. | |
| JAQUES God be wi' you: let's meet as little as we can. | |
| ORLANDO I do desire we may be better strangers. | |
| JAQUES I pray you, mar no more trees with writing | |
| love-songs in their barks. | |
| ORLANDO I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading | |
| them ill-favouredly. | |
| JAQUES Rosalind is your love's name? | |
| ORLANDO Yes, just. | |
| JAQUES I do not like her name. | |
| ORLANDO There was no thought of pleasing you when she was | |
| christened. | |
| JAQUES What stature is she of? | |
| ORLANDO Just as high as my heart. | |
| JAQUES You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been | |
| acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conned them | |
| out of rings? | |
| ORLANDO Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from | |
| whence you have studied your questions. | |
| JAQUES You have a nimble wit: I think 'twas made of | |
| Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me? and | |
| we two will rail against our mistress the world and | |
| all our misery. | |
| ORLANDO I will chide no breather in the world but myself, | |
| against whom I know most faults. | |
| JAQUES The worst fault you have is to be in love. | |
| ORLANDO 'Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. | |
| I am weary of you. | |
| JAQUES By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found | |
| you. | |
| ORLANDO He is drowned in the brook: look but in, and you | |
| shall see him. | |
| JAQUES There I shall see mine own figure. | |
| ORLANDO Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher. | |
| JAQUES I'll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good | |
| Signior Love. | |
| ORLANDO I am glad of your departure: adieu, good Monsieur | |
| Melancholy. | |
| [Exit JAQUES] | |
| ROSALIND [Aside to CELIA] I will speak to him, like a saucy | |
| lackey and under that habit play the knave with him. | |
| Do you hear, forester? | |
| ORLANDO Very well: what would you? | |
| ROSALIND I pray you, what is't o'clock? | |
| ORLANDO You should ask me what time o' day: there's no clock | |
| in the forest. | |
| ROSALIND Then there is no true lover in the forest; else | |
| sighing every minute and groaning every hour would | |
| detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a clock. | |
| ORLANDO And why not the swift foot of Time? had not that | |
| been as proper? | |
| ROSALIND By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with | |
| divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles | |
| withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops | |
| withal and who he stands still withal. | |
| ORLANDO I prithee, who doth he trot withal? | |
| ROSALIND Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the | |
| contract of her marriage and the day it is | |
| solemnized: if the interim be but a se'nnight, | |
| Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of | |
| seven year. | |
| ORLANDO Who ambles Time withal? | |
| ROSALIND With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that | |
| hath not the gout, for the one sleeps easily because | |
| he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because | |
| he feels no pain, the one lacking the burden of lean | |
| and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden | |
| of heavy tedious penury; these Time ambles withal. | |
| ORLANDO Who doth he gallop withal? | |
| ROSALIND With a thief to the gallows, for though he go as | |
| softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there. | |
| ORLANDO Who stays it still withal? | |
| ROSALIND With lawyers in the vacation, for they sleep between | |
| term and term and then they perceive not how Time moves. | |
| ORLANDO Where dwell you, pretty youth? | |
| ROSALIND With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the | |
| skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat. | |
| ORLANDO Are you native of this place? | |
| ROSALIND As the cony that you see dwell where she is kindled. | |
| ORLANDO Your accent is something finer than you could | |
| purchase in so removed a dwelling. | |
| ROSALIND I have been told so of many: but indeed an old | |
| religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was | |
| in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship | |
| too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard | |
| him read many lectures against it, and I thank God | |
| I am not a woman, to be touched with so many | |
| giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their | |
| whole sex withal. | |
| ORLANDO Can you remember any of the principal evils that he | |
| laid to the charge of women? | |
| ROSALIND There were none principal; they were all like one | |
| another as half-pence are, every one fault seeming | |
| monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it. | |
| ORLANDO I prithee, recount some of them. | |
| ROSALIND No, I will not cast away my physic but on those that | |
| are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that | |
| abuses our young plants with carving 'Rosalind' on | |
| their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies | |
| on brambles, all, forsooth, deifying the name of | |
| Rosalind: if I could meet that fancy-monger I would | |
| give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the | |
| quotidian of love upon him. | |
| ORLANDO I am he that is so love-shaked: I pray you tell me | |
| your remedy. | |
| ROSALIND There is none of my uncle's marks upon you: he | |
| taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage | |
| of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner. | |
| ORLANDO What were his marks? | |
| ROSALIND A lean cheek, which you have not, a blue eye and | |
| sunken, which you have not, an unquestionable | |
| spirit, which you have not, a beard neglected, | |
| which you have not; but I pardon you for that, for | |
| simply your having in beard is a younger brother's | |
| revenue: then your hose should be ungartered, your | |
| bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe | |
| untied and every thing about you demonstrating a | |
| careless desolation; but you are no such man; you | |
| are rather point-device in your accoutrements as | |
| loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other. | |
| ORLANDO Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love. | |
| ROSALIND Me believe it! you may as soon make her that you | |
| love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to | |
| do than to confess she does: that is one of the | |
| points in the which women still give the lie to | |
| their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he | |
| that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind | |
| is so admired? | |
| ORLANDO I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of | |
| Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he. | |
| ROSALIND But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? | |
| ORLANDO Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much. | |
| ROSALIND Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves | |
| as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and | |
| the reason why they are not so punished and cured | |
| is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers | |
| are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel. | |
| ORLANDO Did you ever cure any so? | |
| ROSALIND Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me | |
| his love, his mistress; and I set him every day to | |
| woo me: at which time would I, being but a moonish | |
| youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing | |
| and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, | |
| inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles, for every | |
| passion something and for no passion truly any | |
| thing, as boys and women are for the most part | |
| cattle of this colour; would now like him, now loathe | |
| him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep | |
| for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor | |
| from his mad humour of love to a living humour of | |
| madness; which was, to forswear the full stream of | |
| the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic. | |
| And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon | |
| me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's | |
| heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't. | |
| ORLANDO I would not be cured, youth. | |
| ROSALIND I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind | |
| and come every day to my cote and woo me. | |
| ORLANDO Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me | |
| where it is. | |
| ROSALIND Go with me to it and I'll show it you and by the way | |
| you shall tell me where in the forest you live. | |
| Will you go? | |
| ORLANDO With all my heart, good youth. | |
| ROSALIND Nay you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go? | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT III | |
| SCENE III The forest. | |
| [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES behind] | |
| TOUCHSTONE Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your | |
| goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? | |
| doth my simple feature content you? | |
| AUDREY Your features! Lord warrant us! what features! | |
| TOUCHSTONE I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most | |
| capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths. | |
| JAQUES [Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove | |
| in a thatched house! | |
| TOUCHSTONE When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a | |
| man's good wit seconded with the forward child | |
| Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a | |
| great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would | |
| the gods had made thee poetical. | |
| AUDREY I do not know what 'poetical' is: is it honest in | |
| deed and word? is it a true thing? | |
| TOUCHSTONE No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most | |
| feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what | |
| they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign. | |
| AUDREY Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical? | |
| TOUCHSTONE I do, truly; for thou swearest to me thou art | |
| honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some | |
| hope thou didst feign. | |
| AUDREY Would you not have me honest? | |
| TOUCHSTONE No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for | |
| honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar. | |
| JAQUES [Aside] A material fool! | |
| AUDREY Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods | |
| make me honest. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut | |
| were to put good meat into an unclean dish. | |
| AUDREY I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! | |
| sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may | |
| be, I will marry thee, and to that end I have been | |
| with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next | |
| village, who hath promised to meet me in this place | |
| of the forest and to couple us. | |
| JAQUES [Aside] I would fain see this meeting. | |
| AUDREY Well, the gods give us joy! | |
| TOUCHSTONE Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, | |
| stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple | |
| but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what | |
| though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are | |
| necessary. It is said, 'many a man knows no end of | |
| his goods:' right; many a man has good horns, and | |
| knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of | |
| his wife; 'tis none of his own getting. Horns? | |
| Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer | |
| hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man | |
| therefore blessed? No: as a walled town is more | |
| worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a | |
| married man more honourable than the bare brow of a | |
| bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no | |
| skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to | |
| want. Here comes Sir Oliver. | |
| [Enter SIR OLIVER MARTEXT] | |
| Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met: will you | |
| dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go | |
| with you to your chapel? | |
| SIR OLIVER MARTEXT Is there none here to give the woman? | |
| TOUCHSTONE I will not take her on gift of any man. | |
| SIR OLIVER MARTEXT Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful. | |
| JAQUES [Advancing] | |
| Proceed, proceed I'll give her. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Good even, good Master What-ye-call't: how do you, | |
| sir? You are very well met: God 'ild you for your | |
| last company: I am very glad to see you: even a | |
| toy in hand here, sir: nay, pray be covered. | |
| JAQUES Will you be married, motley? | |
| TOUCHSTONE As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb and | |
| the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and | |
| as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling. | |
| JAQUES And will you, being a man of your breeding, be | |
| married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to | |
| church, and have a good priest that can tell you | |
| what marriage is: this fellow will but join you | |
| together as they join wainscot; then one of you will | |
| prove a shrunk panel and, like green timber, warp, warp. | |
| TOUCHSTONE [Aside] I am not in the mind but I were better to be | |
| married of him than of another: for he is not like | |
| to marry me well; and not being well married, it | |
| will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife. | |
| JAQUES Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. | |
| TOUCHSTONE 'Come, sweet Audrey: | |
| We must be married, or we must live in bawdry. | |
| Farewell, good Master Oliver: not,-- | |
| O sweet Oliver, | |
| O brave Oliver, | |
| Leave me not behind thee: but,-- | |
| Wind away, | |
| Begone, I say, | |
| I will not to wedding with thee. | |
| [Exeunt JAQUES, TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY] | |
| SIR OLIVER MARTEXT 'Tis no matter: ne'er a fantastical knave of them | |
| all shall flout me out of my calling. | |
| [Exit] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT III | |
| SCENE IV The forest. | |
| [Enter ROSALIND and CELIA] | |
| ROSALIND Never talk to me; I will weep. | |
| CELIA Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider | |
| that tears do not become a man. | |
| ROSALIND But have I not cause to weep? | |
| CELIA As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep. | |
| ROSALIND His very hair is of the dissembling colour. | |
| CELIA Something browner than Judas's marry, his kisses are | |
| Judas's own children. | |
| ROSALIND I' faith, his hair is of a good colour. | |
| CELIA An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour. | |
| ROSALIND And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch | |
| of holy bread. | |
| CELIA He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana: a nun | |
| of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; | |
| the very ice of chastity is in them. | |
| ROSALIND But why did he swear he would come this morning, and | |
| comes not? | |
| CELIA Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him. | |
| ROSALIND Do you think so? | |
| CELIA Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a | |
| horse-stealer, but for his verity in love, I do | |
| think him as concave as a covered goblet or a | |
| worm-eaten nut. | |
| ROSALIND Not true in love? | |
| CELIA Yes, when he is in; but I think he is not in. | |
| ROSALIND You have heard him swear downright he was. | |
| CELIA 'Was' is not 'is:' besides, the oath of a lover is | |
| no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are | |
| both the confirmer of false reckonings. He attends | |
| here in the forest on the duke your father. | |
| ROSALIND I met the duke yesterday and had much question with | |
| him: he asked me of what parentage I was; I told | |
| him, of as good as he; so he laughed and let me go. | |
| But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a | |
| man as Orlando? | |
| CELIA O, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses, | |
| speaks brave words, swears brave oaths and breaks | |
| them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of | |
| his lover; as a puisny tilter, that spurs his horse | |
| but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble | |
| goose: but all's brave that youth mounts and folly | |
| guides. Who comes here? | |
| [Enter CORIN] | |
| CORIN Mistress and master, you have oft inquired | |
| After the shepherd that complain'd of love, | |
| Who you saw sitting by me on the turf, | |
| Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess | |
| That was his mistress. | |
| CELIA Well, and what of him? | |
| CORIN If you will see a pageant truly play'd, | |
| Between the pale complexion of true love | |
| And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain, | |
| Go hence a little and I shall conduct you, | |
| If you will mark it. | |
| ROSALIND O, come, let us remove: | |
| The sight of lovers feedeth those in love. | |
| Bring us to this sight, and you shall say | |
| I'll prove a busy actor in their play. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT III | |
| SCENE V Another part of the forest. | |
| [Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE] | |
| SILVIUS Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe; | |
| Say that you love me not, but say not so | |
| In bitterness. The common executioner, | |
| Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard, | |
| Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck | |
| But first begs pardon: will you sterner be | |
| Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops? | |
| [Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, behind] | |
| PHEBE I would not be thy executioner: | |
| I fly thee, for I would not injure thee. | |
| Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye: | |
| 'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable, | |
| That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things, | |
| Who shut their coward gates on atomies, | |
| Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers! | |
| Now I do frown on thee with all my heart; | |
| And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee: | |
| Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down; | |
| Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame, | |
| Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers! | |
| Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee: | |
| Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains | |
| Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush, | |
| The cicatrice and capable impressure | |
| Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes, | |
| Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not, | |
| Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes | |
| That can do hurt. | |
| SILVIUS O dear Phebe, | |
| If ever,--as that ever may be near,-- | |
| You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy, | |
| Then shall you know the wounds invisible | |
| That love's keen arrows make. | |
| PHEBE But till that time | |
| Come not thou near me: and when that time comes, | |
| Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not; | |
| As till that time I shall not pity thee. | |
| ROSALIND And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother, | |
| That you insult, exult, and all at once, | |
| Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty,-- | |
| As, by my faith, I see no more in you | |
| Than without candle may go dark to bed-- | |
| Must you be therefore proud and pitiless? | |
| Why, what means this? Why do you look on me? | |
| I see no more in you than in the ordinary | |
| Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life, | |
| I think she means to tangle my eyes too! | |
| No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it: | |
| 'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair, | |
| Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream, | |
| That can entame my spirits to your worship. | |
| You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her, | |
| Like foggy south puffing with wind and rain? | |
| You are a thousand times a properer man | |
| Than she a woman: 'tis such fools as you | |
| That makes the world full of ill-favour'd children: | |
| 'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her; | |
| And out of you she sees herself more proper | |
| Than any of her lineaments can show her. | |
| But, mistress, know yourself: down on your knees, | |
| And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love: | |
| For I must tell you friendly in your ear, | |
| Sell when you can: you are not for all markets: | |
| Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer: | |
| Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer. | |
| So take her to thee, shepherd: fare you well. | |
| PHEBE Sweet youth, I pray you, chide a year together: | |
| I had rather hear you chide than this man woo. | |
| ROSALIND He's fallen in love with your foulness and she'll | |
| fall in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as | |
| she answers thee with frowning looks, I'll sauce her | |
| with bitter words. Why look you so upon me? | |
| PHEBE For no ill will I bear you. | |
| ROSALIND I pray you, do not fall in love with me, | |
| For I am falser than vows made in wine: | |
| Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house, | |
| 'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by. | |
| Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard. | |
| Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better, | |
| And be not proud: though all the world could see, | |
| None could be so abused in sight as he. | |
| Come, to our flock. | |
| [Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA and CORIN] | |
| PHEBE Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, | |
| 'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?' | |
| SILVIUS Sweet Phebe,-- | |
| PHEBE Ha, what say'st thou, Silvius? | |
| SILVIUS Sweet Phebe, pity me. | |
| PHEBE Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius. | |
| SILVIUS Wherever sorrow is, relief would be: | |
| If you do sorrow at my grief in love, | |
| By giving love your sorrow and my grief | |
| Were both extermined. | |
| PHEBE Thou hast my love: is not that neighbourly? | |
| SILVIUS I would have you. | |
| PHEBE Why, that were covetousness. | |
| Silvius, the time was that I hated thee, | |
| And yet it is not that I bear thee love; | |
| But since that thou canst talk of love so well, | |
| Thy company, which erst was irksome to me, | |
| I will endure, and I'll employ thee too: | |
| But do not look for further recompense | |
| Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd. | |
| SILVIUS So holy and so perfect is my love, | |
| And I in such a poverty of grace, | |
| That I shall think it a most plenteous crop | |
| To glean the broken ears after the man | |
| That the main harvest reaps: loose now and then | |
| A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon. | |
| PHEBE Know'st now the youth that spoke to me erewhile? | |
| SILVIUS Not very well, but I have met him oft; | |
| And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds | |
| That the old carlot once was master of. | |
| PHEBE Think not I love him, though I ask for him: | |
| 'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well; | |
| But what care I for words? yet words do well | |
| When he that speaks them pleases those that hear. | |
| It is a pretty youth: not very pretty: | |
| But, sure, he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him: | |
| He'll make a proper man: the best thing in him | |
| Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue | |
| Did make offence his eye did heal it up. | |
| He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall: | |
| His leg is but so so; and yet 'tis well: | |
| There was a pretty redness in his lip, | |
| A little riper and more lusty red | |
| Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference | |
| Between the constant red and mingled damask. | |
| There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him | |
| In parcels as I did, would have gone near | |
| To fall in love with him; but, for my part, | |
| I love him not nor hate him not; and yet | |
| I have more cause to hate him than to love him: | |
| For what had he to do to chide at me? | |
| He said mine eyes were black and my hair black: | |
| And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me: | |
| I marvel why I answer'd not again: | |
| But that's all one; omittance is no quittance. | |
| I'll write to him a very taunting letter, | |
| And thou shalt bear it: wilt thou, Silvius? | |
| SILVIUS Phebe, with all my heart. | |
| PHEBE I'll write it straight; | |
| The matter's in my head and in my heart: | |
| I will be bitter with him and passing short. | |
| Go with me, Silvius. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT IV | |
| SCENE I The forest. | |
| [Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES] | |
| JAQUES I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted | |
| with thee. | |
| ROSALIND They say you are a melancholy fellow. | |
| JAQUES I am so; I do love it better than laughing. | |
| ROSALIND Those that are in extremity of either are abominable | |
| fellows and betray themselves to every modern | |
| censure worse than drunkards. | |
| JAQUES Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing. | |
| ROSALIND Why then, 'tis good to be a post. | |
| JAQUES I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is | |
| emulation, nor the musician's, which is fantastical, | |
| nor the courtier's, which is proud, nor the | |
| soldier's, which is ambitious, nor the lawyer's, | |
| which is politic, nor the lady's, which is nice, nor | |
| the lover's, which is all these: but it is a | |
| melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, | |
| extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry's | |
| contemplation of my travels, in which my often | |
| rumination wraps me m a most humorous sadness. | |
| ROSALIND A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to | |
| be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see | |
| other men's; then, to have seen much and to have | |
| nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands. | |
| JAQUES Yes, I have gained my experience. | |
| ROSALIND And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have | |
| a fool to make me merry than experience to make me | |
| sad; and to travel for it too! | |
| [Enter ORLANDO] | |
| ORLANDO Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind! | |
| JAQUES Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse. | |
| [Exit] | |
| ROSALIND Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and | |
| wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your | |
| own country, be out of love with your nativity and | |
| almost chide God for making you that countenance you | |
| are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a | |
| gondola. Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been | |
| all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such | |
| another trick, never come in my sight more. | |
| ORLANDO My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise. | |
| ROSALIND Break an hour's promise in love! He that will | |
| divide a minute into a thousand parts and break but | |
| a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the | |
| affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid | |
| hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant | |
| him heart-whole. | |
| ORLANDO Pardon me, dear Rosalind. | |
| ROSALIND Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I | |
| had as lief be wooed of a snail. | |
| ORLANDO Of a snail? | |
| ROSALIND Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he | |
| carries his house on his head; a better jointure, | |
| I think, than you make a woman: besides he brings | |
| his destiny with him. | |
| ORLANDO What's that? | |
| ROSALIND Why, horns, which such as you are fain to be | |
| beholding to your wives for: but he comes armed in | |
| his fortune and prevents the slander of his wife. | |
| ORLANDO Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous. | |
| ROSALIND And I am your Rosalind. | |
| CELIA It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a | |
| Rosalind of a better leer than you. | |
| ROSALIND Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday | |
| humour and like enough to consent. What would you | |
| say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind? | |
| ORLANDO I would kiss before I spoke. | |
| ROSALIND Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were | |
| gravelled for lack of matter, you might take | |
| occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are | |
| out, they will spit; and for lovers lacking--God | |
| warn us!--matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss. | |
| ORLANDO How if the kiss be denied? | |
| ROSALIND Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter. | |
| ORLANDO Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress? | |
| ROSALIND Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or | |
| I should think my honesty ranker than my wit. | |
| ORLANDO What, of my suit? | |
| ROSALIND Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. | |
| Am not I your Rosalind? | |
| ORLANDO I take some joy to say you are, because I would be | |
| talking of her. | |
| ROSALIND Well in her person I say I will not have you. | |
| ORLANDO Then in mine own person I die. | |
| ROSALIND No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is | |
| almost six thousand years old, and in all this time | |
| there was not any man died in his own person, | |
| videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains | |
| dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he | |
| could to die before, and he is one of the patterns | |
| of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair | |
| year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been | |
| for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went | |
| but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being | |
| taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish | |
| coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.' | |
| But these are all lies: men have died from time to | |
| time and worms have eaten them, but not for love. | |
| ORLANDO I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind, | |
| for, I protest, her frown might kill me. | |
| ROSALIND By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now | |
| I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on | |
| disposition, and ask me what you will. I will grant | |
| it. | |
| ORLANDO Then love me, Rosalind. | |
| ROSALIND Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all. | |
| ORLANDO And wilt thou have me? | |
| ROSALIND Ay, and twenty such. | |
| ORLANDO What sayest thou? | |
| ROSALIND Are you not good? | |
| ORLANDO I hope so. | |
| ROSALIND Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? | |
| Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us. | |
| Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister? | |
| ORLANDO Pray thee, marry us. | |
| CELIA I cannot say the words. | |
| ROSALIND You must begin, 'Will you, Orlando--' | |
| CELIA Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind? | |
| ORLANDO I will. | |
| ROSALIND Ay, but when? | |
| ORLANDO Why now; as fast as she can marry us. | |
| ROSALIND Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.' | |
| ORLANDO I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. | |
| ROSALIND I might ask you for your commission; but I do take | |
| thee, Orlando, for my husband: there's a girl goes | |
| before the priest; and certainly a woman's thought | |
| runs before her actions. | |
| ORLANDO So do all thoughts; they are winged. | |
| ROSALIND Now tell me how long you would have her after you | |
| have possessed her. | |
| ORLANDO For ever and a day. | |
| ROSALIND Say 'a day,' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando; | |
| men are April when they woo, December when they wed: | |
| maids are May when they are maids, but the sky | |
| changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous | |
| of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen, | |
| more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more | |
| new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires | |
| than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana | |
| in the fountain, and I will do that when you are | |
| disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and | |
| that when thou art inclined to sleep. | |
| ORLANDO But will my Rosalind do so? | |
| ROSALIND By my life, she will do as I do. | |
| ORLANDO O, but she is wise. | |
| ROSALIND Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the | |
| wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's | |
| wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and | |
| 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly | |
| with the smoke out at the chimney. | |
| ORLANDO A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say | |
| 'Wit, whither wilt?' | |
| ROSALIND Nay, you might keep that cheque for it till you met | |
| your wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed. | |
| ORLANDO And what wit could wit have to excuse that? | |
| ROSALIND Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall | |
| never take her without her answer, unless you take | |
| her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot | |
| make her fault her husband's occasion, let her | |
| never nurse her child herself, for she will breed | |
| it like a fool! | |
| ORLANDO For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee. | |
| ROSALIND Alas! dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours. | |
| ORLANDO I must attend the duke at dinner: by two o'clock I | |
| will be with thee again. | |
| ROSALIND Ay, go your ways, go your ways; I knew what you | |
| would prove: my friends told me as much, and I | |
| thought no less: that flattering tongue of yours | |
| won me: 'tis but one cast away, and so, come, | |
| death! Two o'clock is your hour? | |
| ORLANDO Ay, sweet Rosalind. | |
| ROSALIND By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend | |
| me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, | |
| if you break one jot of your promise or come one | |
| minute behind your hour, I will think you the most | |
| pathetical break-promise and the most hollow lover | |
| and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind that | |
| may be chosen out of the gross band of the | |
| unfaithful: therefore beware my censure and keep | |
| your promise. | |
| ORLANDO With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my | |
| Rosalind: so adieu. | |
| ROSALIND Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such | |
| offenders, and let Time try: adieu. | |
| [Exit ORLANDO] | |
| CELIA You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate: | |
| we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your | |
| head, and show the world what the bird hath done to | |
| her own nest. | |
| ROSALIND O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou | |
| didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But | |
| it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown | |
| bottom, like the bay of Portugal. | |
| CELIA Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour | |
| affection in, it runs out. | |
| ROSALIND No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot | |
| of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness, | |
| that blind rascally boy that abuses every one's eyes | |
| because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I | |
| am in love. I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out | |
| of the sight of Orlando: I'll go find a shadow and | |
| sigh till he come. | |
| CELIA And I'll sleep. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT IV | |
| SCENE II The forest. | |
| [Enter JAQUES, Lords, and Foresters] | |
| JAQUES Which is he that killed the deer? | |
| A Lord Sir, it was I. | |
| JAQUES Let's present him to the duke, like a Roman | |
| conqueror; and it would do well to set the deer's | |
| horns upon his head, for a branch of victory. Have | |
| you no song, forester, for this purpose? | |
| Forester Yes, sir. | |
| JAQUES Sing it: 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it | |
| make noise enough. | |
| SONG. | |
| Forester What shall he have that kill'd the deer? | |
| His leather skin and horns to wear. | |
| Then sing him home; | |
| [The rest shall bear this burden] | |
| Take thou no scorn to wear the horn; | |
| It was a crest ere thou wast born: | |
| Thy father's father wore it, | |
| And thy father bore it: | |
| The horn, the horn, the lusty horn | |
| Is not a thing to laugh to scorn. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT IV | |
| SCENE III The forest. | |
| [Enter ROSALIND and CELIA] | |
| ROSALIND How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock? and | |
| here much Orlando! | |
| CELIA I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he | |
| hath ta'en his bow and arrows and is gone forth to | |
| sleep. Look, who comes here. | |
| [Enter SILVIUS] | |
| SILVIUS My errand is to you, fair youth; | |
| My gentle Phebe bid me give you this: | |
| I know not the contents; but, as I guess | |
| By the stern brow and waspish action | |
| Which she did use as she was writing of it, | |
| It bears an angry tenor: pardon me: | |
| I am but as a guiltless messenger. | |
| ROSALIND Patience herself would startle at this letter | |
| And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all: | |
| She says I am not fair, that I lack manners; | |
| She calls me proud, and that she could not love me, | |
| Were man as rare as phoenix. 'Od's my will! | |
| Her love is not the hare that I do hunt: | |
| Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well, | |
| This is a letter of your own device. | |
| SILVIUS No, I protest, I know not the contents: | |
| Phebe did write it. | |
| ROSALIND Come, come, you are a fool | |
| And turn'd into the extremity of love. | |
| I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand. | |
| A freestone-colour'd hand; I verily did think | |
| That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands: | |
| She has a huswife's hand; but that's no matter: | |
| I say she never did invent this letter; | |
| This is a man's invention and his hand. | |
| SILVIUS Sure, it is hers. | |
| ROSALIND Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style. | |
| A style for-challengers; why, she defies me, | |
| Like Turk to Christian: women's gentle brain | |
| Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention | |
| Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect | |
| Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter? | |
| SILVIUS So please you, for I never heard it yet; | |
| Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty. | |
| ROSALIND She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes. | |
| [Reads] | |
| Art thou god to shepherd turn'd, | |
| That a maiden's heart hath burn'd? | |
| Can a woman rail thus? | |
| SILVIUS Call you this railing? | |
| ROSALIND [Reads] | |
| Why, thy godhead laid apart, | |
| Warr'st thou with a woman's heart? | |
| Did you ever hear such railing? | |
| Whiles the eye of man did woo me, | |
| That could do no vengeance to me. | |
| Meaning me a beast. | |
| If the scorn of your bright eyne | |
| Have power to raise such love in mine, | |
| Alack, in me what strange effect | |
| Would they work in mild aspect! | |
| Whiles you chid me, I did love; | |
| How then might your prayers move! | |
| He that brings this love to thee | |
| Little knows this love in me: | |
| And by him seal up thy mind; | |
| Whether that thy youth and kind | |
| Will the faithful offer take | |
| Of me and all that I can make; | |
| Or else by him my love deny, | |
| And then I'll study how to die. | |
| SILVIUS Call you this chiding? | |
| CELIA Alas, poor shepherd! | |
| ROSALIND Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity. Wilt | |
| thou love such a woman? What, to make thee an | |
| instrument and play false strains upon thee! not to | |
| be endured! Well, go your way to her, for I see | |
| love hath made thee a tame snake, and say this to | |
| her: that if she love me, I charge her to love | |
| thee; if she will not, I will never have her unless | |
| thou entreat for her. If you be a true lover, | |
| hence, and not a word; for here comes more company. | |
| [Exit SILVIUS] | |
| [Enter OLIVER] | |
| OLIVER Good morrow, fair ones: pray you, if you know, | |
| Where in the purlieus of this forest stands | |
| A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees? | |
| CELIA West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom: | |
| The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream | |
| Left on your right hand brings you to the place. | |
| But at this hour the house doth keep itself; | |
| There's none within. | |
| OLIVER If that an eye may profit by a tongue, | |
| Then should I know you by description; | |
| Such garments and such years: 'The boy is fair, | |
| Of female favour, and bestows himself | |
| Like a ripe sister: the woman low | |
| And browner than her brother.' Are not you | |
| The owner of the house I did inquire for? | |
| CELIA It is no boast, being ask'd, to say we are. | |
| OLIVER Orlando doth commend him to you both, | |
| And to that youth he calls his Rosalind | |
| He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he? | |
| ROSALIND I am: what must we understand by this? | |
| OLIVER Some of my shame; if you will know of me | |
| What man I am, and how, and why, and where | |
| This handkercher was stain'd. | |
| CELIA I pray you, tell it. | |
| OLIVER When last the young Orlando parted from you | |
| He left a promise to return again | |
| Within an hour, and pacing through the forest, | |
| Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy, | |
| Lo, what befell! he threw his eye aside, | |
| And mark what object did present itself: | |
| Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age | |
| And high top bald with dry antiquity, | |
| A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair, | |
| Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck | |
| A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself, | |
| Who with her head nimble in threats approach'd | |
| The opening of his mouth; but suddenly, | |
| Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself, | |
| And with indented glides did slip away | |
| Into a bush: under which bush's shade | |
| A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, | |
| Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch, | |
| When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis | |
| The royal disposition of that beast | |
| To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead: | |
| This seen, Orlando did approach the man | |
| And found it was his brother, his elder brother. | |
| CELIA O, I have heard him speak of that same brother; | |
| And he did render him the most unnatural | |
| That lived amongst men. | |
| OLIVER And well he might so do, | |
| For well I know he was unnatural. | |
| ROSALIND But, to Orlando: did he leave him there, | |
| Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness? | |
| OLIVER Twice did he turn his back and purposed so; | |
| But kindness, nobler ever than revenge, | |
| And nature, stronger than his just occasion, | |
| Made him give battle to the lioness, | |
| Who quickly fell before him: in which hurtling | |
| From miserable slumber I awaked. | |
| CELIA Are you his brother? | |
| ROSALIND Wast you he rescued? | |
| CELIA Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him? | |
| OLIVER 'Twas I; but 'tis not I I do not shame | |
| To tell you what I was, since my conversion | |
| So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am. | |
| ROSALIND But, for the bloody napkin? | |
| OLIVER By and by. | |
| When from the first to last betwixt us two | |
| Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed, | |
| As how I came into that desert place:-- | |
| In brief, he led me to the gentle duke, | |
| Who gave me fresh array and entertainment, | |
| Committing me unto my brother's love; | |
| Who led me instantly unto his cave, | |
| There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm | |
| The lioness had torn some flesh away, | |
| Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted | |
| And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind. | |
| Brief, I recover'd him, bound up his wound; | |
| And, after some small space, being strong at heart, | |
| He sent me hither, stranger as I am, | |
| To tell this story, that you might excuse | |
| His broken promise, and to give this napkin | |
| Dyed in his blood unto the shepherd youth | |
| That he in sport doth call his Rosalind. | |
| [ROSALIND swoons] | |
| CELIA Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede! | |
| OLIVER Many will swoon when they do look on blood. | |
| CELIA There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede! | |
| OLIVER Look, he recovers. | |
| ROSALIND I would I were at home. | |
| CELIA We'll lead you thither. | |
| I pray you, will you take him by the arm? | |
| OLIVER Be of good cheer, youth: you a man! you lack a | |
| man's heart. | |
| ROSALIND I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would | |
| think this was well counterfeited! I pray you, tell | |
| your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho! | |
| OLIVER This was not counterfeit: there is too great | |
| testimony in your complexion that it was a passion | |
| of earnest. | |
| ROSALIND Counterfeit, I assure you. | |
| OLIVER Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man. | |
| ROSALIND So I do: but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by right. | |
| CELIA Come, you look paler and paler: pray you, draw | |
| homewards. Good sir, go with us. | |
| OLIVER That will I, for I must bear answer back | |
| How you excuse my brother, Rosalind. | |
| ROSALIND I shall devise something: but, I pray you, commend | |
| my counterfeiting to him. Will you go? | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT V | |
| SCENE I The forest. | |
| [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY] | |
| TOUCHSTONE We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey. | |
| AUDREY Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old | |
| gentleman's saying. | |
| TOUCHSTONE A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile | |
| Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the | |
| forest lays claim to you. | |
| AUDREY Ay, I know who 'tis; he hath no interest in me in | |
| the world: here comes the man you mean. | |
| TOUCHSTONE It is meat and drink to me to see a clown: by my | |
| troth, we that have good wits have much to answer | |
| for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold. | |
| [Enter WILLIAM] | |
| WILLIAM Good even, Audrey. | |
| AUDREY God ye good even, William. | |
| WILLIAM And good even to you, sir. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy | |
| head; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend? | |
| WILLIAM Five and twenty, sir. | |
| TOUCHSTONE A ripe age. Is thy name William? | |
| WILLIAM William, sir. | |
| TOUCHSTONE A fair name. Wast born i' the forest here? | |
| WILLIAM Ay, sir, I thank God. | |
| TOUCHSTONE 'Thank God;' a good answer. Art rich? | |
| WILLIAM Faith, sir, so so. | |
| TOUCHSTONE 'So so' is good, very good, very excellent good; and | |
| yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise? | |
| WILLIAM Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying, | |
| 'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man | |
| knows himself to be a fool.' The heathen | |
| philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, | |
| would open his lips when he put it into his mouth; | |
| meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and | |
| lips to open. You do love this maid? | |
| WILLIAM I do, sir. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Give me your hand. Art thou learned? | |
| WILLIAM No, sir. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Then learn this of me: to have, is to have; for it | |
| is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out | |
| of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty | |
| the other; for all your writers do consent that ipse | |
| is he: now, you are not ipse, for I am he. | |
| WILLIAM Which he, sir? | |
| TOUCHSTONE He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you | |
| clown, abandon,--which is in the vulgar leave,--the | |
| society,--which in the boorish is company,--of this | |
| female,--which in the common is woman; which | |
| together is, abandon the society of this female, or, | |
| clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better | |
| understanding, diest; or, to wit I kill thee, make | |
| thee away, translate thy life into death, thy | |
| liberty into bondage: I will deal in poison with | |
| thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy | |
| with thee in faction; I will o'errun thee with | |
| policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways: | |
| therefore tremble and depart. | |
| AUDREY Do, good William. | |
| WILLIAM God rest you merry, sir. | |
| [Exit] | |
| [Enter CORIN] | |
| CORIN Our master and mistress seeks you; come, away, away! | |
| TOUCHSTONE Trip, Audrey! trip, Audrey! I attend, I attend. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT V | |
| SCENE II The forest. | |
| [Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER] | |
| ORLANDO Is't possible that on so little acquaintance you | |
| should like her? that but seeing you should love | |
| her? and loving woo? and, wooing, she should | |
| grant? and will you persever to enjoy her? | |
| OLIVER Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the | |
| poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden | |
| wooing, nor her sudden consenting; but say with me, | |
| I love Aliena; say with her that she loves me; | |
| consent with both that we may enjoy each other: it | |
| shall be to your good; for my father's house and all | |
| the revenue that was old Sir Rowland's will I | |
| estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd. | |
| ORLANDO You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow: | |
| thither will I invite the duke and all's contented | |
| followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for look | |
| you, here comes my Rosalind. | |
| [Enter ROSALIND] | |
| ROSALIND God save you, brother. | |
| OLIVER And you, fair sister. | |
| [Exit] | |
| ROSALIND O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee | |
| wear thy heart in a scarf! | |
| ORLANDO It is my arm. | |
| ROSALIND I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws | |
| of a lion. | |
| ORLANDO Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady. | |
| ROSALIND Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to | |
| swoon when he showed me your handkerchief? | |
| ORLANDO Ay, and greater wonders than that. | |
| ROSALIND O, I know where you are: nay, 'tis true: there was | |
| never any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams | |
| and Caesar's thrasonical brag of 'I came, saw, and | |
| overcame:' for your brother and my sister no sooner | |
| met but they looked, no sooner looked but they | |
| loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner | |
| sighed but they asked one another the reason, no | |
| sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; | |
| and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs | |
| to marriage which they will climb incontinent, or | |
| else be incontinent before marriage: they are in | |
| the very wrath of love and they will together; clubs | |
| cannot part them. | |
| ORLANDO They shall be married to-morrow, and I will bid the | |
| duke to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it | |
| is to look into happiness through another man's | |
| eyes! By so much the more shall I to-morrow be at | |
| the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall | |
| think my brother happy in having what he wishes for. | |
| ROSALIND Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind? | |
| ORLANDO I can live no longer by thinking. | |
| ROSALIND I will weary you then no longer with idle talking. | |
| Know of me then, for now I speak to some purpose, | |
| that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I | |
| speak not this that you should bear a good opinion | |
| of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know you are; | |
| neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in | |
| some little measure draw a belief from you, to do | |
| yourself good and not to grace me. Believe then, if | |
| you please, that I can do strange things: I have, | |
| since I was three year old, conversed with a | |
| magician, most profound in his art and yet not | |
| damnable. If you do love Rosalind so near the heart | |
| as your gesture cries it out, when your brother | |
| marries Aliena, shall you marry her: I know into | |
| what straits of fortune she is driven; and it is | |
| not impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient | |
| to you, to set her before your eyes tomorrow human | |
| as she is and without any danger. | |
| ORLANDO Speakest thou in sober meanings? | |
| ROSALIND By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I | |
| say I am a magician. Therefore, put you in your | |
| best array: bid your friends; for if you will be | |
| married to-morrow, you shall, and to Rosalind, if you will. | |
| [Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE] | |
| Look, here comes a lover of mine and a lover of hers. | |
| PHEBE Youth, you have done me much ungentleness, | |
| To show the letter that I writ to you. | |
| ROSALIND I care not if I have: it is my study | |
| To seem despiteful and ungentle to you: | |
| You are there followed by a faithful shepherd; | |
| Look upon him, love him; he worships you. | |
| PHEBE Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love. | |
| SILVIUS It is to be all made of sighs and tears; | |
| And so am I for Phebe. | |
| PHEBE And I for Ganymede. | |
| ORLANDO And I for Rosalind. | |
| ROSALIND And I for no woman. | |
| SILVIUS It is to be all made of faith and service; | |
| And so am I for Phebe. | |
| PHEBE And I for Ganymede. | |
| ORLANDO And I for Rosalind. | |
| ROSALIND And I for no woman. | |
| SILVIUS It is to be all made of fantasy, | |
| All made of passion and all made of wishes, | |
| All adoration, duty, and observance, | |
| All humbleness, all patience and impatience, | |
| All purity, all trial, all observance; | |
| And so am I for Phebe. | |
| PHEBE And so am I for Ganymede. | |
| ORLANDO And so am I for Rosalind. | |
| ROSALIND And so am I for no woman. | |
| PHEBE If this be so, why blame you me to love you? | |
| SILVIUS If this be so, why blame you me to love you? | |
| ORLANDO If this be so, why blame you me to love you? | |
| ROSALIND Who do you speak to, 'Why blame you me to love you?' | |
| ORLANDO To her that is not here, nor doth not hear. | |
| ROSALIND Pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling | |
| of Irish wolves against the moon. | |
| [To SILVIUS] | |
| I will help you, if I can: | |
| [To PHEBE] | |
| I would love you, if I could. To-morrow meet me all together. | |
| [To PHEBE] | |
| I will marry you, if ever I marry woman, and I'll be | |
| married to-morrow: | |
| [To ORLANDO] | |
| I will satisfy you, if ever I satisfied man, and you | |
| shall be married to-morrow: | |
| [To SILVIUS] | |
| I will content you, if what pleases you contents | |
| you, and you shall be married to-morrow. | |
| [To ORLANDO] | |
| As you love Rosalind, meet: | |
| [To SILVIUS] | |
| as you love Phebe, meet: and as I love no woman, | |
| I'll meet. So fare you well: I have left you commands. | |
| SILVIUS I'll not fail, if I live. | |
| PHEBE Nor I. | |
| ORLANDO Nor I. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT V | |
| SCENE III The forest. | |
| [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY] | |
| TOUCHSTONE To-morrow is the joyful day, Audrey; to-morrow will | |
| we be married. | |
| AUDREY I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is | |
| no dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the | |
| world. Here comes two of the banished duke's pages. | |
| [Enter two Pages] | |
| First Page Well met, honest gentleman. | |
| TOUCHSTONE By my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, and a song. | |
| Second Page We are for you: sit i' the middle. | |
| First Page Shall we clap into't roundly, without hawking or | |
| spitting or saying we are hoarse, which are the only | |
| prologues to a bad voice? | |
| Second Page I'faith, i'faith; and both in a tune, like two | |
| gipsies on a horse. | |
| SONG. | |
| It was a lover and his lass, | |
| With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, | |
| That o'er the green corn-field did pass | |
| In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, | |
| When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding: | |
| Sweet lovers love the spring. | |
| Between the acres of the rye, | |
| With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino | |
| These pretty country folks would lie, | |
| In spring time, &c. | |
| This carol they began that hour, | |
| With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, | |
| How that a life was but a flower | |
| In spring time, &c. | |
| And therefore take the present time, | |
| With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino; | |
| For love is crowned with the prime | |
| In spring time, &c. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great | |
| matter in the ditty, yet the note was very | |
| untuneable. | |
| First Page You are deceived, sir: we kept time, we lost not our time. | |
| TOUCHSTONE By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear | |
| such a foolish song. God be wi' you; and God mend | |
| your voices! Come, Audrey. | |
| [Exeunt] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| ACT V | |
| SCENE IV The forest. | |
| [Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, JAQUES, ORLANDO, OLIVER, | |
| and CELIA] | |
| DUKE SENIOR Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy | |
| Can do all this that he hath promised? | |
| ORLANDO I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not; | |
| As those that fear they hope, and know they fear. | |
| [Enter ROSALIND, SILVIUS, and PHEBE] | |
| ROSALIND Patience once more, whiles our compact is urged: | |
| You say, if I bring in your Rosalind, | |
| You will bestow her on Orlando here? | |
| DUKE SENIOR That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her. | |
| ROSALIND And you say, you will have her, when I bring her? | |
| ORLANDO That would I, were I of all kingdoms king. | |
| ROSALIND You say, you'll marry me, if I be willing? | |
| PHEBE That will I, should I die the hour after. | |
| ROSALIND But if you do refuse to marry me, | |
| You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd? | |
| PHEBE So is the bargain. | |
| ROSALIND You say, that you'll have Phebe, if she will? | |
| SILVIUS Though to have her and death were both one thing. | |
| ROSALIND I have promised to make all this matter even. | |
| Keep you your word, O duke, to give your daughter; | |
| You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter: | |
| Keep your word, Phebe, that you'll marry me, | |
| Or else refusing me, to wed this shepherd: | |
| Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her. | |
| If she refuse me: and from hence I go, | |
| To make these doubts all even. | |
| [Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA] | |
| DUKE SENIOR I do remember in this shepherd boy | |
| Some lively touches of my daughter's favour. | |
| ORLANDO My lord, the first time that I ever saw him | |
| Methought he was a brother to your daughter: | |
| But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born, | |
| And hath been tutor'd in the rudiments | |
| Of many desperate studies by his uncle, | |
| Whom he reports to be a great magician, | |
| Obscured in the circle of this forest. | |
| [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY] | |
| JAQUES There is, sure, another flood toward, and these | |
| couples are coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of | |
| very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools. | |
| TOUCHSTONE Salutation and greeting to you all! | |
| JAQUES Good my lord, bid him welcome: this is the | |
| motley-minded gentleman that I have so often met in | |
| the forest: he hath been a courtier, he swears. | |
| TOUCHSTONE If any man doubt that, let him put me to my | |
| purgation. I have trod a measure; I have flattered | |
| a lady; I have been politic with my friend, smooth | |
| with mine enemy; I have undone three tailors; I have | |
| had four quarrels, and like to have fought one. | |
| JAQUES And how was that ta'en up? | |
| TOUCHSTONE Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the | |
| seventh cause. | |
| JAQUES How seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow. | |
| DUKE SENIOR I like him very well. | |
| TOUCHSTONE God 'ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I | |
| press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country | |
| copulatives, to swear and to forswear: according as | |
| marriage binds and blood breaks: a poor virgin, | |
| sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor | |
| humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else | |
| will: rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a | |
| poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster. | |
| DUKE SENIOR By my faith, he is very swift and sententious. | |
| TOUCHSTONE According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet diseases. | |
| JAQUES But, for the seventh cause; how did you find the | |
| quarrel on the seventh cause? | |
| TOUCHSTONE Upon a lie seven times removed:--bear your body more | |
| seeming, Audrey:--as thus, sir. I did dislike the | |
| cut of a certain courtier's beard: he sent me word, | |
| if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the | |
| mind it was: this is called the Retort Courteous. | |
| If I sent him word again 'it was not well cut,' he | |
| would send me word, he cut it to please himself: | |
| this is called the Quip Modest. If again 'it was | |
| not well cut,' he disabled my judgment: this is | |
| called the Reply Churlish. If again 'it was not | |
| well cut,' he would answer, I spake not true: this | |
| is called the Reproof Valiant. If again 'it was not | |
| well cut,' he would say I lied: this is called the | |
| Counter-cheque Quarrelsome: and so to the Lie | |
| Circumstantial and the Lie Direct. | |
| JAQUES And how oft did you say his beard was not well cut? | |
| TOUCHSTONE I durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial, | |
| nor he durst not give me the Lie Direct; and so we | |
| measured swords and parted. | |
| JAQUES Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie? | |
| TOUCHSTONE O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have | |
| books for good manners: I will name you the degrees. | |
| The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the | |
| Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the | |
| fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the | |
| Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with | |
| Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All | |
| these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may | |
| avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven | |
| justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the | |
| parties were met themselves, one of them thought but | |
| of an If, as, 'If you said so, then I said so;' and | |
| they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the | |
| only peacemaker; much virtue in If. | |
| JAQUES Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? he's as good at | |
| any thing and yet a fool. | |
| DUKE SENIOR He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under | |
| the presentation of that he shoots his wit. | |
| [Enter HYMEN, ROSALIND, and CELIA] | |
| [Still Music] | |
| HYMEN Then is there mirth in heaven, | |
| When earthly things made even | |
| Atone together. | |
| Good duke, receive thy daughter | |
| Hymen from heaven brought her, | |
| Yea, brought her hither, | |
| That thou mightst join her hand with his | |
| Whose heart within his bosom is. | |
| ROSALIND [To DUKE SENIOR] To you I give myself, for I am yours. | |
| [To ORLANDO] | |
| To you I give myself, for I am yours. | |
| DUKE SENIOR If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter. | |
| ORLANDO If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind. | |
| PHEBE If sight and shape be true, | |
| Why then, my love adieu! | |
| ROSALIND I'll have no father, if you be not he: | |
| I'll have no husband, if you be not he: | |
| Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she. | |
| HYMEN Peace, ho! I bar confusion: | |
| 'Tis I must make conclusion | |
| Of these most strange events: | |
| Here's eight that must take hands | |
| To join in Hymen's bands, | |
| If truth holds true contents. | |
| You and you no cross shall part: | |
| You and you are heart in heart | |
| You to his love must accord, | |
| Or have a woman to your lord: | |
| You and you are sure together, | |
| As the winter to foul weather. | |
| Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing, | |
| Feed yourselves with questioning; | |
| That reason wonder may diminish, | |
| How thus we met, and these things finish. | |
| SONG. | |
| Wedding is great Juno's crown: | |
| O blessed bond of board and bed! | |
| 'Tis Hymen peoples every town; | |
| High wedlock then be honoured: | |
| Honour, high honour and renown, | |
| To Hymen, god of every town! | |
| DUKE SENIOR O my dear niece, welcome thou art to me! | |
| Even daughter, welcome, in no less degree. | |
| PHEBE I will not eat my word, now thou art mine; | |
| Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine. | |
| [Enter JAQUES DE BOYS] | |
| JAQUES DE BOYS Let me have audience for a word or two: | |
| I am the second son of old Sir Rowland, | |
| That bring these tidings to this fair assembly. | |
| Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day | |
| Men of great worth resorted to this forest, | |
| Address'd a mighty power; which were on foot, | |
| In his own conduct, purposely to take | |
| His brother here and put him to the sword: | |
| And to the skirts of this wild wood he came; | |
| Where meeting with an old religious man, | |
| After some question with him, was converted | |
| Both from his enterprise and from the world, | |
| His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother, | |
| And all their lands restored to them again | |
| That were with him exiled. This to be true, | |
| I do engage my life. | |
| DUKE SENIOR Welcome, young man; | |
| Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding: | |
| To one his lands withheld, and to the other | |
| A land itself at large, a potent dukedom. | |
| First, in this forest, let us do those ends | |
| That here were well begun and well begot: | |
| And after, every of this happy number | |
| That have endured shrewd days and nights with us | |
| Shall share the good of our returned fortune, | |
| According to the measure of their states. | |
| Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity | |
| And fall into our rustic revelry. | |
| Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all, | |
| With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall. | |
| JAQUES Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly, | |
| The duke hath put on a religious life | |
| And thrown into neglect the pompous court? | |
| JAQUES DE BOYS He hath. | |
| JAQUES To him will I : out of these convertites | |
| There is much matter to be heard and learn'd. | |
| [To DUKE SENIOR] | |
| You to your former honour I bequeath; | |
| Your patience and your virtue well deserves it: | |
| [To ORLANDO] | |
| You to a love that your true faith doth merit: | |
| [To OLIVER] | |
| You to your land and love and great allies: | |
| [To SILVIUS] | |
| You to a long and well-deserved bed: | |
| [To TOUCHSTONE] | |
| And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage | |
| Is but for two months victuall'd. So, to your pleasures: | |
| I am for other than for dancing measures. | |
| DUKE SENIOR Stay, Jaques, stay. | |
| JAQUES To see no pastime I what you would have | |
| I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave. | |
| [Exit] | |
| DUKE SENIOR Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites, | |
| As we do trust they'll end, in true delights. | |
| [A dance] | |
| AS YOU LIKE IT | |
| EPILOGUE | |
| ROSALIND It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; | |
| but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord | |
| the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs | |
| no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no | |
| epilogue; yet to good wine they do use good bushes, | |
| and good plays prove the better by the help of good | |
| epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am | |
| neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with | |
| you in the behalf of a good play! I am not | |
| furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not | |
| become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin | |
| with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love | |
| you bear to men, to like as much of this play as | |
| please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love | |
| you bear to women--as I perceive by your simpering, | |
| none of you hates them--that between you and the | |
| women the play may please. If I were a woman I | |
| would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased | |
| me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I | |
| defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good | |
| beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my | |
| kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. | |
| [Exeunt] |