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]
|
