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
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
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
- --oOo-- -