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
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
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? C ourage! 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
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
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
- --oOo-- -