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
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
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
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
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
- --oOo-- -