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AS YOU LIKE IT
DRAMATIS PERSONAE

AMIENS

|
| lords attending on the banished duke.

OLIVER

|
|

JAQUES (JAQUES DE BOYS:)        |  sons of Sir Rowland de Boys.
                |
ORLANDO         |

ADAM

|
| servants to Oliver.

TOUCHSTONE      a clown.

SIR OLIVER MARTEXT      a vicar.

CORIN

|
| shepherds.

A person representing HYMEN. (HYMEN:)

ROSALIND        daughter to the banished duke.

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

[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]

ORLANDO

Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.

ORLANDO

Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion have I spent, that I should come to such penury?

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.

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.

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.

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

So please you, he is here at the door and importunes access to you.

[Exit DENNIS]
'Twill be a good way; and to-morrow the wrestling is.
[Enter CHARLES]

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.

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.

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!

[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

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.

[Enter LE BEAU]
Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: what's the news?

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.

wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.

ROSALIND        You tell us the manner of the wrestling.

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.

ROSALIND        With bills on their necks, 'Be it known unto all men
        by these presents.'

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?

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?

appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it.

[Flourish. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, ORLANDO, CHARLES, and Attendants]

own peril on his forwardness.

ROSALIND        Is yonder the man?

to see the wrestling?

ROSALIND        Ay, my liege, so please you give us leave.

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.

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!

CHARLES

Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth?

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]

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]

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]

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?

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.

[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

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.

[Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords]

And get you from our court.

ROSALIND        Me, uncle?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

[Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three Lords, like foresters]

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.

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.

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.

Upon the sobbing deer.

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

SCENE II        A room in the palace.

[Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords]

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.

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.

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

SCENE III       Before OLIVER'S house.

[Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting]

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!

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.

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

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.

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?

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

[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

I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee, more.

JAQUES

I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing. Come, more; another stanzo: call you 'em stanzos?

JAQUES

Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing. Will you sing?

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.

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.

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.

[Exeunt severally]
AS YOU LIKE IT

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

SCENE VII       The forest.

[A table set out. Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and Lords like outlaws]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.

More than your force move us to gentleness.

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.

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.

And we will nothing waste till you return.

[Exit]

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]

And let him feed.

ADAM

So had you need:
I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.

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.

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

[Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, and OLIVER]

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.

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

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.

[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.

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.

[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

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.

ORLANDO

There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

ROSALIND        With a thief to the gallows, for though he go as
        softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.

ROSALIND        With lawyers in the vacation, for they sleep between
        term and term and then they perceive not how Time moves.

ROSALIND        With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the
        skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

ROSALIND        Nay you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go?

[Exeunt]
AS YOU LIKE IT

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?

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.

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.

TOUCHSTONE      No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for
        honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.

make me honest.

TOUCHSTONE      Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut
        were to put good meat into an unclean dish.

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.

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.

        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.

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.

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

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.

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

[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?'

PHEBE                     Ha, what say'st thou, 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                     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.

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?

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

[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.

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.

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]

[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.

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.

ROSALIND        Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I
        had as lief be wooed 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

CELIA   I cannot say the words.

ROSALIND        You must begin, 'Will you, Orlando--'

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.

ROSALIND        Now tell me how long you would have her after you
        have possessed her.

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.

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.