AS YOU LIKE IT



by William Shakespeare









Contents



 ACT I

 Scene I. An Orchard near Oliver’s house

 Scene II. A Lawn before the Duke’s Palace

 Scene III. A Room in the Palace



 ACT II

 Scene I. The Forest of Arden

 Scene II. A Room in the Palace

 Scene III. Before Oliver’s House

 Scene IV. The Forest of Arden

 Scene V. Another part of the Forest

 Scene VI. Another part of the Forest

 Scene VII. Another part of the Forest



 ACT III

 Scene I. A Room in the Palace

 Scene II. The Forest of Arden

 Scene III. Another part of the Forest

 Scene IV. Another part of the Forest. Before a Cottage

 Scene V. Another part of the Forest



 ACT IV

 Scene I. The Forest of Arden

 Scene II. Another part of the Forest

 Scene III. Another part of the Forest



 ACT V

 Scene I. The Forest of Arden

 Scene II. Another part of the Forest

 Scene III. Another part of the Forest

 Scene IV. Another part of the Forest

 Epilogue





Dramatis Personæ



ORLANDO, youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys

OLIVER, eldest son of Sir Rowland de Boys

JAQUES DE BOYS, second son of Sir Rowland de Boys

ADAM, Servant to Oliver

DENNIS, Servant to Oliver



ROSALIND, Daughter of Duke Senior

CELIA, Daughter of Duke Frederick

TOUCHSTONE, a Clown



DUKE SENIOR (Ferdinand), living in exile



JAQUES, Lord attending on the Duke Senior

AMIENS, Lord attending on the Duke Senior



DUKE FREDERICK, Brother to the Duke, and Usurper of his Dominions

CHARLES, his Wrestler

LE BEAU, a Courtier attending upon Frederick



CORIN, Shepherd

SILVIUS, Shepherd

PHOEBE, a Shepherdess

AUDREY, a Country Wench

WILLIAM, a Country Fellow, in love with Audrey

SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a Vicar



A person representing HYMEN



Lords belonging to the two Dukes; Pages, Foresters, and other

Attendants.



The scene lies first near Oliver’s house; afterwards partly in the

Usurper’s court and partly in the Forest of Arden.









ACT I



SCENE I. An Orchard near Oliver’s house





Enter Orlando and Adam.



ORLANDO.

As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but

poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayst, 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.



Enter Oliver.



ADAM.

Yonder comes my master, your brother.



ORLANDO.

Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up.



[_Adam retires._]



OLIVER.

Now, sir, what make you here?



ORLANDO.

Nothing. I am not taught to make anything.



OLIVER.

What mar you then, sir?



ORLANDO.

Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor

unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.



OLIVER.

Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile.



ORLANDO.

Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion

have I spent that I should come to such penury?



OLIVER.

Know you where you are, sir?



ORLANDO.

O, sir, very well: here in your orchard.



OLIVER.

Know you before whom, sir?



ORLANDO.

Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are my eldest

brother, and in the gentle condition of blood you should so know me.

The courtesy of nations allows you my better in that you are the

first-born, but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there

twenty brothers betwixt us. I have as much of my father in me as you,

albeit I confess your coming before me is nearer to his reverence.



OLIVER.

What, boy!



ORLANDO.

Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.



OLIVER.

Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?



ORLANDO.

I am no villain. I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys; he was

my father, and he is thrice a villain that says such a father begot

villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy

throat till this other had pulled out thy tongue for saying so. Thou

has railed on thyself.



ADAM.

[_Coming forward_.] Sweet masters, be patient. For your father’s

remembrance, be at accord.



OLIVER.

Let me go, I say.



ORLANDO.

I will not till I please. You shall hear me. My father charged you in

his will to give me good education. You have trained me like a peasant,

obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like qualities. The spirit

of my father grows strong in me, and I will no longer endure it.

Therefore allow me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or give me

the poor allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go

buy my fortunes.



OLIVER.

And what wilt thou do? Beg when that is spent? Well, sir, get you in. I

will not long be troubled with you. You shall have some part of your

will. I pray you leave me.



ORLANDO.

I no further offend you than becomes me for my good.



OLIVER.

Get you with him, you old dog.



ADAM.

Is “old dog” my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in your

service. God be with my old master. He would not have spoke such a

word.



[_Exeunt Orlando and Adam._]



OLIVER.

Is it even so? Begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness,

and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla, Dennis!



Enter Dennis.



DENNIS

Calls your worship?



OLIVER.

Was not Charles, the Duke’s wrestler, here to speak with me?



DENNIS

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



OLIVER.

Call him in.



[_Exit Dennis._]



’Twill be a good way, and tomorrow the wrestling is.



Enter Charles.



CHARLES.

Good morrow to your worship.



OLIVER.

Good Monsieur Charles. What’s the new news at the new court?



CHARLES.

There’s no news at the court, sir, but the old news. That is, the old

Duke is banished by his younger brother the new Duke, and three or four

loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose

lands and revenues enrich the new Duke; therefore he gives them good

leave to wander.



OLIVER.

Can you tell if Rosalind, the Duke’s daughter, be banished with her

father?



CHARLES.

O, no; for the Duke’s daughter, her cousin, so loves her, being ever

from their cradles bred together, that she would have followed her

exile or have died to stay behind her. She is at the court and no less

beloved of her uncle than his own daughter, and never two ladies loved

as they do.



OLIVER.

Where will the old Duke live?



CHARLES.

They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many merry men

with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England. They

say many young gentlemen flock to him every day and fleet the time

carelessly, as they did in the golden world.



OLIVER.

What, you wrestle tomorrow before the new Duke?



CHARLES.

Marry, do I, sir, and I came to acquaint you with a matter. I am given,

sir, secretly to understand that your younger brother Orlando hath a

disposition to come in disguised against me to try a fall. Tomorrow,

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 villainous 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 villainous 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 tomorrow 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._]



OLIVER.

Farewell, good 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 misprized. But it shall not be so long; this

wrestler shall clear all. Nothing remains but that I kindle the boy

thither, which now I’ll go about.



[_Exit._]



SCENE II. A Lawn before the Duke’s Palace



Enter Rosalind and Celia.



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 lov’st 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 dullness 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 pancackes or that mustard.



CELIA.

Prithee, who is’t that thou mean’st?



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.



Enter Le Beau.



ROSALIND.

With his mouth full of news.



CELIA.

Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young.



ROSALIND.

Then shall we be news-crammed.



CELIA.

All the better; we shall be the more marketable.

_Bonjour_, Monsieur Le Beau. What’s the news?



LE BEAU.

Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.



CELIA.

Sport! Of what colour?



LE BEAU.

What colour, madam? How shall I answer you?



ROSALIND.

As wit and fortune will.



TOUCHSTONE.

Or as the destinies decrees.



CELIA.

Well said. That was laid on with a trowel.



TOUCHSTONE.

Nay, if I keep not my rank—



ROSALIND.

Thou losest thy old smell.



LE BEAU.

You amaze me, ladies. I would have told you of good wrestling, which

you have lost the sight of.



ROSALIND.

Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.



LE BEAU.

I will tell you the beginning and, if it please your ladyships, you may

see the end, for the best is yet to do; and here, where you are, they

are coming to perform it.



CELIA.

Well, the beginning that is dead and buried.



LE BEAU.

There comes an old man and his three sons—



CELIA.

I could match this beginning with an old tale.



LE BEAU.

Three proper young men of excellent growth and presence.



ROSALIND.

With bills on their necks: “Be it known unto all men by these

presents.”



LE BEAU.

The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the Duke’s wrestler,

which Charles in a moment threw him and broke three of his ribs, that

there is little hope of life in him. So he served the second, and so

the third. Yonder they lie, the poor old man their father making such

pitiful dole over them that all the beholders take his part with

weeping.



ROSALIND.

Alas!



TOUCHSTONE.

But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have lost?



LE BEAU.

Why, this that I speak of.



TOUCHSTONE.

Thus men may grow wiser every day. It is the first time that ever I

heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.



CELIA.

Or I, I promise thee.



ROSALIND.

But is there any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? Is

there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking? Shall we see this wrestling,

cousin?



LE BEAU.

You must if you stay here, for here is the place appointed for the

wrestling, and they are ready to perform it.



CELIA.

Yonder, sure, they are coming. Let us now stay and see it.



Flourish. Enter Duke Frederick, Lords, Orlando, Charles and Attendants.



DUKE FREDERICK.

Come on. Since the youth will not be entreated, his own peril on his

forwardness.



ROSALIND.

Is yonder the man?



LE BEAU.

Even he, madam.



CELIA.

Alas, he is too young. Yet he looks successfully.



DUKE FREDERICK.

How now, daughter and cousin? Are you crept hither to see the

wrestling?



ROSALIND.

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



DUKE FREDERICK.

You will take little delight in it, I can tell you, there is such odds

in the man. In pity of the challenger’s youth I would fain dissuade

him, but he will not be entreated. Speak to him, ladies; see if you can

move him.



CELIA.

Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau.



DUKE FREDERICK.

Do so; I’ll not be by.



[_Duke Frederick steps aside._]



LE BEAU.

Monsieur the challenger, the Princess calls for you.



ORLANDO.

I attend them with all respect and duty.



ROSALIND.

Young man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler?



ORLANDO.

No, fair princess. He is the general challenger. I come but in as

others do, to try with him the strength of my youth.



CELIA.

Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years. You have

seen cruel proof of this man’s strength. If you saw yourself with your

eyes or knew yourself with your judgement, 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 misprized. 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 anything. 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 is willing to be so. I shall do my friends no wrong,

for I have none to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have

nothing. Only in the world I fill up a place, which may be better

supplied when I have made it empty.



ROSALIND.

The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.



CELIA.

And mine to eke out hers.



ROSALIND.

Fare you well. Pray heaven I be deceived in you.



CELIA.

Your heart’s desires be with you.



CHARLES.

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

mother earth?



ORLANDO.

Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working.



DUKE FREDERICK.

You shall try but one fall.



CHARLES.

No, I warrant your grace you shall not entreat him to a second, that

have so mightily persuaded him from a first.



ORLANDO.

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.



[_Orlando and Charles wrestle._]



ROSALIND.

O excellent young man!



CELIA.

If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should down.



[_Charles is thrown. Shout._]



DUKE FREDERICK.

No more, no more.



ORLANDO.

Yes, I beseech your grace. I am not yet well breathed.



DUKE FREDERICK.

How dost thou, Charles?



LE BEAU.

He cannot speak, my lord.



DUKE FREDERICK.

Bear him away.



[_Charles is carried off by Attendants._]



What is thy name, young man?



ORLANDO.

Orlando, my liege, the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys.



DUKE FREDERICK.

I would thou hadst been son to some man else.

The world esteemed 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, Le Beau and Lords._]



CELIA.

Were I my father, coz, would I do this?



ORLANDO.

I am more proud to be Sir Rowland’s son,

His youngest son, and would not change that calling

To be adopted heir to Frederick.



ROSALIND.

My father loved Sir Rowland as his soul,

And all the world was of my father’s mind.

Had I before known this young man his son,

I should have given him tears unto entreaties

Ere he should thus have ventured.



CELIA.

Gentle cousin,

Let us go thank him and encourage him.

My father’s rough and envious disposition

Sticks me at heart.—Sir, you have well deserved.

If you do keep your promises in love

But justly, as you have exceeded 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.



Enter Le Beau.



LE BEAU.

Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you

To leave this place. Albeit you have deserved

High commendation, true applause, and love,

Yet such is now the Duke’s condition

That he misconsters all that you have done.

The Duke is humorous; what he is indeed

More suits you to conceive than I to speak of.



ORLANDO.

I thank you, sir; and pray you tell me this:

Which of the two was daughter of the Duke

That here was at the wrestling?



LE BEAU.

Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners,

But yet indeed the smaller is his daughter.

The other is daughter to the banished Duke,

And here detained by her usurping uncle

To keep his daughter company, whose loves

Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters.

But I can tell you that of late this Duke

Hath ta’en displeasure ’gainst his gentle niece,

Grounded upon no other argument

But that the people praise her for her virtues

And pity her for her good father’s sake;

And, on my life, his malice ’gainst the lady

Will suddenly break forth. Sir, fare you well.

Hereafter, in a better world than this,

I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.



ORLANDO.

I rest much bounden to you; fare you well!



[_Exit Le Beau._]



Thus must I from the smoke into the smother,

From tyrant Duke unto a tyrant brother.

But heavenly Rosalind!



[_Exit._]



SCENE III. A Room in the Palace



Enter Celia and Rosalind.



CELIA.

Why, cousin, why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! Not a word?



ROSALIND.

Not one to throw at a dog.



CELIA.

No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs. Throw some of

them at me. Come, lame me with reasons.



ROSALIND.

Then there were two cousins laid up, when the one should be lamed with

reasons and the other mad without any.



CELIA.

But is all this for your father?



ROSALIND.

No, some of it is for my child’s father. O, how full of briers is this

working-day world!



CELIA.

They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery. If we

walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats will catch them.



ROSALIND.

I could shake them off my coat; these burs are in my heart.



CELIA.

Hem them away.



ROSALIND.

I would try, if I could cry “hem” and have him.



CELIA.

Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.



ROSALIND.

O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself.



CELIA.

O, a good wish upon you! You will try in time, in despite of a fall.

But turning these jests out of service, let us talk in good earnest. Is

it possible on such a sudden you should fall into so strong a liking

with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?



ROSALIND.

The Duke my father loved his father dearly.



CELIA.

Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly? By this

kind of chase I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly;

yet I hate not Orlando.



ROSALIND.

No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.



CELIA.

Why should I not? Doth he not deserve well?



Enter Duke Frederick with Lords.



ROSALIND.

Let me love him for that, and do you love him because I do.—Look, here

comes the Duke.



CELIA.

With his eyes full of anger.



DUKE FREDERICK.

Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste,

And get you from our court.



ROSALIND.

Me, uncle?



DUKE FREDERICK.

You, cousin.

Within these ten days if that thou be’st found

So near our public court as twenty miles,

Thou diest for it.



ROSALIND.

I do beseech your Grace,

Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me.

If with myself I hold intelligence,

Or have acquaintance with mine own desires,

If that I do not dream, or be not frantic—

As I do trust I am not—then, dear uncle,

Never so much as in a thought unborn

Did I offend your Highness.



DUKE FREDERICK.

Thus do all traitors.

If their purgation did consist in words,

They are as innocent as grace itself.

Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.



ROSALIND.

Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor.

Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.



DUKE FREDERICK.

Thou art thy father’s daughter, there’s enough.



ROSALIND.

So was I when your highness took his dukedom;

So was I when your highness banished him.

Treason is not inherited, my lord,

Or, if we did derive it from our friends,

What’s that to me? My father was no traitor.

Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much

To think my poverty is treacherous.



CELIA.

Dear sovereign, hear me speak.



DUKE FREDERICK.

Ay, Celia, we stayed her for your sake,

Else had she with her father ranged along.



CELIA.

I did not then entreat to have her stay;

It was your pleasure and your own remorse.

I was too young that time to value her,

But now I know her. If she be a traitor,

Why, so am I. We still have slept together,

Rose at an instant, learned, played, ate together,

And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans,

Still we went coupled and inseparable.



DUKE FREDERICK.

She is too subtle for thee, and her smoothness,

Her very silence, and her patience

Speak to the people, and they pity her.

Thou art a fool. She robs thee of thy name,

And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous

When she is gone. Then open not thy lips.

Firm and irrevocable is my doom

Which I have passed upon her. She is banished.



CELIA.

Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege.

I cannot live out of her company.



DUKE FREDERICK.

You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself.

If you outstay the time, upon mine honour

And in the greatness of my word, you die.



[_Exeunt Duke Frederick and Lords._]



CELIA.

O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go?

Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.

I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.



ROSALIND.

I have more cause.



CELIA.

Thou hast not, cousin.

Prithee be cheerful. Know’st thou not the Duke

Hath banished 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 sundered? 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 curtal-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 called?



CELIA.

Something that hath a reference to my state:

No longer Celia, but Aliena.



ROSALIND.

But, cousin, what if we assayed 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._]









ACT II



SCENE I. The Forest of Arden





Enter Duke Senior, Amiens and two or three Lords, dressed as foresters.



DUKE SENIOR.

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet

Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods

More free from peril than the envious court?

Here feel we not 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 everything.



AMIENS.

I would not change it. Happy is your grace,

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune

Into so quiet and so sweet a style.



DUKE SENIOR.

Come, shall we go and kill us venison?

And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,

Being native burghers of this desert city,

Should in their own confines with forked heads

Have their round haunches gored.



FIRST LORD.

Indeed, my lord,

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,

And in that kind swears you do more usurp

Than doth your brother that hath banished you.

Today 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 sequestered 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 th’ extremest verge of the swift brook,

Augmenting it with tears.



DUKE SENIOR.

But what said Jaques?

Did he not moralize this spectacle?



FIRST LORD.

O yes, into a thousand similes.

First, for his weeping into the needless stream:

“Poor deer,” quoth he “thou mak’st a testament

As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

To that which had too much.” Then, being there alone,

Left and abandoned 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 assigned and native dwelling-place.



DUKE SENIOR.

And did you leave him in this contemplation?



SECOND LORD.

We did, my lord, weeping and commenting

Upon the sobbing deer.



DUKE SENIOR.

Show me the place.

I love to cope him in these sullen fits,

For then he’s full of matter.



FIRST LORD.

I’ll bring you to him straight.



[_Exeunt._]



SCENE II. A Room in the Palace



Enter Duke Frederick with Lords.



DUKE FREDERICK.

Can it be possible that no man saw them?

It cannot be! Some villains of my court

Are of consent and sufferance in this.



FIRST LORD.

I cannot hear of any that did see her.

The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,

Saw her abed, and in the morning early

They found the bed untreasured of their mistress.



SECOND LORD.

My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft

Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.

Hesperia, the princess’ gentlewoman,

Confesses that she secretly o’erheard

Your daughter and her cousin much commend

The parts and graces of the wrestler

That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles;

And she believes wherever they are gone

That youth is surely in their company.



DUKE FREDERICK.

Send to his brother; fetch that gallant hither.

If he be absent, bring his brother to me.

I’ll make him find him. Do this suddenly!

And let not search and inquisition quail

To bring again these foolish runaways.



[_Exeunt._]



SCENE III. Before Oliver’s House



Enter Orlando and Adam, meeting.



ORLANDO.

Who’s there?



ADAM.

What, my young master? O my gentle master,

O my sweet master, O you memory

Of old Sir Rowland! Why, what make you here?

Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you?

And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?

Why would you be so fond to overcome

The bonny prizer of the humorous Duke?

Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.

Know you not, master, to some kind of men

Their graces serve them but as enemies?

No more do yours. Your virtues, gentle master,

Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.

O, what a world is this, when what is comely

Envenoms him that bears it!



ORLANDO.

Why, what’s the matter?



ADAM.

O unhappy youth,

Come not within these doors! Within this roof

The enemy of all your graces lives.

Your brother—no, no brother, yet the son—

Yet not the son; I will not call him son—

Of him I was about to call his father,

Hath heard your praises, and this night he means

To burn the lodging where you use to lie,

And you within it. If he fail of that,

He will have other means to cut you off;

I overheard him and his practices.

This is no place; this house is but a butchery.

Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.



ORLANDO.

Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?



ADAM.

No matter whither, so you come not here.



ORLANDO.

What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food,

Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce

A thievish living on the common road?

This I must do, or know not what to do.

Yet this I will not do, do how I can.

I rather will subject me to the malice

Of a diverted blood and bloody brother.



ADAM.

But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,

The thrifty hire I saved under your father,

Which I did store to be my foster-nurse,

When service should in my old limbs lie lame,

And unregarded age in corners thrown.

Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed,

Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,

Be comfort to my age. Here is the gold.

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 prun’st a rotten tree,

That cannot so much as a blossom yield

In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry.

But come thy ways, we’ll 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._]



SCENE IV. The Forest of Arden



Enter Rosalind as Ganymede, Celia as 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.



Enter Corin and Silvius.



ROSALIND.

Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here? A young man and

an old in solemn talk.



CORIN.

That is the way to make her scorn you still.



SILVIUS.

O Corin, that thou knew’st how I do love her!



CORIN.

I partly guess, for I have loved ere now.



SILVIUS.

No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess,

Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover

As ever sighed upon a midnight pillow.

But if thy love were ever like to mine—

As sure I think did never man love so—

How many actions most ridiculous

Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?



CORIN.

Into a thousand that I have forgotten.



SILVIUS.

O, thou didst then never love so heartily!

If thou rememb’rest 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,

Wearing 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 Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe!



[_Exit Silvius._]



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 chopped

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 speak’st 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 oppressed,

And faints for succour.



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 anything.



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._]



SCENE V. Another part of the Forest



Enter Amiens, Jaques and others.



AMIENS.

[_Sings_.]



        Under the greenwood tree,

        Who loves to lie with me

        And turn his merry note

        Unto the sweet bird’s throat,

    Come hither, come hither, come hither!

        Here shall he see

        No enemy

    But winter and rough weather.



JAQUES.

More, more, I prithee, more.



AMIENS.

It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.



JAQUES.

I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song

as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee, more.



AMIENS.

My voice is ragged. I know I cannot please you.



JAQUES.

I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing. Come, more,

another _stanzo_. Call you ’em _stanzos?_



AMIENS.

What you will, Monsieur Jaques.



JAQUES.

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



AMIENS.

More at your request than to please myself.



JAQUES.

Well then, if ever I thank any man, I’ll thank you; but that they call

compliment is like th’ 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.



AMIENS.

[_Sings_.]



        Who doth ambition shun

        And loves to live i’ th’ sun,

        Seeking the food he eats

        And pleased with what he gets,

    Come hither, come hither, come hither.

        Here shall he see

        No enemy

    But winter and rough weather.



JAQUES.

I’ll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in despite of

my invention.



AMIENS.

And I’ll sing it.



JAQUES.

Thus it goes:



        If it do come to pass

        That any man turn ass,

        Leaving his wealth and ease

        A stubborn will to please,

    Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame;

        Here shall he see

        Gross fools as he,

    An if he will come to me.



AMIENS.

What’s that “ducdame?”



JAQUES.

’Tis a Greek invocation to call fools into a circle. I’ll go sleep if I

can; if I cannot, I’ll rail against all the first-born of Egypt.



AMIENS.

And I’ll go seek the Duke; his banquet is prepared.



[_Exeunt severally._]



SCENE VI. Another part of 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 anything

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’ll give thee leave to die.

But if thou diest before I come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well

said, thou look’st 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 anything in this

desert. Cheerly, good Adam!



[_Exeunt._]



SCENE VII. Another part of the Forest



Enter Duke Senior, Amiens and Lords as outlaws.



DUKE SENIOR.

I think he be transformed into a beast,

For I can nowhere find him like a man.



FIRST LORD.

My lord, he is but even now gone hence;

Here was he merry, hearing of a song.



DUKE SENIOR.

If he, compact of jars, grow musical,

We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.

Go seek him, tell him I would speak with him.



Enter Jaques.



FIRST LORD.

He saves my labour by his own approach.



DUKE SENIOR.

Why, how now, monsieur? What a life is this

That your poor friends must woo your company?

What, you look merrily.



JAQUES.

A fool, a fool! I met a fool i’ th’ forest,

A motley fool. A miserable world!

As I do live by food, I met a fool,

Who laid him down and basked him in the sun,

And railed on Lady Fortune in good terms,

In good set terms, and yet a motley fool.

“Good morrow, fool,” quoth I. “No, sir,” quoth he,

“Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.”

And then he drew a dial from his poke,

And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,

Says very wisely, “It is ten o’clock.

Thus we may see,” quoth he, “how the world wags.

’Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,

And after one hour more ’twill be eleven.

And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,

And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,

And thereby hangs a tale.” When I did hear

The motley fool thus moral on the time,

My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,

That fools should be so deep-contemplative,

And I did laugh sans intermission

An hour by his dial. O noble fool!

A worthy fool! Motley’s the only wear.



DUKE SENIOR.

What fool is this?



JAQUES.

O worthy fool!—One that hath been a courtier,

And says if ladies be but young and fair,

They have the gift to know it. And in his brain,

Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit

After a voyage, he hath strange places crammed

With observation, the which he vents

In mangled forms. O that I were a fool!

I am ambitious for a motley coat.



DUKE SENIOR.

Thou shalt have one.



JAQUES.

It is my only suit,

Provided that you weed your better judgements

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 th’ infected world,

If they will patiently receive my medicine.



DUKE SENIOR.

Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.



JAQUES.

What, for a counter, would I do but good?



DUKE SENIOR.

Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin;

For thou thyself hast been a libertine,

As sensual as the brutish sting itself,

And all th’ embossed sores and headed evils

That thou with license 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 on 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 wronged him. If it do him right,

Then he hath wronged himself. If he be free,

Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies

Unclaimed of any man. But who comes here?



Enter Orlando with sword drawn.



ORLANDO.

Forbear, and eat no more.



JAQUES.

Why, I have eat none yet.



ORLANDO.

Nor shalt not till necessity be served.



JAQUES.

Of what kind should this cock come of?



DUKE SENIOR.

Art thou thus boldened, man, by thy distress?

Or else a rude despiser of good manners,

That in civility thou seem’st so empty?



ORLANDO.

You touched my vein at first. The thorny point

Of bare distress hath ta’en from me the show

Of smooth civility; yet am I inland bred

And know some nurture. But forbear, I say!

He dies that touches any of this fruit

Till I and my affairs are answered.



JAQUES.

An you will not be answered with reason, I must die.



DUKE SENIOR.

What would you have? Your gentleness shall force

More than your force move us to gentleness.



ORLANDO.

I almost die for food, and let me have it.



DUKE SENIOR.

Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.



ORLANDO.

Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you.

I thought that all things had been savage here

And therefore put I on the countenance

Of stern commandment. But whate’er you are

That in this desert inaccessible,

Under the shade of melancholy boughs,

Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time,

If ever you have looked on better days,

If ever been where bells have knolled to church,

If ever sat at any good man’s feast,

If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear,

And know what ’tis to pity and be pitied,

Let gentleness my strong enforcement be,

In the which hope I blush and hide my sword.



DUKE SENIOR.

True is it that we have seen better days,

And have with holy bell been knolled to church,

And sat at good men’s feasts, and wiped our eyes

Of drops that sacred pity hath engendered.

And therefore sit you down in gentleness,

And take upon command what help we have

That to your wanting may be ministered.



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

Limped in pure love. Till he be first sufficed,

Oppressed with two weak evils, age and hunger,

I will not touch a bit.



DUKE SENIOR.

Go find him out,

And we will nothing waste till you return.



ORLANDO.

I thank ye, and be blest for your good comfort.



[_Exit._]



DUKE SENIOR.

Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy.

This wide and universal theatre

Presents more woeful pageants than the scene

Wherein we play in.



JAQUES.

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;

Then the whining schoolboy, 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 slippered 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.



Enter Orlando bearing Adam.



DUKE SENIOR.

Welcome. Set down your venerable burden,

And let him feed.



ORLANDO.

I thank you most for him.



ADAM.

So had you need;

I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.



DUKE SENIOR.

Welcome, fall to. I will not trouble you

As yet to question you about your fortunes.

Give us some music, and good cousin, sing.



SONG.





AMIENS. (_Sings_.)

        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 remembered not.

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.



DUKE SENIOR.

If that you were the good Sir Rowland’s son,

As you have whispered faithfully you were,

And as mine eye doth his effigies witness

Most truly limned 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. [_To Orlando_.] Give me your hand,

And let me all your fortunes understand.



[_Exeunt._]









ACT III



SCENE I. A Room in the Palace





Enter Duke Frederick, Lords and Oliver.



DUKE FREDERICK.

Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be.

But were I not the better part made mercy,

I should not seek an absent argument

Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it:

Find out thy brother wheresoe’er he is.

Seek him with candle. Bring him dead or living

Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more

To seek a living in our territory.

Thy lands, and all things that thou dost call thine

Worth seizure, do we seize into our hands,

Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother’s mouth

Of what we think against thee.



OLIVER.

O that your highness knew my heart in this:

I never loved my brother in my life.



DUKE FREDERICK.

More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors,

And let my officers of such a nature

Make an extent upon his house and lands.

Do this expediently, and turn him going.



[_Exeunt._]



SCENE II. The Forest of Arden



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 witnessed everywhere.

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 it is 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 saw’st good manners; if

thou never saw’st 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 behaviour 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 worm’s 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 crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If

thou be’st not damned for this, the devil himself will have no

shepherds. I cannot see else how thou shouldst ’scape.



Enter Rosalind as Ganymede.



CORIN.

Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress’s brother.



ROSALIND.

[_Reads_.]

         _From the east to western Inde

         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 face 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 graft it with you, and then I shall graft it with a medlar. Then

it will be the earliest fruit i’ th’ 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 as Aliena, reading a paper.



ROSALIND.

Peace, here comes my sister, reading. Stand aside.



CELIA.

[_Reads_.]

            _Why should this a desert be?

                For it is unpeopled? No!

            Tongues I’ll hang on every tree

                That shall civil sayings show.

            Some, how brief the life of man

                Runs his erring pilgrimage,

            That the streching 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 filled

            With all graces wide-enlarged.

                Nature presently distilled

            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 Jupiter, 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 berhymed 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, most wonderful wonderful, and yet again

wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!



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

narrow-mouthed bottle—either too much at once or none at all. I prithee

take the cork out of thy mouth that I 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 saw’st him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he?

What makes he 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 bring’st 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.



CELIA.

You bring me out. Soft, comes he not here?



ROSALIND.

’Tis he! Slink by, and note him.



[_Rosalind and Celia step aside._]



JAQUES.

I thank you for your company but, good faith, I had as lief have been

myself alone.



ORLANDO.

And so had I, but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for your

society.



JAQUES.

God be wi’ you, let’s meet as little as we can.



ORLANDO.

I do desire we may be better strangers.



JAQUES.

I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love songs in their barks.



ORLANDO.

I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.



JAQUES.

Rosalind is your love’s name?



ORLANDO.

Yes, just.



JAQUES.

I do not like her name.



ORLANDO.

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



JAQUES.

What stature is she of?



ORLANDO.

Just as high as my heart.



JAQUES.

You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with

goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings?



ORLANDO.

Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have

studied your questions.



JAQUES.

You have a nimble wit. I think ’twas made of Atalanta’s heels. Will you

sit down with me? And we two will rail against our mistress the world

and all our misery.



ORLANDO.

I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know

most faults.



JAQUES.

The worst fault you have is to be in love.



ORLANDO.

’Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.



JAQUES.

By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you.



ORLANDO.

He is drowned in the brook. Look but in, and you shall see him.



JAQUES.

There I shall see mine own figure.



ORLANDO.

Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.



JAQUES.

I’ll tarry no longer with you. Farewell, good Signior Love.



ORLANDO.

I am glad of your departure. Adieu, good Monsieur Melancholy.



[_Exit Jaques.—Celia and Rosalind come forward._]



ROSALIND.

I will speak to him like a saucy lackey, and under that habit play the

knave with him.

Do you hear, forester?



ORLANDO.

Very well. What would you?



ROSALIND.

I pray you, what is’t o’clock?



ORLANDO.

You should ask me what time o’ day. There’s no clock in the forest.



ROSALIND.

Then there is no true lover in the forest, else sighing every minute

and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of time as well as a

clock.



ORLANDO.

And why not the swift foot of time? Had not that been as proper?



ROSALIND.

By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.

I’ll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time

gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.



ORLANDO.

I prithee, who doth he trot withal?



ROSALIND.

Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her

marriage and the day it is solemnized. If the interim be but a

se’nnight, time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven

year.



ORLANDO.

Who ambles time withal?



ROSALIND.

With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout;

for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives

merrily because he feels no pain; the one lacking the burden of lean

and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious

penury. These time ambles withal.



ORLANDO.

Who doth he gallop withal?



ROSALIND.

With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly as foot can

fall, he thinks himself too soon there.



ORLANDO.

Who stays it still withal?



ROSALIND.

With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and

then they perceive not how time moves.



ORLANDO.

Where dwell you, pretty youth?



ROSALIND.

With this shepherdess, my sister, here in the skirts of the forest,

like fringe upon a petticoat.



ORLANDO.

Are you native of this place?



ROSALIND.

As the coney 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 halfpence

are, every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow fault came to

match it.



ORLANDO.

I prithee recount some of them.



ROSALIND.

No. I will not cast away my physic but on those that are sick. There is

a man haunts the forest that abuses our young plants with carving

“Rosalind” on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on

brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind. If I could meet

that fancy-monger, I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to

have the quotidian of love upon him.



ORLANDO.

I am he that is so love-shaked. I pray you tell me your remedy.



ROSALIND.

There is none of my uncle’s marks upon you. He taught me how to know a

man in love, in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner.



ORLANDO.

What were his marks?



ROSALIND.

A lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye and sunken, which you have

not; an unquestionable spirit, which you have not; a beard neglected,

which you have not—but I pardon you for that, for simply your having in

beard is a younger brother’s revenue. Then your hose should be

ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe

untied, and everything about you demonstrating a careless desolation.

But you are no such man. You are rather point-device in your

accoutrements, as loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other.



ORLANDO.

Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.



ROSALIND.

Me believe it? You may as soon make her that you love believe it, which

I warrant she is apter to do than to confess she does. That is one of

the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences.

But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees,

wherein Rosalind is so admired?



ORLANDO.

I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he,

that unfortunate he.



ROSALIND.

But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?



ORLANDO.

Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.



ROSALIND.

Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark

house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so

punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers

are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel.



ORLANDO.

Did you ever cure any so?



ROSALIND.

Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his

mistress, and I set him every day to woo me; at which time would I,

being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing

and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of

tears, full of smiles; for every passion something and for no passion

truly anything, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this

colour; would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then

forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my

suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness, which

was to forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a nook

merely monastic. And thus I cured him, and this way will I take upon me

to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep’s heart, that there shall

not be one spot of love in ’t.



ORLANDO.

I would not be cured, youth.



ROSALIND.

I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day

to my cote and woo me.



ORLANDO.

Now, by the faith of my love, I will. Tell me where it is.



ROSALIND.

Go with me to it, and I’ll show it you; and by the way you shall tell

me where in the forest you live. Will you go?



ORLANDO.

With all my heart, good youth.



ROSALIND.

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



[_Exeunt._]



SCENE III. Another part of the Forest



Enter Touchstone and Audrey; Jaques at a distance observing them.



TOUCHSTONE.

Come apace, good Audrey. I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how,

Audrey? Am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature content you?



AUDREY.

Your features, Lord warrant us! What features?



TOUCHSTONE.

I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest

Ovid, was among the Goths.



JAQUES.

[_Aside_.] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched

house!



TOUCHSTONE.

When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a man’s good wit seconded

with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than

a great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would the gods had made

thee poetical.



AUDREY.

I do not know what “poetical” is. Is it honest in deed and word? Is it

a true thing?



TOUCHSTONE.

No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning, and lovers are

given to poetry, and what they swear in poetry may be said, as lovers,

they do feign.



AUDREY.

Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical?



TOUCHSTONE.

I do, truly, for thou swear’st to me thou art honest. Now if thou wert

a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign.



AUDREY.

Would you not have me honest?



TOUCHSTONE.

No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for honesty coupled to

beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.



JAQUES.

[_Aside_.] A material fool!



AUDREY.

Well, I am not fair, and therefore I pray the gods make me honest.



TOUCHSTONE.

Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat

into an unclean dish.



AUDREY.

I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.



TOUCHSTONE.

Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness; sluttishness may come

hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee. And to that end I

have been with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next village, who

hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest and to couple us.



JAQUES.

[_Aside_.] I would fain see this meeting.



AUDREY.

Well, the gods give us joy!



TOUCHSTONE.

Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this

attempt, for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but

horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are

necessary. It is said, “Many a man knows no end of his goods.” Right.

Many a man has good horns and knows no end of them. Well, that is the

dowry of his wife; ’tis none of his own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor

men alone? No, no, the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is

the single man therefore blessed? No. As a walled town is more worthier

than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable

than the bare brow of a bachelor. And by how much defence is better

than no skill, by so much is horn more precious than to want.



Enter Sir Oliver Martext.



Here comes Sir Oliver. Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met. Will you

dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your

chapel?



MARTEXT.

Is there none here to give the woman?



TOUCHSTONE.

I will not take her on gift of any man.



MARTEXT.

Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.



JAQUES.

[_Coming forward_.] Proceed, proceed. I’ll give her.



TOUCHSTONE.

Good even, good Master What-ye-call’t, how do you, sir? You are very

well met. God ’ild you for your last company. I am very glad to see

you. Even a toy in hand here, sir. Nay, pray be covered.



JAQUES.

Will you be married, motley?



TOUCHSTONE.

As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her

bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would

be nibbling.



JAQUES.

And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush

like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell

you what marriage is. This fellow will but join you together as they

join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel, and like

green timber, warp, warp.



TOUCHSTONE.

[_Aside_.] I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him

than of another, for he is not like to marry me well, and not being

well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my

wife.



JAQUES.

Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.



TOUCHSTONE.

Come, sweet Audrey. We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.

Farewell, good Master Oliver. Not

             _O sweet Oliver,

             O brave Oliver,

         Leave me not behind thee._

But

             _Wind away,—

             Begone, I say,

         I will not to wedding with thee._



[_Exeunt Touchstone, Audrey and Jaques._]



MARTEXT.

’Tis no matter. Ne’er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me

out of my calling.



[_Exit._]



SCENE IV. Another part of the Forest. Before a Cottage



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 puny 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 enquired

After the shepherd that complained of love,

Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,

Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess

That was his mistress.



CELIA.

Well, and what of him?



CORIN.

If you will see a pageant truly played

Between the pale complexion of true love

And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,

Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you,

If you will mark it.



ROSALIND.

O, come, let us remove.

The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.

Bring us to this sight, and you shall say

I’ll prove a busy actor in their play.



[_Exeunt._]



SCENE V. Another part of the Forest



Enter Silvius and Phoebe.



SILVIUS.

Sweet Phoebe, do not scorn me, do not, Phoebe.

Say that you love me not, but say not so

In bitterness. The common executioner,

Whose heart th’ accustomed 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, at a distance.



PHOEBE.

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 called 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 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 not force in eyes

That can do hurt.



SILVIUS.

O dear Phoebe,

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.



PHOEBE.

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.

[_Advancing_.] 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-favoured 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.



PHOEBE.

Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together!

I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.



ROSALIND.

He’s fall’n 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?



PHOEBE.

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._]



PHOEBE.

Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might:

“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”



SILVIUS.

Sweet Phoebe—



PHOEBE.

Ha, what sayst thou, Silvius?



SILVIUS.

Sweet Phoebe, pity me.



PHOEBE.

Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.



SILVIUS.

Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.

If you do sorrow at my grief in love,

By giving love your sorrow and my grief

Were both extermined.



PHOEBE.

Thou hast my love. Is not that neighbourly?



SILVIUS.

I would have you.



PHOEBE.

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 employed.



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 scattered smile, and that I’ll live upon.



PHOEBE.

Know’st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?



SILVIUS.

Not very well, but I have met him oft,

And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds

That the old carlot once was master of.



PHOEBE.

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 mixed in his cheek. ’Twas just the difference

Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.

There be some women, Silvius, had they marked 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 remembered, scorned at me.

I marvel why I answered not again.

But that’s all one: omittance is no quittance.

I’ll write to him a very taunting letter,

And thou shalt bear it. Wilt thou, Silvius?



SILVIUS.

Phoebe, with all my heart.



PHOEBE.

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._]









ACT IV



SCENE I. The Forest of Arden





Enter Rosalind, Celia and Jaques.



JAQUES.

I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.



ROSALIND.

They say you are a melancholy fellow.



JAQUES.

I am so; I do love it better than laughing.



ROSALIND.

Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows, and

betray themselves to every modern censure worse than drunkards.



JAQUES.

Why, ’tis good to be sad and say nothing.



ROSALIND.

Why then, ’tis good to be a post.



JAQUES.

I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation; nor the

musician’s, which is fantastical; nor the courtier’s, which is proud;

nor the soldier’s, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer’s, which is

politic; nor the lady’s, which is nice; nor the lover’s, which is all

these; but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples,

extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my

travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous

sadness.



ROSALIND.

A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad. I fear you

have sold your own lands to see other men’s. Then to have seen much and

to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands.



JAQUES.

Yes, I have gained my experience.



ROSALIND.

And your experience makes you sad. I had rather have a fool to make me

merry than experience to make me sad—and to travel for it too.



Enter Orlando.



ORLANDO.

Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!



JAQUES.

Nay, then, God be wi’ you, an you talk in blank verse.



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.



[_Exit Jaques._]



Why, how now, Orlando, where have you been all this while? You a lover!

An you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more.



ORLANDO.

My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.



ROSALIND.

Break an hour’s promise in love? He that will divide a minute into a

thousand parts, and break but a part of the thousand part of a minute

in the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapped

him o’ the shoulder, but I’ll warrant him heart-whole.



ORLANDO.

Pardon me, dear Rosalind.



ROSALIND.

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

wooed of a snail.



ORLANDO.

Of a snail?



ROSALIND.

Ay, of a snail, for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his

head—a better jointure, I think, than you make a woman. Besides, he

brings his destiny with him.



ORLANDO.

What’s that?



ROSALIND.

Why, horns, which such as you are fain to be beholding to your wives

for. But he comes armed in his fortune and prevents the slander of his

wife.



ORLANDO.

Virtue is no horn-maker and my Rosalind is virtuous.



ROSALIND.

And I am your Rosalind.



CELIA.

It pleases him to call you so, but he hath a Rosalind of a better leer

than you.



ROSALIND.

Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday humour, and like enough

to consent. What would you say to me now, an I were your very, very

Rosalind?



ORLANDO.

I would kiss before I spoke.



ROSALIND.

Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were gravelled for lack

of matter, you might take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when

they are out, they will spit; and for lovers lacking—God warn

us—matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.



ORLANDO.

How if the kiss be denied?



ROSALIND.

Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.



ORLANDO.

Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?



ROSALIND.

Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or I should think my

honesty ranker than my wit.



ORLANDO.

What, of my suit?



ROSALIND.

Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. Am not I your

Rosalind?



ORLANDO.

I take some joy to say you are because I would be talking of her.



ROSALIND.

Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.



ORLANDO.

Then, in mine own person, I die.



ROSALIND.

No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years

old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person,

_videlicet_, 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

chroniclers of that age found it was Hero of Sestos. But these are all

lies. Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but

not for love.



ORLANDO.

I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind, for I protest her

frown might kill me.



ROSALIND.

By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I will be your

Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition, and ask me what you will, I

will grant it.



ORLANDO.

Then love me, Rosalind.



ROSALIND.

Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all.



ORLANDO.

And wilt thou have me?



ROSALIND.

Ay, and twenty such.



ORLANDO.

What sayest thou?



ROSALIND.

Are you not good?



ORLANDO.

I hope so.



ROSALIND.

Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?—Come, sister, you

shall be the priest and marry us.—Give me your hand, Orlando.—What do

you say, sister?



ORLANDO.

Pray thee, marry us.



CELIA.

I cannot say the words.



ROSALIND.

You must begin “Will you, Orlando—”





CELIA.

Go to.—Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?



ORLANDO.

I will.



ROSALIND.

Ay, but when?



ORLANDO.

Why now, as fast as she can marry us.



ROSALIND.

Then you must say “I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.”



ORLANDO.

I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.



ROSALIND.

I might ask you for your commission. But I do take thee, Orlando, for

my husband. There’s a girl goes before the priest, and certainly a

woman’s thought runs before her actions.



ORLANDO.

So do all thoughts. They are winged.



ROSALIND.

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



ORLANDO.

For ever and a day.



ROSALIND.

Say “a day” without the “ever.” No, no, Orlando, men are April when

they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids,

but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee

than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot

against rain, more new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires

than a monkey. I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and

I will do that when you are disposed to be merry. I will laugh like a

hyena, and that when thou are inclined to sleep.



ORLANDO.

But will my Rosalind do so?



ROSALIND.

By my life, she will do as I do.



ORLANDO.

O, but she is wise.



ROSALIND.

Or else she could not have the wit to do this. The wiser, the

waywarder. Make the doors upon a woman’s wit, and it will out at the

casement. Shut that, and ’twill out at the keyhole. 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 check for it till you met your wife’s wit

going to your neighbour’s bed.



ORLANDO.

And what wit could wit have to excuse that?



ROSALIND.

Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never take her

without her answer unless you take her without her tongue. O, that

woman that cannot make her fault her husband’s occasion, let her never

nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool.



ORLANDO.

For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.



ROSALIND.

Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.



ORLANDO.

I must attend the Duke at dinner. By two o’clock I will be with thee

again.



ROSALIND.

Ay, go your ways, go your ways. I knew what you would prove. My friends

told me as much, and I thought no less. That flattering tongue of yours

won me. ’Tis but one cast away, and so, come death! Two o’clock is your

hour?



ORLANDO.

Ay, sweet Rosalind.



ROSALIND.

By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and by all pretty

oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot of your promise or

come one minute behind your hour, I will think you the most pathetical

break-promise, and the most hollow lover, and the most unworthy of her

you call Rosalind that may be chosen out of the gross band of the

unfaithful. Therefore beware my censure, and keep your promise.



ORLANDO.

With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind. So, adieu.



ROSALIND.

Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let

time try. Adieu.



[_Exit Orlando._]



CELIA.

You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate! We must have your

doublet and hose plucked over your head and show the world what the

bird hath done to her own nest.



ROSALIND.

O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many

fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath

an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.



CELIA.

Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour affection in, it runs

out.



ROSALIND.

No, that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of thought,

conceived of spleen, and born of madness, that blind rascally boy that

abuses everyone’s eyes because his own are out, let him be judge how

deep I am in love. I’ll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight

of Orlando. I’ll go find a shadow and sigh till he come.



CELIA.

And I’ll sleep.



[_Exeunt._]



SCENE II. Another part of the Forest



Enter Jaques and Lords, like foresters.



JAQUES.

Which is he that killed the deer?



FIRST LORD.

Sir, it was I.



JAQUES.

Let’s present him to the Duke, like a Roman conqueror, and it would do

well to set the deer’s horns upon his head for a branch of victory.

Have you no song, forester, for this purpose?



SECOND LORD.

Yes, sir.



JAQUES.

Sing it. ’Tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough.



SONG



SECOND LORD.

[_Sings_.]

  What shall he have that killed the deer?

        His leather skin and horns to wear.

                  Then sing him home:

  [_The rest shall bear this burden_.]

            Take thou no scorn to wear the horn.

            It was a crest ere thou wast born.

                  Thy father’s father wore it

                  And thy father bore it.

            The horn, the horn, the lusty horn

            Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.



[_Exeunt._]



SCENE III. Another part of the Forest



Enter Rosalind and Celia.



ROSALIND.

How say you now? Is it not past two o’clock? And here much Orlando.



CELIA.

I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain he hath ta’en his bow

and arrows and is gone forth to sleep.



Enter Silvius.



Look who comes here.



SILVIUS.

My errand is to you, fair youth.

My gentle Phoebe did bid me give you this.



[_Giving a letter._]



I know not the contents, but, as I guess

By the stern brow and waspish action

Which she did use as she was writing of it,

It bears an angry tenor. Pardon me,

I am but as a guiltless messenger.



ROSALIND.

Patience herself would startle at this letter

And play the swaggerer. Bear this, bear all!

She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;

She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,

Were man as rare as phoenix. ’Od’s my will,

Her love is not the hare that I do hunt.

Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,

This is a letter of your own device.



SILVIUS.

No, I protest, I know not the contents.

Phoebe did write it.



ROSALIND.

Come, come, you are a fool,

And turned into the extremity of love.

I saw her hand. She has a leathern hand,

A freestone-coloured hand. I verily did think

That her old gloves were on, but ’twas her hands.

She has a huswife’s hand—but that’s no matter.

I say she never did invent this letter;

This is a man’s invention, and his hand.



SILVIUS.

Sure, it is hers.



ROSALIND.

Why, ’tis a boisterous and a cruel style,

A style for challengers. Why, she defies me,

Like Turk to Christian. Women’s gentle brain

Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention,

Such Ethiop words, blacker in their effect

Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?



SILVIUS.

So please you, for I never heard it yet,

Yet heard too much of Phoebe’s cruelty.



ROSALIND.

She Phoebes me. Mark how the tyrant writes.



[_Reads._]



            _Art thou god to shepherd turned,

            That a maiden’s heart hath burned?_

Can a woman rail thus?



SILVIUS.

Call you this railing?



ROSALIND.

            _Why, thy godhead laid apart,

            Warr’st thou with a woman’s heart?_

Did you ever hear such railing?

            _Whiles the eye of man did woo me,

            That could do no vengeance to me._

Meaning me a beast.

            _If the scorn of your bright eyne

            Have power to raise such love in mine,

            Alack, in me what strange effect

            Would they work in mild aspect?

            Whiles you chid me, I did love,

            How then might your prayers move?

            He that brings this love to thee

            Little knows this love in me;

            And by him seal up thy mind,

            Whether that thy youth and kind

            Will the faithful offer take

            Of me, and all that I can make,

            Or else by him my love deny,

            And then I’ll study how to die._



SILVIUS.

Call you this chiding?



CELIA.

Alas, poor shepherd.



ROSALIND.

Do you pity him? No, he deserves no pity.—Wilt thou love such a woman?

What, to make thee an instrument and play false strains upon thee? Not

to be endured! Well, go your way to her, for I see love hath made thee

a tame snake, and say this to her: that if she love me, I charge her to

love thee; if she will not, I will never have her unless thou entreat

for her. If you be a true lover, hence, and not a word, for here comes

more company.



[_Exit Silvius._]



Enter Oliver.



OLIVER.

Good morrow, fair ones. Pray you, if you know,

Where in the purlieus of this forest stands

A sheepcote fenced about with olive trees?



CELIA.

West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom;

The rank of osiers, by the murmuring stream,

Left on your right hand, brings you to the place.

But at this hour the house doth keep itself.

There’s none within.



OLIVER.

If that an eye may profit by a tongue,

Then should I know you by description,

Such garments, and such years. “The boy is fair,

Of female favour, and bestows himself

Like a ripe sister; the woman low,

And browner than her brother.” Are not you

The owner of the house I did inquire for?



CELIA.

It is no boast, being asked, to say we are.



OLIVER.

Orlando doth commend him to you both,

And to that youth he calls his Rosalind

He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?



ROSALIND.

I am. What must we understand by this?



OLIVER.

Some of my shame, if you will know of me

What man I am, and how, and why, and where

This handkerchief was stained.



CELIA.

I pray you tell it.



OLIVER.

When last the young Orlando parted from you,

He left a promise to return again

Within an hour, and pacing through the forest,

Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,

Lo, what befell. He threw his eye aside,

And mark what object did present itself.

Under an oak, whose boughs were mossed with age

And high top bald with dry antiquity,

A wretched ragged man, o’ergrown with hair,

Lay sleeping on his back; about his neck

A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself,

Who with her head, nimble in threats, approached

The opening of his mouth. But suddenly,

Seeing Orlando, it unlinked itself

And with indented glides did slip away

Into a bush; under which bush’s shade

A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,

Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch

When that the sleeping man should stir. For ’tis

The royal disposition of that beast

To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.

This seen, Orlando did approach the man

And found it was his brother, his elder brother.



CELIA.

O, I have heard him speak of that same brother,

And he did render him the most unnatural

That lived amongst men.



OLIVER.

And well he might so do,

For well I know he was unnatural.



ROSALIND.

But, to Orlando: did he leave him there,

Food to the sucked and hungry lioness?



OLIVER.

Twice did he turn his back and purposed so;

But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,

And nature, stronger than his just occasion,

Made him give battle to the lioness,

Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling

From miserable slumber I awaked.



CELIA.

Are you his brother?



ROSALIND.

Was it you he rescued?



CELIA.

Was’t you that did so oft contrive to kill him?



OLIVER.

’Twas I; but ’tis not I. I do not shame

To tell you what I was, since my conversion

So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.



ROSALIND.

But, for the bloody napkin?



OLIVER.

By and by.

When from the first to last betwixt us two

Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed—

As how I came into that desert place—

In brief, he led me to the gentle Duke,

Who gave me fresh array and entertainment,

Committing me unto my brother’s love,

Who led me instantly unto his cave,

There stripped himself, and here upon his arm

The lioness had torn some flesh away,

Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted,

And cried in fainting upon Rosalind.

Brief, I recovered him, bound up his wound,

And after some small space, being strong at heart,

He sent me hither, stranger as I am,

To tell this story, that you might excuse

His broken promise, and to give this napkin,

Dyed in his blood, unto the shepherd youth

That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.



[_Rosalind faints._]



CELIA.

Why, how now, Ganymede, sweet Ganymede!



OLIVER.

Many will swoon when they do look on blood.



CELIA.

There is more in it. Cousin—Ganymede!



OLIVER.

Look, he recovers.



ROSALIND.

I would I were at home.



CELIA.

We’ll lead you thither.

I pray you, will you take him by the arm?



OLIVER.

Be of good cheer, youth. You a man? You lack a man’s heart.



ROSALIND.

I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would think this was well

counterfeited. I pray you tell your brother how well I counterfeited.

Heigh-ho.



OLIVER.

This was not counterfeit. There is too great testimony in your

complexion that it was a passion of earnest.



ROSALIND.

Counterfeit, I assure you.



OLIVER.

Well then, take a good heart, and counterfeit to be a man.



ROSALIND.

So I do. But, i’ faith, I should have been a woman by right.



CELIA.

Come, you look paler and paler. Pray you draw homewards. Good sir, go

with us.



OLIVER.

That will I, for I must bear answer back

How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.



ROSALIND.

I shall devise something. But I pray you commend my counterfeiting to

him. Will you go?



[_Exeunt._]









ACT V



SCENE I. The Forest of Arden





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.



Enter William.



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.



WILLIAM.

Good ev’n, Audrey.



AUDREY.

God ye good ev’n, William.



WILLIAM.

And good ev’n to you, sir.



TOUCHSTONE.

Good ev’n, 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’ th’ 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 sayst 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 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; 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 seek you. Come away, away.



TOUCHSTONE.

Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey! I attend, I attend.



[_Exeunt._]



SCENE II. Another part of 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.



Enter Rosalind.



ORLANDO.

You have my consent. Let your wedding be tomorrow. Thither will I

invite the Duke and all’s contented followers. Go you and prepare

Aliena; for, look you, here comes my 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 handkercher?



ORLANDO.

Ay, and greater wonders than that.



ROSALIND.

O, I know where you are. Nay, ’tis true. There was never anything 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 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 tomorrow, 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 tomorrow 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, tomorrow 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.

Speak’st 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 tomorrow, you shall, and to Rosalind, if you will.



Enter Silvius and Phoebe.



Look, here comes a lover of mine and a lover of hers.



PHOEBE.

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.



PHOEBE.

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 Phoebe.



PHOEBE.

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 Phoebe.



PHOEBE.

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 Phoebe.



PHOEBE.

And so am I for Ganymede.



ORLANDO.

And so am I for Rosalind.



ROSALIND.

And so am I for no woman.



PHOEBE.

[_To Rosalind_.] If this be so, why blame you me to love you?



SILVIUS.

[_To Phoebe_.] If this be so, why blame you me to love you?



ORLANDO.

If this be so, why blame you me to love you?



ROSALIND.

Why do you speak too, “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 Phoebe_.] I would love you if I could.—Tomorrow meet me all

together.

[_to Phoebe_.] I will marry you, if ever I marry woman, and I’ll be

married tomorrow.

[_to Orlando_.] I will satisfy you if ever I satisfied man, and you

shall be married tomorrow.

[_to Silvius_.] I will content you, if what pleases you contents you,

and you shall be married tomorrow.

[_to Orlando_.] As you love Rosalind, meet.

[_to Silvius_.] As you love Phoebe, 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.



PHOEBE.

Nor I.



ORLANDO.

Nor I.



[_Exeunt._]



SCENE III. Another part of the Forest



Enter Touchstone and Audrey.



TOUCHSTONE.

Tomorrow is the joyful day, Audrey, tomorrow 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.



Enter two Pages.



Here come two of the banished Duke’s 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’ th’ 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



PAGES.

[_Sing_.]

    It was a lover and his lass,

        With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

    That o’er the green cornfield 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 the spring-time, the only pretty ring time,

        When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.

    Sweet lovers love the spring.



    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 the spring-time, the only pretty ring time,

        When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.

    Sweet lovers love the spring.



    And therefore take the present time,

        With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

    For love is crowned with the prime,

        In the spring-time, the only pretty ring time,

        When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.

    Sweet lovers love the spring.



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. Another part of 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 Phoebe.



ROSALIND.

Patience once more whiles our compact is urged.

[_To the Duke._] 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.

[_To Orlando_.] And you say you will have her when I bring her?



ORLANDO.

That would I, were I of all kingdoms king.



ROSALIND.

[_To Phoebe_.] You say you’ll marry me if I be willing?



PHOEBE.

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?



PHOEBE.

So is the bargain.



ROSALIND.

[_To Silvius_.] You say that you’ll have Phoebe 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, Phoebe, 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 tutored 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 judgement. 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 lie.

This is called the “countercheck 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 countercheck 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 anything, 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 in woman’s clothes, 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.



PHOEBE.

If sight and shape be true,

Why then, my love adieu.



ROSALIND.

[_To Duke Senior_.] I’ll have no father, if you be not he.

[_To Orlando_.] I’ll have no husband, if you be not he.

[_To Phoebe_.] 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.

[_To Orlando and Rosalind_.] You and you no cross shall part.

[_To Celia and Oliver_.] You and you are heart in heart.

[_To Phoebe_.] You to his love must accord

Or have a woman to your lord.

[_To Audrey and Touchstone_.] 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.



PHOEBE.

[_To Silvius_.] 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,

Addressed 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 banished 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 brother’s 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 heaped in joy to th’ 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 learned.

[_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 victualled.—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 abandoned cave.



[_Exit._]



DUKE SENIOR.

Proceed, proceed! We will begin these rites,

As we do trust they’ll end, in true delights.



[_Dance. Exeunt all but Rosalind._]



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.



[_Exit._]