As You Like It

ACT I, SCENE I. Orchard of Oliver's house.

[Enter ORLANDO and ADAM]

• ORLANDO:

• As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion
• bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns,
• and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his
• blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my
• sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and
• report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part,
• he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more
• properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you
• that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that
• differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses
• are bred better; for, besides that they are fair
• with their feeding, they are taught their manage,
• and to that end riders dearly hired: but I, his
• brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for the
• which his animals on his dunghills are as much
• bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so
• plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave
• me his countenance seems to take from me: he lets
• me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a
• brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my
• gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that
• grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I
• think is within me, begins to mutiny against this
• servitude: I will no longer endure it, though yet I
• know no wise remedy how to avoid it.

• ADAM:

• Yonder comes my master, your brother.

• ORLANDO:

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

• [Enter OLIVER]

• OLIVER:

• Now, sir! what make you here?

• ORLANDO:

• Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing.

• OLIVER:

• What mar you then, sir?

• ORLANDO:

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

• OLIVER:

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

• ORLANDO:

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

• OLIVER:

• Know you where your are, sir?

• ORLANDO:

• O, sir, very well; here in your orchard.

• OLIVER:

• Know you before whom, sir?

• ORLANDO:

• Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know
• you are my eldest brother; and, in the gentle
• condition of blood, you should so know me. The
• courtesy of nations allows you my better, in that
• you are the first-born; but the same tradition
• takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers
• betwixt us: I have as much of my father in me as
• you; albeit, I confess, your coming before me is
• nearer to his reverence.

• OLIVER:

• What, boy!

• ORLANDO:

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

• OLIVER:

• Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?

• ORLANDO:

• I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir
• Rowland de Boys; he was my father, and he is thrice
• a villain that says such a father begot villains.
• Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand
• from thy throat till this other had pulled out thy
• tongue for saying so: thou hast railed on thyself.

• ADAM:

• Sweet masters, be patient: for your father's
• remembrance, be at accord.

• OLIVER:

• Let me go, I say.

• ORLANDO:

• I will not, till I please: you shall hear me. My
• father charged you in his will to give me good
• education: you have trained me like a peasant,
• obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like
• qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in
• me, and I will no longer endure it: therefore allow
• me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or
• give me the poor allottery my father left me by
• testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes.

• OLIVER:

• And what wilt thou do? beg, when that is spent?
• Well, sir, get you in: I will not long be troubled
• with you; you shall have some part of your will: I
• pray you, leave me.

• ORLANDO:

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

• OLIVER:

• Get you with him, you old dog.

• ADAM:

• Is 'old dog' my reward? Most true, I have lost my
• teeth in your service. God be with my old master!
• he would not have spoke such a word.

• [Exeunt ORLANDO and ADAM]

• OLIVER:

• Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I will
• physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand
• crowns neither. Holla, Dennis!

• [Enter DENNIS]

• DENNIS:

• Calls your worship?

• OLIVER:

• Was not Charles, the duke's wrestler, here to speak with me?

• DENNIS:

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

• OLIVER:

• Call him in.

• [Exit DENNIS]

• 'Twill be a good way; and to-morrow the wrestling is.

• [Enter CHARLES]

• CHARLES:

• Good morrow to your worship.

• OLIVER:

• Good Monsieur Charles, what's the new news at the
• new court?

• CHARLES:

• There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news:
• that is, the old duke is banished by his younger
• brother the new duke; and three or four loving lords
• have put themselves into voluntary exile with him,
• whose lands and revenues enrich the new duke;
• therefore he gives them good leave to wander.

• OLIVER:

• Can you tell if Rosalind, the duke's daughter, be
• banished with her father?

• CHARLES:

• O, no; for the duke's daughter, her cousin, so loves
• her, being ever from their cradles bred together,
• that she would have followed her exile, or have died
• to stay behind her. She is at the court, and no
• less beloved of her uncle than his own daughter; and
• never two ladies loved as they do.

• OLIVER:

• Where will the old duke live?

• CHARLES:

• They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and
• a many merry men with him; and there they live like
• the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young
• gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time
• carelessly, as they did in the golden world.

• OLIVER:

• What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new duke?

• CHARLES:

• Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a
• matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand
• that your younger brother Orlando hath a disposition
• to come in disguised against me to try a fall.
• To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit; and he that
• escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him
• well. Your brother is but young and tender; and,
• for your love, I would be loath to foil him, as I
• must, for my own honour, if he come in: therefore,
• out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint you
• withal, that either you might stay him from his
• intendment or brook such disgrace well as he shall
• run into, in that it is a thing of his own search
• and altogether against my will.

• OLIVER:

• Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which
• thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. I had
• myself notice of my brother's purpose herein and
• have by underhand means laboured to dissuade him from
• it, but he is resolute. I'll tell thee, Charles:
• it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full
• of ambition, an envious emulator of every man's
• good parts, a secret and villanous contriver against
• me his natural brother: therefore use thy
• discretion; I had as lief thou didst break his neck
• as his finger. And thou wert best look to't; for if
• thou dost him any slight disgrace or if he do not
• mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise
• against thee by poison, entrap thee by some
• treacherous device and never leave thee till he
• hath ta'en thy life by some indirect means or other;
• for, I assure thee, and almost with tears I speak
• it, there is not one so young and so villanous this
• day living. I speak but brotherly of him; but
• should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I must
• blush and weep and thou must look pale and wonder.

• CHARLES:

• I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come
• to-morrow, I'll give him his payment: if ever he go
• alone again, I'll never wrestle for prize more: and
• so God keep your worship!

• OLIVER:

• Farewell, good Charles.

• [Exit CHARLES]

• Now will I stir this gamester: I hope I shall see
• an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why,
• hates nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle, never
• schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of
• all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much
• in the heart of the world, and especially of my own
• people, who best know him, that I am altogether
• misprised: but it shall not be so long; this
• wrestler shall clear all: nothing remains but that
• I kindle the boy thither; which now I'll go about.

• [Exit]

ACT I, SCENE II. Lawn before the Duke's palace.

[Enter CELIA and ROSALIND]

• CELIA:

• I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.

• ROSALIND:

• Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of;
• and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could
• teach me to forget a banished father, you must not
• learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.

• CELIA:

• Herein I see thou lovest me not with the full weight
• that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father,
• had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, so thou
• hadst been still with me, I could have taught my
• love to take thy father for mine: so wouldst thou,
• if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously
• tempered as mine is to thee.

• ROSALIND:

• Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to
• rejoice in yours.

• CELIA:

• You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is
• like to have: and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt
• be his heir, for what he hath taken away from thy
• father perforce, I will render thee again in
• affection; by mine honour, I will; and when I break
• that oath, let me turn monster: therefore, my
• sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.

• ROSALIND:

• From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let
• me see; what think you of falling in love?

• CELIA:

• Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal: but
• love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport
• neither than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst
• in honour come off again.

• ROSALIND:

• What shall be our sport, then?

• CELIA:

• Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from
• her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.

• ROSALIND:

• I would we could do so, for her benefits are
• mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman
• doth most mistake in her gifts to women.

• CELIA:

• 'Tis true; for those that she makes fair she scarce
• makes honest, and those that she makes honest she
• makes very ill-favouredly.

• ROSALIND:

• Nay, now thou goest from Fortune's office to
• Nature's: Fortune reigns in gifts of the world,
• not in the lineaments of Nature.

• [Enter TOUCHSTONE]

• CELIA:

• No? when Nature hath made a fair creature, may she
• not by Fortune fall into the fire? Though Nature
• hath given us wit to flout at Fortune, hath not
• Fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument?

• ROSALIND:

• Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when
• Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of
• Nature's wit.

• CELIA:

• Peradventure this is not Fortune's work neither, but
• Nature's; who perceiveth our natural wits too dull
• to reason of such goddesses and hath sent this
• natural for our whetstone; for always the dulness of
• the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How now,
• wit! whither wander you?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Mistress, you must come away to your father.

• CELIA:

• Were you made the messenger?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• No, by mine honour, but I was bid to come for you.

• ROSALIND:

• Where learned you that oath, fool?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they
• were good pancakes and swore by his honour the
• mustard was naught: now I'll stand to it, the
• pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and
• yet was not the knight forsworn.

• CELIA:

• How prove you that, in the great heap of your
• knowledge?

• ROSALIND:

• Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and
• swear by your beards that I am a knave.

• CELIA:

• By our beards, if we had them, thou art.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you
• swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no
• more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he
• never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away
• before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.

• CELIA:

• Prithee, who is't that thou meanest?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• One that old Frederick, your father, loves.

• CELIA:

• My father's love is enough to honour him: enough!
• speak no more of him; you'll be whipped for taxation
• one of these days.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what
• wise men do foolishly.

• CELIA:

• By my troth, thou sayest true; for since the little
• wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery
• that wise men have makes a great show. Here comes
• Monsieur Le Beau.

• ROSALIND:

• With his mouth full of news.

• CELIA:

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

• ROSALIND:

• Then shall we be news-crammed.

• CELIA:

• All the better; we shall be the more marketable.

• [Enter LE BEAU]

• Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: what's the news?

• LE BEAU:

• Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.

• CELIA:

• Sport! of what colour?

• LE BEAU:

• What colour, madam! how shall I answer you?

• ROSALIND:

• As wit and fortune will.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Or as the Destinies decree.

• CELIA:

• Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Nay, if I keep not my rank,--

• ROSALIND:

• Thou losest thy old smell.

• LE BEAU:

• You amaze me, ladies: I would have told you of good
• wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.

• ROSALIND:

• You tell us the manner of the wrestling.

• LE BEAU:

• I will tell you the beginning; and, if it please
• your ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is
• yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming
• to perform it.

• CELIA:

• Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried.

• LE BEAU:

• There comes an old man and his three sons,--

• CELIA:

• I could match this beginning with an old tale.

• LE BEAU:

• Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence.

• ROSALIND:

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

• LE BEAU:

• The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the
• duke's wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him
• and broke three of his ribs, that there is little
• hope of life in him: so he served the second, and
• so the third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man,
• their father, making such pitiful dole over them
• that all the beholders take his part with weeping.

• ROSALIND:

• Alas!

• TOUCHSTONE:

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

• LE BEAU:

• Why, this that I speak of.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Thus men may grow wiser every day: it is the first
• time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport
• for ladies.

• CELIA:

• Or I, I promise thee.

• ROSALIND:

• But is there any else longs to see this broken music
• in his sides? is there yet another dotes upon
• rib-breaking? Shall we see this wrestling, cousin?

• LE BEAU:

• You must, if you stay here; for here is the place
• appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to
• perform it.

• CELIA:

• Yonder, sure, they are coming: let us now stay and see it.

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

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• Come on: since the youth will not be entreated, his
• own peril on his forwardness.

• ROSALIND:

• Is yonder the man?

• LE BEAU:

• Even he, madam.

• CELIA:

• Alas, he is too young! yet he looks successfully.

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• How now, daughter and cousin! are you crept hither
• to see the wrestling?

• ROSALIND:

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

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• You will take little delight in it, I can tell you;
• there is such odds in the man. In pity of the
• challenger's youth I would fain dissuade him, but he
• will not be entreated. Speak to him, ladies; see if
• you can move him.

• CELIA:

• Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau.

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• Do so: I'll not be by.

• LE BEAU:

• Monsieur the challenger, the princesses call for you.

• ORLANDO:

• I attend them with all respect and duty.

• ROSALIND:

• Young man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler?

• ORLANDO:

• No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I
• come but in, as others do, to try with him the
• strength of my youth.

• CELIA:

• Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your
• years. You have seen cruel proof of this man's
• strength: if you saw yourself with your eyes or
• knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your
• adventure would counsel you to a more equal
• enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to
• embrace your own safety and give over this attempt.

• ROSALIND:

• Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore
• be misprised: we will make it our suit to the duke
• that the wrestling might not go forward.

• ORLANDO:

• I beseech you, punish me not with your hard
• thoughts; wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny
• so fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let
• your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my
• trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one
• shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one
• dead that was willing to be so: I shall do my
• friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me, the
• world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in
• the world I fill up a place, which may be better
• supplied when I have made it empty.

• ROSALIND:

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

• CELIA:

• And mine, to eke out hers.

• ROSALIND:

• Fare you well: pray heaven I be deceived in you!

• CELIA:

• Your heart's desires be with you!

• CHARLES:

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

• ORLANDO:

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

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• You shall try but one fall.

• CHARLES:

• No, I warrant your grace, you shall not entreat him
• to a second, that have so mightily persuaded him
• from a first.

• ORLANDO:

• An you mean to mock me after, you should not have
• mocked me before: but come your ways.

• ROSALIND:

• Now Hercules be thy speed, young man!

• CELIA:

• I would I were invisible, to catch the strong
• fellow by the leg.

• [They wrestle]

• ROSALIND:

• O excellent young man!

• CELIA:

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

• [Shout.]

• [CHARLES is thrown]

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• No more, no more.

• ORLANDO:

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

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• How dost thou, Charles?

• LE BEAU:

• He cannot speak, my lord.

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• Bear him away. What is thy name, young man?

• ORLANDO:

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

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• I would thou hadst been son to some man else:
• The world esteem'd thy father honourable,
• But I did find him still mine enemy:
• Thou shouldst have better pleased me with this deed,
• Hadst thou descended from another house.
• But fare thee well; thou art a gallant youth:
• I would thou hadst told me of another father.

• [Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK, train, and LE BEAU]

• CELIA:

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

• ORLANDO:

• I am more proud to be Sir Rowland's son,
• His youngest son; and would not change that calling,
• To be adopted heir to Frederick.

• ROSALIND:

• My father loved Sir Rowland as his soul,
• And all the world was of my father's mind:
• Had I before known this young man his son,
• I should have given him tears unto entreaties,
• Ere he should thus have ventured.

• CELIA:

• Gentle cousin,
• Let us go thank him and encourage him:
• My father's rough and envious disposition
• Sticks me at heart. Sir, you have well deserved:
• If you do keep your promises in love
• But justly, as you have exceeded all promise,
• Your mistress shall be happy.

• ROSALIND:

• Gentleman,

• [Giving him a chain from her neck]

• Wear this for me, one out of suits with fortune,
• That could give more, but that her hand lacks means.
• Shall we go, coz?

• CELIA:

• Ay. Fare you well, fair gentleman.

• ORLANDO:

• Can I not say, I thank you? My better parts
• Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up
• Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block.

• ROSALIND:

• He calls us back: my pride fell with my fortunes;
• I'll ask him what he would. Did you call, sir?
• Sir, you have wrestled well and overthrown
• More than your enemies.

• CELIA:

• Will you go, coz?

• ROSALIND:

• Have with you. Fare you well.

• [Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA]

• ORLANDO:

• What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?
• I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference.
• O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown!
• Or Charles or something weaker masters thee.

• [Re-enter LE BEAU]

• LE BEAU:

• Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you
• To leave this place. Albeit you have deserved
• High commendation, true applause and love,
• Yet such is now the duke's condition
• That he misconstrues all that you have done.
• The duke is humorous; what he is indeed,
• More suits you to conceive than I to speak of.

• ORLANDO:

• I thank you, sir: and, pray you, tell me this:
• Which of the two was daughter of the duke
• That here was at the wrestling?

• LE BEAU:

• Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners;
• But yet indeed the lesser is his daughter
• The other is daughter to the banish'd duke,
• And here detain'd by her usurping uncle,
• To keep his daughter company; whose loves
• Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters.
• But I can tell you that of late this duke
• Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece,
• Grounded upon no other argument
• But that the people praise her for her virtues
• And pity her for her good father's sake;
• And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady
• Will suddenly break forth. Sir, fare you well:
• Hereafter, in a better world than this,
• I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.

• ORLANDO:

• I rest much bounden to you: fare you well.

• [Exit LE BEAU]

• Thus must I from the smoke into the smother;
• From tyrant duke unto a tyrant brother:
• But heavenly Rosalind!

• [Exit]

ACT I, SCENE III. A room in the palace.

[Enter CELIA and ROSALIND]

• CELIA:

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

• ROSALIND:

• Not one to throw at a dog.

• CELIA:

• No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon
• curs; throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.

• ROSALIND:

• Then there were two cousins laid up; when the one
• should be lamed with reasons and the other mad
• without any.

• CELIA:

• But is all this for your father?

• ROSALIND:

• No, some of it is for my child's father. O, how
• full of briers is this working-day world!

• CELIA:

• They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in
• holiday foolery: if we walk not in the trodden
• paths our very petticoats will catch them.

• ROSALIND:

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

• CELIA:

• Hem them away.

• ROSALIND:

• I would try, if I could cry 'hem' and have him.

• CELIA:

• Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.

• ROSALIND:

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

• CELIA:

• O, a good wish upon you! you will try in time, in
• despite of a fall. But, turning these jests out of
• service, let us talk in good earnest: is it
• possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so
• strong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest son?

• ROSALIND:

• The duke my father loved his father dearly.

• CELIA:

• Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son
• dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him,
• for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate
• not Orlando.

• ROSALIND:

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

• CELIA:

• Why should I not? doth he not deserve well?

• ROSALIND:

• Let me love him for that, and do you love him
• because I do. Look, here comes the duke.

• CELIA:

• With his eyes full of anger.

• [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords]

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste
• And get you from our court.

• ROSALIND:

• Me, uncle?

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• You, cousin
• Within these ten days if that thou be'st found
• So near our public court as twenty miles,
• Thou diest for it.

• ROSALIND:

• I do beseech your grace,
• Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me:
• If with myself I hold intelligence
• Or have acquaintance with mine own desires,
• If that I do not dream or be not frantic,--
• As I do trust I am not--then, dear uncle,
• Never so much as in a thought unborn
• Did I offend your highness.

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• Thus do all traitors:
• If their purgation did consist in words,
• They are as innocent as grace itself:
• Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.

• ROSALIND:

• Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor:
• Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough.

• ROSALIND:

• So was I when your highness took his dukedom;
• So was I when your highness banish'd him:
• Treason is not inherited, my lord;
• Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
• What's that to me? my father was no traitor:
• Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
• To think my poverty is treacherous.

• CELIA:

• Dear sovereign, hear me speak.

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake,
• Else had she with her father ranged along.

• CELIA:

• I did not then entreat to have her stay;
• It was your pleasure and your own remorse:
• I was too young that time to value her;
• But now I know her: if she be a traitor,
• Why so am I; we still have slept together,
• Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together,
• And wheresoever we went, like Juno's swans,
• Still we went coupled and inseparable.

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,
• Her very silence and her patience
• Speak to the people, and they pity her.
• Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name;
• And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
• When she is gone. Then open not thy lips:
• Firm and irrevocable is my doom
• Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd.

• CELIA:

• Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege:
• I cannot live out of her company.

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself:
• If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,
• And in the greatness of my word, you die.

• [Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK and Lords]

• CELIA:

• O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go?
• Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
• I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.

• ROSALIND:

• I have more cause.

• CELIA:

• Thou hast not, cousin;
• Prithee be cheerful: know'st thou not, the duke
• Hath banish'd me, his daughter?

• ROSALIND:

• That he hath not.

• CELIA:

• No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love
• Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one:
• Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl?
• No: let my father seek another heir.
• Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
• Whither to go and what to bear with us;
• And do not seek to take your change upon you,
• To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out;
• For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
• Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.

• ROSALIND:

• Why, whither shall we go?

• CELIA:

• To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden.

• ROSALIND:

• Alas, what danger will it be to us,
• Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
• Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

• CELIA:

• I'll put myself in poor and mean attire
• And with a kind of umber smirch my face;
• The like do you: so shall we pass along
• And never stir assailants.

• ROSALIND:

• Were it not better,
• Because that I am more than common tall,
• That I did suit me all points like a man?
• A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
• A boar-spear in my hand; and--in my heart
• Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will--
• We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,
• As many other mannish cowards have
• That do outface it with their semblances.

• CELIA:

• What shall I call thee when thou art a man?

• ROSALIND:

• I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page;
• And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
• But what will you be call'd?

• CELIA:

• Something that hath a reference to my state
• No longer Celia, but Aliena.

• ROSALIND:

• But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal
• The clownish fool out of your father's court?
• Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

• CELIA:

• He'll go along o'er the wide world with me;
• Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away,
• And get our jewels and our wealth together,
• Devise the fittest time and safest way
• To hide us from pursuit that will be made
• After my flight. Now go we in content
• To liberty and not to banishment.

• [Exeunt]

ACT II, SCENE I. The Forest of Arden.

[Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three Lords, like 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 but the penalty of Adam,
• The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
• And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
• Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
• Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
• 'This is no flattery: these are counsellors
• That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
• Sweet are the uses of adversity,
• Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
• Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
• And this our life exempt from public haunt
• Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
• Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
• I would not change it.

• AMIENS:

• Happy is your grace,
• That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
• Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

• 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 banish'd you.
• To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself
• Did steal behind him as he lay along
• Under an oak whose antique root peeps out
• Upon the brook that brawls along this wood:
• To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,
• That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
• Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord,
• The wretched animal heaved forth such groans
• That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
• Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
• Coursed one another down his innocent nose
• In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool
• Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
• Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
• Augmenting it with tears.

• 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 makest a testament
• As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
• To that which had too much:' then, being there alone,
• Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends,
• ''Tis right:' quoth he; 'thus misery doth part
• The flux of company:' anon a careless herd,
• Full of the pasture, jumps along by him
• And never stays to greet him; 'Ay' quoth Jaques,
• 'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
• 'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you look
• Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?'
• Thus most invectively he pierceth through
• The body of the country, city, court,
• Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we
• Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse,
• To fright the animals and to kill them up
• In their assign'd and native dwelling-place.

• 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]

ACT II, 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.
• Hisperia, the princess' gentlewoman,
• Confesses that she secretly o'erheard
• Your daughter and her cousin much commend
• The parts and graces of the wrestler
• That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles;
• And she believes, wherever they are gone,
• That youth is surely in their company.

• 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]

ACT II, 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 priser of the humorous duke?
• Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.
• Know you not, master, to some kind of men
• Their graces serve them but as enemies?
• No more do yours: your virtues, gentle master,
• Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.
• O, what a world is this, when what is comely
• Envenoms him that bears it!

• 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 practises.
• 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;
• And all this I give you. Let me be your servant:
• Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
• For in my youth I never did apply
• Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
• Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
• The means of weakness and debility;
• Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
• Frosty, but kindly: let me go with you;
• I'll do the service of a younger man
• In all your business and necessities.

• ORLANDO:

• O good old man, how well in thee appears
• The constant service of the antique world,
• When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
• Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
• Where none will sweat but for promotion,
• And having that, do choke their service up
• Even with the having: it is not so with thee.
• But, poor old man, thou prunest a rotten tree,
• That cannot so much as a blossom yield
• In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry
• But come thy ways; well go along together,
• And ere we have thy youthful wages spent,
• We'll light upon some settled low content.

• ADAM:

• Master, go on, and I will follow thee,
• To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.
• From seventeen years till now almost fourscore
• Here lived I, but now live here no more.
• At seventeen years many their fortunes seek;
• But at fourscore it is too late a week:
• Yet fortune cannot recompense me better
• Than to die well and not my master's debtor.

• [Exeunt]

ACT II, SCENE IV. The Forest of Arden.

[Enter ROSALIND for Ganymede, CELIA for Aliena, and TOUCHSTONE]

• ROSALIND:

• O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!

• TOUCHSTONE:

• I care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary.

• ROSALIND:

• I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's
• apparel and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort
• the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show
• itself courageous to petticoat: therefore courage,
• good Aliena!

• CELIA:

• I pray you, bear with me; I cannot go no further.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• For my part, I had rather bear with you than bear
• you; yet I should bear no cross if I did bear you,
• for I think you have no money in your purse.

• ROSALIND:

• Well, this is the forest of Arden.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was
• at home, I was in a better place: but travellers
• must be content.

• ROSALIND:

• Ay, be so, good Touchstone.

• [Enter CORIN and SILVIUS]

• Look you, who comes here; a young man and an old in
• solemn talk.

• 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 sigh'd upon a midnight pillow:
• But if thy love were ever like to mine--
• As sure I think did never man love so--
• How many actions most ridiculous
• Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?

• CORIN:

• Into a thousand that I have forgotten.

• SILVIUS:

• O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily!
• If thou remember'st not the slightest folly
• That ever love did make thee run into,
• Thou hast not loved:
• Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,
• Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,
• Thou hast not loved:
• Or if thou hast not broke from company
• Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,
• Thou hast not loved.
• O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe!

• [Exit]

• ROSALIND:

• Alas, poor shepherd! searching of thy wound,
• I have by hard adventure found mine own.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• And I mine. I remember, when I was in love I broke
• my sword upon a stone and bid him take that for
• coming a-night to Jane Smile; and I remember the
• kissing of her batlet and the cow's dugs that her
• pretty chopt hands had milked; and I remember the
• wooing of a peascod instead of her, from whom I took
• two cods and, giving her them again, said with
• weeping tears 'Wear these for my sake.' We that are
• true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is
• mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.

• ROSALIND:

• Thou speakest wiser than thou art ware of.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Nay, I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till I
• break my shins against it.

• ROSALIND:

• Jove, Jove! this shepherd's passion
• Is much upon my fashion.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• And mine; but it grows something stale with me.

• CELIA:

• I pray you, one of you question yond man
• If he for gold will give us any food:
• I faint almost to death.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Holla, you clown!

• ROSALIND:

• Peace, fool: he's not thy kinsman.

• CORIN:

• Who calls?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Your betters, sir.

• CORIN:

• Else are they very wretched.

• ROSALIND:

• Peace, I say. Good even to you, friend.

• CORIN:

• And to you, gentle sir, and to you all.

• ROSALIND:

• I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold
• Can in this desert place buy entertainment,
• Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed:
• Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd
• And faints for succor.

• CORIN:

• Fair sir, I pity her
• And wish, for her sake more than for mine own,
• My fortunes were more able to relieve her;
• But I am shepherd to another man
• And do not shear the fleeces that I graze:
• My master is of churlish disposition
• And little recks to find the way to heaven
• By doing deeds of hospitality:
• Besides, his cote, his flocks and bounds of feed
• Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now,
• By reason of his absence, there is nothing
• That you will feed on; but what is, come see.
• And in my voice most welcome shall you be.

• ROSALIND:

• What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture?

• CORIN:

• That young swain that you saw here but erewhile,
• That little cares for buying any thing.

• ROSALIND:

• I pray thee, if it stand with honesty,
• Buy thou the cottage, pasture and the flock,
• And thou shalt have to pay for it of us.

• CELIA:

• And we will mend thy wages. I like this place.
• And willingly could waste my time in it.

• CORIN:

• Assuredly the thing is to be sold:
• Go with me: if you like upon report
• The soil, the profit and this kind of life,
• I will your very faithful feeder be
• And buy it with your gold right suddenly.

• [Exeunt]

ACT II, SCENE V. The Forest.

[Enter AMIENS, JAQUES, and others]

• AMIENS:

• [Song:]

• 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 the encounter
• of two dog-apes, and when a man thanks me heartily,
• methinks I have given him a penny and he renders me
• the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you that will
• not, hold your tongues.

• AMIENS:

• Well, I'll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the
• duke will drink under this tree. He hath been all
• this day to look you.

• JAQUES:

• And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is
• too disputable for my company: I think of as many
• matters as he, but I give heaven thanks and make no
• boast of them. Come, warble, come.

• [SONG.]

• Who doth ambition shun

• [All together here]

• And loves to live i' the sun,
• Seeking the food he eats
• And pleased with what he gets,
• Come hither, come hither, come hither:
• Here shall he see No enemy
• But winter and rough weather.

• JAQUES:

• I'll give you a verse to this note that I made
• yesterday in despite of my invention.

• 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]

ACT II, SCENE VI. The forest.

[Enter ORLANDO and ADAM]

• ADAM:

• Dear master, I can go no further. O, I die for food!
• Here lie I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell,
• kind master.

• ORLANDO:

• Why, how now, Adam! no greater heart in thee? Live
• a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little.
• If this uncouth forest yield any thing savage, I
• will either be food for it or bring it for food to
• thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy powers.
• For my sake be comfortable; hold death awhile at
• the arm's end: I will here be with thee presently;
• and if I bring thee not something to eat, I will
• give thee leave to die: but if thou diest before I
• come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said!
• thou lookest cheerly, and I'll be with thee quickly.
• Yet thou liest in the bleak air: come, I will bear
• thee to some shelter; and thou shalt not die for
• lack of a dinner, if there live any thing in this
• desert. Cheerly, good Adam!

• [Exeunt]

ACT II, SCENE VII. The forest.

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

• DUKE SENIOR:

• I think he be transform'd into a beast;
• For I can no where find him like a man.

• First Lord:

• My lord, he is but even now gone hence:
• Here was he merry, hearing of a song.

• 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' the forest,
• A motley fool; a miserable world!
• As I do live by food, I met a fool
• Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
• And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
• In good set terms and yet a motley fool.
• 'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I. 'No, sir,' quoth he,
• 'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:'
• And then he drew a dial from his poke,
• And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
• Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:
• Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags:
• 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
• And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
• And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
• And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
• And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
• The motley fool thus moral on the time,
• My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
• That fools should be so deep-contemplative,
• And I did laugh sans intermission
• An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
• A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.

• 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 cramm'd
• 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 judgments
• Of all opinion that grows rank in them
• That I am wise. I must have liberty
• Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
• To blow on whom I please; for so fools have;
• And they that are most galled with my folly,
• They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?
• The 'why' is plain as way to parish church:
• He that a fool doth very wisely hit
• Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
• Not to seem senseless of the bob: if not,
• The wise man's folly is anatomized
• Even by the squandering glances of the fool.
• Invest me in my motley; give me leave
• To speak my mind, and I will through and through
• Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,
• If they will patiently receive my medicine.

• 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 the embossed sores and headed evils,
• That thou with licence of free foot hast caught,
• Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.

• JAQUES:

• Why, who cries out on pride,
• That can therein tax any private party?
• Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,
• Till that the weary very means do ebb?
• What woman in the city do I name,
• When that I say the city-woman bears
• The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
• Who can come in and say that I mean her,
• When such a one as she such is her neighbour?
• Or what is he of basest function
• That says his bravery is not of my cost,
• Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits
• His folly to the mettle of my speech?
• There then; how then? what then? Let me see wherein
• My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right,
• Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free,
• Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies,
• Unclaim'd of any man. But who comes here?

• [Enter ORLANDO, with his sword drawn]

• 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 bolden'd, man, by thy distress,
• Or else a rude despiser of good manners,
• That in civility thou seem'st so empty?

• ORLANDO:

• You touch'd my vein at first: the thorny point
• Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show
• Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred
• And know some nurture. But forbear, I say:
• He dies that touches any of this fruit
• Till I and my affairs are answered.

• 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 look'd on better days,
• If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church,
• If ever sat at any good man's feast,
• If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear
• And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied,
• Let gentleness my strong enforcement be:
• In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword.

• DUKE SENIOR:

• True is it that we have seen better days,
• And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church
• And sat at good men's feasts and wiped our eyes
• Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd:
• And therefore sit you down in gentleness
• And take upon command what help we have
• That to your wanting may be minister'd.

• ORLANDO:

• Then but forbear your food a little while,
• Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn
• And give it food. There is an old poor man,
• Who after me hath many a weary step
• Limp'd in pure love: till he be first sufficed,
• Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger,
• I will not touch a bit.

• 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.
• And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
• And shining morning face, creeping like snail
• Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
• Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
• Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
• Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
• Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
• Seeking the bubble reputation
• Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
• In fair round belly with good capon lined,
• With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
• Full of wise saws and modern instances;
• And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
• Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
• With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
• His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
• For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
• Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
• And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
• That ends this strange eventful history,
• Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
• Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

• [Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM]

• DUKE SENIOR:

• Welcome. Set down your venerable burthen,
• 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:

• Blow, blow, thou winter wind.
• Thou art not so unkind
• As man's ingratitude;
• Thy tooth is not so keen,
• Because thou art not seen,
• Although thy breath be rude.
• Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
• Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
• Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
• This life is most jolly.
• Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
• That dost not bite so nigh
• As benefits forgot:
• Though thou the waters warp,
• Thy sting is not so sharp
• As friend remember'd not.
• Heigh-ho! sing, & c.

• DUKE SENIOR:

• If that you were the good Sir Rowland's son,
• As you have whisper'd faithfully you were,
• And as mine eye doth his effigies witness
• Most truly limn'd and living in your face,
• Be truly welcome hither: I am the duke
• That loved your father: the residue of your fortune,
• Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man,
• Thou art right welcome as thy master is.
• Support him by the arm. Give me your hand,
• And let me all your fortunes understand.

• [Exeunt]

ACT III, SCENE I. A room in the palace.

[Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, and OLIVER]

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be:
• But were I not the better part made mercy,
• I should not seek an absent argument
• Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it:
• Find out thy brother, wheresoe'er he is;
• Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living
• Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more
• To seek a living in our territory.
• Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine
• Worth seizure do we seize into our hands,
• Till thou canst quit thee by thy brothers mouth
• Of what we think against thee.

• OLIVER:

• O that your highness knew my heart in this!
• I never loved my brother in my life.

• DUKE FREDERICK:

• More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors;
• And let my officers of such a nature
• Make an extent upon his house and lands:
• Do this expediently and turn him going.

• [Exeunt]

ACT III, SCENE II. The forest.

[Enter ORLANDO, with a paper]

• ORLANDO:

• Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love:
• And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey
• With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
• Thy huntress' name that my full life doth sway.
• O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books
• And in their barks my thoughts I'll character;
• That every eye which in this forest looks
• Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where.
• Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree
• The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she.

• [Exit]

• [Enter CORIN and TOUCHSTONE]

• CORIN:

• And how like you this shepherd's life, Master Touchstone?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good
• life, but in respect that it is a shepherd's life,
• it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I
• like it very well; but in respect that it is
• private, it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it
• is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in
• respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As
• is it a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well;
• but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much
• against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?

• CORIN:

• No more but that I know the more one sickens the
• worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money,
• means and content is without three good friends;
• that the property of rain is to wet and fire to
• burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and that a
• great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that
• he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may
• complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in
• court, shepherd?

• CORIN:

• No, truly.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Then thou art damned.

• CORIN:

• Nay, I hope.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Truly, thou art damned like an ill-roasted egg, all
• on one side.

• CORIN:

• For not being at court? Your reason.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never sawest
• good manners; if thou never sawest good manners,
• then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is
• sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous
• state, shepherd.

• CORIN:

• Not a whit, Touchstone: those that are good manners
• at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the
• behavior of the country is most mockable at the
• court. You told me you salute not at the court, but
• you kiss your hands: that courtesy would be
• uncleanly, if courtiers were shepherds.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Instance, briefly; come, instance.

• CORIN:

• Why, we are still handling our ewes, and their
• fells, you know, are greasy.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? and is not
• the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of
• a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance, I say; come.

• CORIN:

• Besides, our hands are hard.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again.
• A more sounder instance, come.

• CORIN:

• And they are often tarred over with the surgery of
• our sheep: and would you have us kiss tar? The
• courtier's hands are perfumed with civet.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Most shallow man! thou worms-meat, in respect of a
• good piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the wise, and
• perpend: civet is of a baser birth than tar, the
• very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd.

• CORIN:

• You have too courtly a wit for me: I'll rest.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man!
• God make incision in thee! thou art raw.

• CORIN:

• Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get
• that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's
• happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my
• harm, and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes
• graze and my lambs suck.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• That is another simple sin in you, to bring the ewes
• and the rams together and to offer to get your
• living by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a
• bell-wether, and to betray a she-lamb of a
• twelvemonth to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram,
• out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not
• damned for this, the devil himself will have no
• shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst
• 'scape.

• CORIN:

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

• [Enter ROSALIND, with a paper, reading]

• ROSALIND:

• From the east to western Ind,
• No jewel is like Rosalind.
• Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
• Through all the world bears Rosalind.
• All the pictures fairest lined
• Are but black to Rosalind.
• Let no fair be kept in mind
• But the fair of Rosalind.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and
• suppers and sleeping-hours excepted: it is the
• right butter-women's rank to market.

• ROSALIND:

• Out, fool!

• TOUCHSTONE:

• For a taste:
• If a hart do lack a hind,
• Let him seek out Rosalind.
• If the cat will after kind,
• So be sure will Rosalind.
• Winter garments must be lined,
• So must slender Rosalind.
• They that reap must sheaf and bind;
• Then to cart with Rosalind.
• Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
• Such a nut is Rosalind.
• He that sweetest rose will find
• Must find love's prick and Rosalind.
• This is the very false gallop of verses: why do you
• infect yourself with them?

• ROSALIND:

• Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.

• ROSALIND:

• I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it
• with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit
• i' the country; for you'll be rotten ere you be half
• ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the
• forest judge.

• [Enter CELIA, with a writing]

• ROSALIND:

• Peace! Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside.

• CELIA:

• [Reads]

• Why should this a desert be?
• For it is unpeopled? No:
• Tongues I'll hang on every tree,
• That shall civil sayings show:
• Some, how brief the life of man
• Runs his erring pilgrimage,
• That the stretching of a span
• Buckles in his sum of age;
• Some, of violated vows
• 'Twixt the souls of friend and friend:
• But upon the fairest boughs,
• Or at every sentence end,
• Will I Rosalinda write,
• Teaching all that read to know
• The quintessence of every sprite
• Heaven would in little show.
• Therefore Heaven Nature charged
• That one body should be fill'd
• With all graces wide-enlarged:
• Nature presently distill'd
• Helen's cheek, but not her heart,
• Cleopatra's majesty,
• Atalanta's better part,
• Sad Lucretia's modesty.
• Thus Rosalind of many parts
• By heavenly synod was devised,
• Of many faces, eyes and hearts,
• To have the touches dearest prized.
• Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
• And I to live and die her slave.

• ROSALIND:

• O most gentle pulpiter! what tedious homily of love
• have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never
• cried 'Have patience, good people!'

• CELIA:

• How now! back, friends! Shepherd, go off a little.
• Go with him, sirrah.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat;
• though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.

• [Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE]

• CELIA:

• Didst thou hear these verses?

• ROSALIND:

• O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of
• them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.

• CELIA:

• That's no matter: the feet might bear the verses.

• ROSALIND:

• Ay, but the feet were lame and could not bear
• themselves without the verse and therefore stood
• lamely in the verse.

• CELIA:

• But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name
• should be hanged and carved upon these trees?

• ROSALIND:

• I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder
• before you came; for look here what I found on a
• palm-tree. I was never so be-rhymed since
• Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I
• can hardly remember.

• CELIA:

• Trow you who hath done this?

• ROSALIND:

• Is it a man?

• CELIA:

• And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck.
• Change you colour?

• ROSALIND:

• I prithee, who?

• CELIA:

• O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for friends to
• meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes
• and so encounter.

• ROSALIND:

• Nay, but who is it?

• CELIA:

• Is it possible?

• ROSALIND:

• Nay, I prithee now with most petitionary vehemence,
• tell me who it is.

• CELIA:

• O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful
• wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that,
• out of all hooping!

• ROSALIND:

• Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am
• caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in
• my disposition? One inch of delay more is a
• South-sea of discovery; I prithee, tell me who is it
• quickly, and speak apace. I would thou couldst
• stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man
• out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-
• mouthed bottle, either too much at once, or none at
• all. I prithee, take the cork out of thy mouth that
• may drink thy tidings.

• CELIA:

• So you may put a man in your belly.

• ROSALIND:

• Is he of God's making? What manner of man? Is his
• head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard?

• CELIA:

• Nay, he hath but a little beard.

• ROSALIND:

• Why, God will send more, if the man will be
• thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if
• thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin.

• CELIA:

• It is young Orlando, that tripped up the wrestler's
• heels and your heart both in an instant.

• ROSALIND:

• Nay, but the devil take mocking: speak, sad brow and
• true maid.

• CELIA:

• I' faith, coz, 'tis he.

• ROSALIND:

• Orlando?

• CELIA:

• Orlando.

• ROSALIND:

• Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and
• hose? What did he when thou sawest him? What said
• he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes
• him here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he?
• How parted he with thee? and when shalt thou see
• him again? Answer me in one word.

• CELIA:

• You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first: 'tis a
• word too great for any mouth of this age's size. To
• say ay and no to these particulars is more than to
• answer in a catechism.

• ROSALIND:

• But doth he know that I am in this forest and in
• man's apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the
• day he wrestled?

• CELIA:

• It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the
• propositions of a lover; but take a taste of my
• finding him, and relish it with good observance.
• I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn.

• ROSALIND:

• It may well be called Jove's tree, when it drops
• forth such fruit.

• CELIA:

• Give me audience, good madam.

• ROSALIND:

• Proceed.

• CELIA:

• There lay he, stretched along, like a wounded knight.

• ROSALIND:

• Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well
• becomes the ground.

• CELIA:

• Cry 'holla' to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets
• unseasonably. He was furnished like a hunter.

• ROSALIND:

• O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart.

• CELIA:

• I would sing my song without a burden: thou bringest
• me out of tune.

• ROSALIND:

• Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must
• speak. Sweet, say on.

• CELIA:

• You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here?

• [Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES]

• ROSALIND:

• 'Tis he: slink by, and note him.

• JAQUES:

• I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had
• as lief have been myself alone.

• ORLANDO:

• And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you
• too for your society.

• JAQUES:

• God be wi' you: let's meet as little as we can.

• ORLANDO:

• I do desire we may be better strangers.

• JAQUES:

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

• ORLANDO:

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

• JAQUES:

• Rosalind is your love's name?

• ORLANDO:

• Yes, just.

• JAQUES:

• I do not like her name.

• ORLANDO:

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

• JAQUES:

• What stature is she of?

• ORLANDO:

• Just as high as my heart.

• JAQUES:

• You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been
• acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conned them
• out of rings?

• ORLANDO:

• Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from
• whence you have studied your questions.

• JAQUES:

• You have a nimble wit: I think 'twas made of
• Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me? and
• we two will rail against our mistress the world and
• all our misery.

• ORLANDO:

• I will chide no breather in the world but myself,
• against whom I know most faults.

• JAQUES:

• The worst fault you have is to be in love.

• ORLANDO:

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

• JAQUES:

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

• ORLANDO:

• He is drowned in the brook: look but in, and you
• shall see him.

• JAQUES:

• There I shall see mine own figure.

• ORLANDO:

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

• JAQUES:

• I'll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good
• Signior Love.

• ORLANDO:

• I am glad of your departure: adieu, good Monsieur
• Melancholy.

• [Exit JAQUES]

• ROSALIND:

• [Aside to CELIA]

• I will speak to him, like a saucy
• lackey and under that habit play the knave with him.
• Do you hear, forester?

• ORLANDO:

• Very well: what would you?

• ROSALIND:

• I pray you, what is't o'clock?

• ORLANDO:

• You should ask me what time o' day: there's no clock
• in the forest.

• ROSALIND:

• Then there is no true lover in the forest; else
• sighing every minute and groaning every hour would
• detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a clock.

• ORLANDO:

• And why not the swift foot of Time? had not that
• been as proper?

• ROSALIND:

• By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with
• divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles
• withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops
• withal and who he stands still withal.

• ORLANDO:

• I prithee, who doth he trot withal?

• ROSALIND:

• Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the
• contract of her marriage and the day it is
• solemnized: if the interim be but a se'nnight,
• Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of
• seven year.

• ORLANDO:

• Who ambles Time withal?

• ROSALIND:

• With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that
• hath not the gout, for the one sleeps easily because
• he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because
• he feels no pain, the one lacking the burden of lean
• and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden
• of heavy tedious penury; these Time ambles withal.

• ORLANDO:

• Who doth he gallop withal?

• ROSALIND:

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

• ORLANDO:

• Who stays it still withal?

• ROSALIND:

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

• ORLANDO:

• Where dwell you, pretty youth?

• ROSALIND:

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

• ORLANDO:

• Are you native of this place?

• ROSALIND:

• As the cony that you see dwell where she is kindled.

• ORLANDO:

• Your accent is something finer than you could
• purchase in so removed a dwelling.

• ROSALIND:

• I have been told so of many: but indeed an old
• religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was
• in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship
• too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard
• him read many lectures against it, and I thank God
• I am not a woman, to be touched with so many
• giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their
• whole sex withal.

• ORLANDO:

• Can you remember any of the principal evils that he
• laid to the charge of women?

• ROSALIND:

• There were none principal; they were all like one
• another as half-pence are, every one fault seeming
• monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it.

• ORLANDO:

• I prithee, recount some of them.

• ROSALIND:

• No, I will not cast away my physic but on those that
• are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that
• abuses our young plants with carving 'Rosalind' on
• their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies
• on brambles, all, forsooth, deifying the name of
• Rosalind: if I could meet that fancy-monger I would
• give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the
• quotidian of love upon him.

• ORLANDO:

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

• ROSALIND:

• There is none of my uncle's marks upon you: he
• taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage
• of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner.

• ORLANDO:

• What were his marks?

• ROSALIND:

• A lean cheek, which you have not, a blue eye and
• sunken, which you have not, an unquestionable
• spirit, which you have not, a beard neglected,
• which you have not; but I pardon you for that, for
• simply your having in beard is a younger brother's
• revenue: then your hose should be ungartered, your
• bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe
• untied and every thing about you demonstrating a
• careless desolation; but you are no such man; you
• are rather point-device in your accoutrements as
• loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other.

• ORLANDO:

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

• ROSALIND:

• Me believe it! you may as soon make her that you
• love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to
• do than to confess she does: that is one of the
• points in the which women still give the lie to
• their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he
• that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind
• is so admired?

• ORLANDO:

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

• ROSALIND:

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

• ORLANDO:

• Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.

• ROSALIND:

• Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves
• as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and
• the reason why they are not so punished and cured
• is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers
• are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel.

• ORLANDO:

• Did you ever cure any so?

• ROSALIND:

• Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me
• his love, his mistress; and I set him every day to
• woo me: at which time would I, being but a moonish
• youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing
• and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow,
• inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles, for every
• passion something and for no passion truly any
• thing, as boys and women are for the most part
• cattle of this colour; would now like him, now loathe
• him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep
• for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor
• from his mad humour of love to a living humour of
• madness; which was, to forswear the full stream of
• the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic.
• And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon
• me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's
• heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't.

• ORLANDO:

• I would not be cured, youth.

• ROSALIND:

• I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind
• and come every day to my cote and woo me.

• ORLANDO:

• Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me
• where it is.

• ROSALIND:

• Go with me to it and I'll show it you and by the way
• you shall tell me where in the forest you live.
• Will you go?

• ORLANDO:

• With all my heart, good youth.

• ROSALIND:

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

• [Exeunt]

ACT III, SCENE III. The forest.

[Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES behind]

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your
• goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet?
• doth my simple feature content you?

• AUDREY:

• Your features! Lord warrant us! what features!

• TOUCHSTONE:

• I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most
• capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.

• JAQUES:

• [Aside]

• O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove
• in a thatched house!

• TOUCHSTONE:

• When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a
• man's good wit seconded with the forward child
• Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a
• great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would
• the gods had made thee poetical.

• AUDREY:

• I do not know what 'poetical' is: is it honest in
• deed and word? is it a true thing?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most
• feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what
• they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign.

• AUDREY:

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

• TOUCHSTONE:

• I do, truly; for thou swearest to me thou art
• honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some
• hope thou didst feign.

• AUDREY:

• Would you not have me honest?

• TOUCHSTONE:

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

• JAQUES:

• [Aside]

• A material fool!

• AUDREY:

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

• TOUCHSTONE:

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

• AUDREY:

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

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness!
• sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may
• be, I will marry thee, and to that end I have been
• with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next
• village, who hath promised to meet me in this place
• of the forest and to couple us.

• JAQUES:

• [Aside]

• I would fain see this meeting.

• AUDREY:

• Well, the gods give us joy!

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart,
• stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple
• but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what
• though? C ourage! As horns are odious, they are
• necessary. It is said, 'many a man knows no end of
• his goods:' right; many a man has good horns, and
• knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of
• his wife; 'tis none of his own getting. Horns?
• Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer
• hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man
• therefore blessed? No: as a walled town is more
• worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a
• married man more honourable than the bare brow of a
• bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no
• skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to
• want. Here comes Sir Oliver.

• [Enter SIR OLIVER MARTEXT]

• Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met: will you
• dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go
• with you to your chapel?

• SIR OLIVER MARTEXT:

• Is there none here to give the woman?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• I will not take her on gift of any man.

• SIR OLIVER MARTEXT:

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

• JAQUES:

• [Advancing]

• Proceed, proceed I'll give her.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Good even, good Master What-ye-call't: how do you,
• sir? You are very well met: God 'ild you for your
• last company: I am very glad to see you: even a
• toy in hand here, sir: nay, pray be covered.

• JAQUES:

• Will you be married, motley?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb and
• the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and
• as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.

• JAQUES:

• And will you, being a man of your breeding, be
• married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to
• church, and have a good priest that can tell you
• what marriage is: this fellow will but join you
• together as they join wainscot; then one of you will
• prove a shrunk panel and, like green timber, warp, warp.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• [Aside]

• I am not in the mind but I were better to be
• married of him than of another: for he is not like
• to marry me well; and not being well married, it
• will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife.

• JAQUES:

• Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• 'Come, sweet Audrey:
• We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.
• Farewell, good Master Oliver: not,--
• O sweet Oliver,
• O brave Oliver,
• Leave me not behind thee: but,--
• Wind away,
• Begone, I say,
• I will not to wedding with thee.

• [Exeunt JAQUES, TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY]

• SIR OLIVER MARTEXT:

• 'Tis no matter: ne'er a fantastical knave of them
• all shall flout me out of my calling.

• [Exit]

ACT III, SCENE IV. The forest.

[Enter ROSALIND and CELIA]

• ROSALIND:

• Never talk to me; I will weep.

• CELIA:

• Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider
• that tears do not become a man.

• ROSALIND:

• But have I not cause to weep?

• CELIA:

• As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.

• ROSALIND:

• His very hair is of the dissembling colour.

• CELIA:

• Something browner than Judas's marry, his kisses are
• Judas's own children.

• ROSALIND:

• I' faith, his hair is of a good colour.

• CELIA:

• An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour.

• ROSALIND:

• And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch
• of holy bread.

• CELIA:

• He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana: a nun
• of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously;
• the very ice of chastity is in them.

• ROSALIND:

• But why did he swear he would come this morning, and
• comes not?

• CELIA:

• Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.

• ROSALIND:

• Do you think so?

• CELIA:

• Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a
• horse-stealer, but for his verity in love, I do
• think him as concave as a covered goblet or a
• worm-eaten nut.

• ROSALIND:

• Not true in love?

• CELIA:

• Yes, when he is in; but I think he is not in.

• ROSALIND:

• You have heard him swear downright he was.

• CELIA:

• 'Was' is not 'is:' besides, the oath of a lover is
• no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are
• both the confirmer of false reckonings. He attends
• here in the forest on the duke your father.

• ROSALIND:

• I met the duke yesterday and had much question with
• him: he asked me of what parentage I was; I told
• him, of as good as he; so he laughed and let me go.
• But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a
• man as Orlando?

• CELIA:

• O, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses,
• speaks brave words, swears brave oaths and breaks
• them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of
• his lover; as a puisny tilter, that spurs his horse
• but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble
• goose: but all's brave that youth mounts and folly
• guides. Who comes here?

• [Enter CORIN]

• CORIN:

• Mistress and master, you have oft inquired
• After the shepherd that complain'd of love,
• Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
• Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
• That was his mistress.

• CELIA:

• Well, and what of him?

• CORIN:

• If you will see a pageant truly play'd,
• Between the pale complexion of true love
• And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,
• Go hence a little and I shall conduct you,
• If you will mark it.

• ROSALIND:

• O, come, let us remove:
• The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
• Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
• I'll prove a busy actor in their play.

• [Exeunt]

ACT III, SCENE V. Another part of the forest.

[Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE]

• SILVIUS:

• Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe;
• Say that you love me not, but say not so
• In bitterness. The common executioner,
• Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard,
• Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
• But first begs pardon: will you sterner be
• Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?

• [Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, behind]

• PHEBE:

• I would not be thy executioner:
• I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.
• Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye:
• 'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,
• That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,
• Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
• Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!
• Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
• And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee:
• Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down;
• Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
• Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers!
• Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee:
• Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
• Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush,
• The cicatrice and capable impressure
• Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,
• Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not,
• Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes
• That can do hurt.

• SILVIUS:

• O dear Phebe,
• If ever,--as that ever may be near,--
• You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
• Then shall you know the wounds invisible
• That love's keen arrows make.

• PHEBE:

• But till that time
• Come not thou near me: and when that time comes,
• Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;
• As till that time I shall not pity thee.

• ROSALIND:

• And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother,
• That you insult, exult, and all at once,
• Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty,--
• As, by my faith, I see no more in you
• Than without candle may go dark to bed--
• Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
• Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
• I see no more in you than in the ordinary
• Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life,
• I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
• No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it:
• 'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
• Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,
• That can entame my spirits to your worship.
• You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
• Like foggy south puffing with wind and rain?
• You are a thousand times a properer man
• Than she a woman: 'tis such fools as you
• That makes the world full of ill-favour'd children:
• 'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;
• And out of you she sees herself more proper
• Than any of her lineaments can show her.
• But, mistress, know yourself: down on your knees,
• And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love:
• For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
• Sell when you can: you are not for all markets:
• Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer:
• Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
• So take her to thee, shepherd: fare you well.

• PHEBE:

• Sweet youth, I pray you, chide a year together:
• I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.

• ROSALIND:

• He's fallen in love with your foulness and she'll
• fall in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as
• she answers thee with frowning looks, I'll sauce her
• with bitter words. Why look you so upon me?

• PHEBE:

• For no ill will I bear you.

• ROSALIND:

• I pray you, do not fall in love with me,
• For I am falser than vows made in wine:
• Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,
• 'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.
• Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.
• Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,
• And be not proud: though all the world could see,
• None could be so abused in sight as he.
• Come, to our flock.

• [Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA and CORIN]

• PHEBE:

• Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,
• 'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'

• SILVIUS:

• Sweet Phebe,--

• PHEBE:

• Ha, what say'st thou, Silvius?

• SILVIUS:

• Sweet Phebe, pity me.

• PHEBE:

• Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.

• SILVIUS:

• Wherever sorrow is, relief would be:
• If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
• By giving love your sorrow and my grief
• Were both extermined.

• PHEBE:

• Thou hast my love: is not that neighbourly?

• SILVIUS:

• I would have you.

• PHEBE:

• Why, that were covetousness.
• Silvius, the time was that I hated thee,
• And yet it is not that I bear thee love;
• But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
• Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,
• I will endure, and I'll employ thee too:
• But do not look for further recompense
• Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd.

• SILVIUS:

• So holy and so perfect is my love,
• And I in such a poverty of grace,
• That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
• To glean the broken ears after the man
• That the main harvest reaps: loose now and then
• A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon.

• PHEBE:

• Know'st now the youth that spoke to me erewhile?

• SILVIUS:

• Not very well, but I have met him oft;
• And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds
• That the old carlot once was master of.

• PHEBE:

• Think not I love him, though I ask for him:
• 'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well;
• But what care I for words? yet words do well
• When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
• It is a pretty youth: not very pretty:
• But, sure, he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him:
• He'll make a proper man: the best thing in him
• Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
• Did make offence his eye did heal it up.
• He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall:
• His leg is but so so; and yet 'tis well:
• There was a pretty redness in his lip,
• A little riper and more lusty red
• Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference
• Between the constant red and mingled damask.
• There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him
• In parcels as I did, would have gone near
• To fall in love with him; but, for my part,
• I love him not nor hate him not; and yet
• I have more cause to hate him than to love him:
• For what had he to do to chide at me?
• He said mine eyes were black and my hair black:
• And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me:
• I marvel why I answer'd not again:
• But that's all one; omittance is no quittance.
• I'll write to him a very taunting letter,
• And thou shalt bear it: wilt thou, Silvius?

• SILVIUS:

• Phebe, with all my heart.

• PHEBE:

• I'll write it straight;
• The matter's in my head and in my heart:
• I will be bitter with him and passing short.
• Go with me, Silvius.

• [Exeunt]

ACT IV, SCENE I. The forest.

[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's
• contemplation of my travels, in which my often
• rumination wraps me m a most humorous sadness.

• ROSALIND:

• A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to
• be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see
• other men's; then, to have seen much and to have
• nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

• 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.

• [Exit]

• ROSALIND:

• Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and
• wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your
• own country, be out of love with your nativity and
• almost chide God for making you that countenance you
• are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a
• gondola. Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been
• all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such
• another trick, never come in my sight more.

• 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 thousandth part of a minute in the
• affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid
• hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant
• him heart-whole.

• 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,
• videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains
• dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he
• could to die before, and he is one of the patterns
• of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair
• year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been
• for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went
• but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being
• taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish
• coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.'
• But these are all lies: men have died from time to
• time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

• ORLANDO:

• I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind,
• for, I protest, her frown might kill me.

• ROSALIND:

• By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now
• I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on
• disposition, and ask me what you will. I will grant
• it.

• 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 hyen, and
• that when thou art 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 key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly
• with the smoke out at the chimney.

• ORLANDO:

• A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say
• 'Wit, whither wilt?'

• ROSALIND:

• Nay, you might keep that cheque for it till you met
• your wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.

• 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 every one'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]

ACT IV, SCENE II. The forest.

[Enter JAQUES, Lords, and Foresters]

• JAQUES:

• Which is he that killed the deer?

• A 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?

• Forester:

• Yes, sir.

• JAQUES:

• Sing it: 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it
• make noise enough.

• [SONG.]

• Forester:

• What shall he have that kill'd 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]

ACT IV, SCENE III. 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. Look, who comes here.

• [Enter SILVIUS]

• SILVIUS:

• My errand is to you, fair youth;
• My gentle Phebe bid me give you this:
• 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:
• Phebe did write it.

• ROSALIND:

• Come, come, you are a fool
• And turn'd into the extremity of love.
• I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand.
• A freestone-colour'd 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 Ethiope 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 Phebe's cruelty.

• ROSALIND:

• She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes.

• [Reads]

• Art thou god to shepherd turn'd,
• That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?
• Can a woman rail thus?

• SILVIUS:

• Call you this railing?

• ROSALIND:

• [Reads]

• 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 sheep-cote 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 ask'd, 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 handkercher was stain'd.

• 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 moss'd 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 approach'd
• The opening of his mouth; but suddenly,
• Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd 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 suck'd 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:

• Wast 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 stripp'd 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 recover'd 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 swoons]

• 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.

[Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY]

• TOUCHSTONE:

• We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey.

• AUDREY:

• Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old
• gentleman's saying.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile
• Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the
• forest lays claim to you.

• AUDREY:

• Ay, I know who 'tis; he hath no interest in me in
• the world: here comes the man you mean.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• It is meat and drink to me to see a clown: by my
• troth, we that have good wits have much to answer
• for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold.

• [Enter WILLIAM]

• WILLIAM:

• Good even, Audrey.

• AUDREY:

• God ye good even, William.

• WILLIAM:

• And good even to you, sir.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy
• head; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend?

• WILLIAM:

• Five and twenty, sir.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• A ripe age. Is thy name William?

• WILLIAM:

• William, sir.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• A fair name. Wast born i' the forest here?

• WILLIAM:

• Ay, sir, I thank God.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• 'Thank God;' a good answer. Art rich?

• WILLIAM:

• Faith, sir, so so.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• 'So so' is good, very good, very excellent good; and
• yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise?

• WILLIAM:

• Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying,
• 'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man
• knows himself to be a fool.' The heathen
• philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape,
• would open his lips when he put it into his mouth;
• meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and
• lips to open. You do love this maid?

• WILLIAM:

• I do, sir.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Give me your hand. Art thou learned?

• WILLIAM:

• No, sir.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Then learn this of me: to have, is to have; for it
• is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out
• of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty
• the other; for all your writers do consent that ipse
• is he: now, you are not ipse, for I am he.

• WILLIAM:

• Which he, sir?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you
• clown, abandon,--which is in the vulgar leave,--the
• society,--which in the boorish is company,--of this
• female,--which in the common is woman; which
• together is, abandon the society of this female, or,
• clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better
• understanding, diest; or, to wit I kill thee, make
• thee away, translate thy life into death, thy
• liberty into bondage: I will deal in poison with
• thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy
• with thee in faction; I will o'errun thee with
• policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways:
• therefore tremble and depart.

• AUDREY:

• Do, good William.

• WILLIAM:

• God rest you merry, sir.

• [Exit Enter CORIN]

• CORIN:

• Our master and mistress seeks you; come, away, away!

• TOUCHSTONE:

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

• [Exeunt]

ACT V, SCENE II. The forest.

[Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER]

• ORLANDO:

• Is't possible that on so little acquaintance you
• should like her? that but seeing you should love
• her? and loving woo? and, wooing, she should
• grant? and will you persever to enjoy her?

• OLIVER:

• Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the
• poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden
• wooing, nor her sudden consenting; but say with me,
• I love Aliena; say with her that she loves me;
• consent with both that we may enjoy each other: it
• shall be to your good; for my father's house and all
• the revenue that was old Sir Rowland's will I
• estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.

• ORLANDO:

• You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow:
• thither will I invite the duke and all's contented
• followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for look
• you, here comes my Rosalind.

• [Enter ROSALIND]

• ROSALIND:

• God save you, brother.

• OLIVER:

• And you, fair sister.

• [Exit]

• ROSALIND:

• O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee
• wear thy heart in a scarf!

• ORLANDO:

• It is my arm.

• ROSALIND:

• I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws
• of a lion.

• ORLANDO:

• Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.

• ROSALIND:

• Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to
• swoon when he showed me your handkerchief?

• ORLANDO:

• Ay, and greater wonders than that.

• ROSALIND:

• O, I know where you are: nay, 'tis true: there was
• never any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams
• and Caesar's thrasonical brag of 'I came, saw, and
• overcame:' for your brother and my sister no sooner
• met but they looked, no sooner looked but they
• loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner
• sighed but they asked one another the reason, no
• sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy;
• and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs
• to marriage which they will climb incontinent, or
• else be incontinent before marriage: they are in
• the very wrath of love and they will together; clubs
• cannot part them.

• ORLANDO:

• They shall be married to-morrow, and I will bid the
• duke to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it
• is to look into happiness through another man's
• eyes! By so much the more shall I to-morrow be at
• the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall
• think my brother happy in having what he wishes for.

• ROSALIND:

• Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?

• ORLANDO:

• I can live no longer by thinking.

• ROSALIND:

• I will weary you then no longer with idle talking.
• Know of me then, for now I speak to some purpose,
• that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I
• speak not this that you should bear a good opinion
• of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know you are;
• neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in
• some little measure draw a belief from you, to do
• yourself good and not to grace me. Believe then, if
• you please, that I can do strange things: I have,
• since I was three year old, conversed with a
• magician, most profound in his art and yet not
• damnable. If you do love Rosalind so near the heart
• as your gesture cries it out, when your brother
• marries Aliena, shall you marry her: I know into
• what straits of fortune she is driven; and it is
• not impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient
• to you, to set her before your eyes tomorrow human
• as she is and without any danger.

• ORLANDO:

• Speakest thou in sober meanings?

• ROSALIND:

• By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I
• say I am a magician. Therefore, put you in your
• best array: bid your friends; for if you will be
• married to-morrow, you shall, and to Rosalind, if you will.

• [Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE]

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

• PHEBE:

• Youth, you have done me much ungentleness,
• To show the letter that I writ to you.

• ROSALIND:

• I care not if I have: it is my study
• To seem despiteful and ungentle to you:
• You are there followed by a faithful shepherd;
• Look upon him, love him; he worships you.

• PHEBE:

• Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.

• SILVIUS:

• It is to be all made of sighs and tears;
• And so am I for Phebe.

• PHEBE:

• And I for Ganymede.

• ORLANDO:

• And I for Rosalind.

• ROSALIND:

• And I for no woman.

• SILVIUS:

• It is to be all made of faith and service;
• And so am I for Phebe.

• PHEBE:

• And I for Ganymede.

• ORLANDO:

• And I for Rosalind.

• ROSALIND:

• And I for no woman.

• SILVIUS:

• It is to be all made of fantasy,
• All made of passion and all made of wishes,
• All adoration, duty, and observance,
• All humbleness, all patience and impatience,
• All purity, all trial, all observance;
• And so am I for Phebe.

• PHEBE:

• And so am I for Ganymede.

• ORLANDO:

• And so am I for Rosalind.

• ROSALIND:

• And so am I for no woman.

• PHEBE:

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

• SILVIUS:

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

• ORLANDO:

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

• ROSALIND:

• Who do you speak to, 'Why blame you me to love you?'

• ORLANDO:

• To her that is not here, nor doth not hear.

• ROSALIND:

• Pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling
• of Irish wolves against the moon.

• [To SILVIUS]

• I will help you, if I can:

• [To PHEBE]

• I would love you, if I could. To-morrow meet me all together.

• [To PHEBE]

• I will marry you, if ever I marry woman, and I'll be
• married to-morrow:

• [To ORLANDO]

• I will satisfy you, if ever I satisfied man, and you
• shall be married to-morrow:

• [To SILVIUS]

• I will content you, if what pleases you contents
• you, and you shall be married to-morrow.

• [To ORLANDO]

• As you love Rosalind, meet:

• [To SILVIUS]

• as you love Phebe, meet: and as I love no woman,
• I'll meet. So fare you well: I have left you commands.

• SILVIUS:

• I'll not fail, if I live.

• PHEBE:

• Nor I.

• ORLANDO:

• Nor I.

• [Exeunt]

ACT V, SCENE III. The forest.

[Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY]

• TOUCHSTONE:

• To-morrow is the joyful day, Audrey; to-morrow will
• we be married.

• AUDREY:

• I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is
• no dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the
• world. Here comes two of the banished duke's pages.

• [Enter two Pages]

• First Page:

• Well met, honest gentleman.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• By my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, and a song.

• Second Page:

• We are for you: sit i' the middle.

• First Page:

• Shall we clap into't roundly, without hawking or
• spitting or saying we are hoarse, which are the only
• prologues to a bad voice?

• Second Page:

• I'faith, i'faith; and both in a tune, like two
• gipsies on a horse.

• [SONG.]

• It was a lover and his lass,
• With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
• That o'er the green corn-field did pass
• In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
• When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
• Sweet lovers love the spring.
• Between the acres of the rye,
• With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino
• These pretty country folks would lie,
• In spring time, & c.
• This carol they began that hour,
• With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
• How that a life was but a flower
• In spring time, & c.
• And therefore take the present time,
• With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino;
• For love is crowned with the prime
• In spring time, & c.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great
• matter in the ditty, yet the note was very
• untuneable.

• First Page:

• You are deceived, sir: we kept time, we lost not our time.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear
• such a foolish song. God be wi' you; and God mend
• your voices! Come, Audrey.

• [Exeunt]

ACT V, SCENE IV. The forest.

[Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, JAQUES, ORLANDO, OLIVER, and CELIA]

• DUKE SENIOR:

• Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy
• Can do all this that he hath promised?

• ORLANDO:

• I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not;
• As those that fear they hope, and know they fear.

• [Enter ROSALIND, SILVIUS, and PHEBE]

• ROSALIND:

• Patience once more, whiles our compact is urged:
• You say, if I bring in your Rosalind,
• You will bestow her on Orlando here?

• DUKE SENIOR:

• That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her.

• ROSALIND:

• And you say, you will have her, when I bring her?

• ORLANDO:

• That would I, were I of all kingdoms king.

• ROSALIND:

• You say, you'll marry me, if I be willing?

• PHEBE:

• That will I, should I die the hour after.

• ROSALIND:

• But if you do refuse to marry me,
• You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?

• PHEBE:

• So is the bargain.

• ROSALIND:

• You say, that you'll have Phebe, if she will?

• SILVIUS:

• Though to have her and death were both one thing.

• ROSALIND:

• I have promised to make all this matter even.
• Keep you your word, O duke, to give your daughter;
• You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter:
• Keep your word, Phebe, that you'll marry me,
• Or else refusing me, to wed this shepherd:
• Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her.
• If she refuse me: and from hence I go,
• To make these doubts all even.

• [Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA]

• DUKE SENIOR:

• I do remember in this shepherd boy
• Some lively touches of my daughter's favour.

• ORLANDO:

• My lord, the first time that I ever saw him
• Methought he was a brother to your daughter:
• But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born,
• And hath been tutor'd in the rudiments
• Of many desperate studies by his uncle,
• Whom he reports to be a great magician,
• Obscured in the circle of this forest.

• [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY]

• JAQUES:

• There is, sure, another flood toward, and these
• couples are coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of
• very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Salutation and greeting to you all!

• JAQUES:

• Good my lord, bid him welcome: this is the
• motley-minded gentleman that I have so often met in
• the forest: he hath been a courtier, he swears.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• If any man doubt that, let him put me to my
• purgation. I have trod a measure; I have flattered
• a lady; I have been politic with my friend, smooth
• with mine enemy; I have undone three tailors; I have
• had four quarrels, and like to have fought one.

• JAQUES:

• And how was that ta'en up?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the
• seventh cause.

• JAQUES:

• How seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow.

• DUKE SENIOR:

• I like him very well.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• God 'ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I
• press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country
• copulatives, to swear and to forswear: according as
• marriage binds and blood breaks: a poor virgin,
• sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor
• humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else
• will: rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a
• poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster.

• DUKE SENIOR:

• By my faith, he is very swift and sententious.

• TOUCHSTONE:

• According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet diseases.

• JAQUES:

• But, for the seventh cause; how did you find the
• quarrel on the seventh cause?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• Upon a lie seven times removed:--bear your body more
• seeming, Audrey:--as thus, sir. I did dislike the
• cut of a certain courtier's beard: he sent me word,
• if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the
• mind it was: this is called the Retort Courteous.
• If I sent him word again 'it was not well cut,' he
• would send me word, he cut it to please himself:
• this is called the Quip Modest. If again 'it was
• not well cut,' he disabled my judgment: this is
• called the Reply Churlish. If again 'it was not
• well cut,' he would answer, I spake not true: this
• is called the Reproof Valiant. If again 'it was not
• well cut,' he would say I lied: this is called the
• Counter-cheque Quarrelsome: and so to the Lie
• Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.

• JAQUES:

• And how oft did you say his beard was not well cut?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• I durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial,
• nor he durst not give me the Lie Direct; and so we
• measured swords and parted.

• JAQUES:

• Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?

• TOUCHSTONE:

• O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have
• books for good manners: I will name you the degrees.
• The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the
• Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the
• fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
• Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with
• Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All
• these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may
• avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven
• justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the
• parties were met themselves, one of them thought but
• of an If, as, 'If you said so, then I said so;' and
• they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the
• only peacemaker; much virtue in If.

• JAQUES:

• Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? he's as good at
• any thing and yet a fool.

• DUKE SENIOR:

• He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under
• the presentation of that he shoots his wit.

• [Enter HYMEN, ROSALIND, and CELIA]

• [Still Music]

• HYMEN:

• Then is there mirth in heaven,
• When earthly things made even
• Atone together.
• Good duke, receive thy daughter
• Hymen from heaven brought her,
• Yea, brought her hither,
• That thou mightst join her hand with his
• Whose heart within his bosom is.

• ROSALIND:

• [To DUKE SENIOR]

• To you I give myself, for I am yours.

• [To ORLANDO]

• To you I give myself, for I am yours.

• DUKE SENIOR:

• If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter.

• ORLANDO:

• If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind.

• PHEBE:

• If sight and shape be true,
• Why then, my love adieu!

• ROSALIND:

• I'll have no father, if you be not he:
• I'll have no husband, if you be not he:
• Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she.

• HYMEN:

• Peace, ho! I bar confusion:
• 'Tis I must make conclusion
• Of these most strange events:
• Here's eight that must take hands
• To join in Hymen's bands,
• If truth holds true contents.
• You and you no cross shall part:
• You and you are heart in heart
• You to his love must accord,
• Or have a woman to your lord:
• You and you are sure together,
• As the winter to foul weather.
• Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing,
• Feed yourselves with questioning;
• That reason wonder may diminish,
• How thus we met, and these things finish.

• [SONG.]

• Wedding is great Juno's crown:
• O blessed bond of board and bed!
• 'Tis Hymen peoples every town;
• High wedlock then be honoured:
• Honour, high honour and renown,
• To Hymen, god of every town!

• DUKE SENIOR:

• O my dear niece, welcome thou art to me!
• Even daughter, welcome, in no less degree.

• PHEBE:

• I will not eat my word, now thou art mine;
• Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.

• [Enter JAQUES DE BOYS]

• JAQUES DE BOYS:

• Let me have audience for a word or two:
• I am the second son of old Sir Rowland,
• That bring these tidings to this fair assembly.
• Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day
• Men of great worth resorted to this forest,
• Address'd a mighty power; which were on foot,
• In his own conduct, purposely to take
• His brother here and put him to the sword:
• And to the skirts of this wild wood he came;
• Where meeting with an old religious man,
• After some question with him, was converted
• Both from his enterprise and from the world,
• His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,
• And all their lands restored to them again
• That were with him exiled. This to be true,
• I do engage my life.

• DUKE SENIOR:

• Welcome, young man;
• Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding:
• To one his lands withheld, and to the other
• A land itself at large, a potent dukedom.
• First, in this forest, let us do those ends
• That here were well begun and well begot:
• And after, every of this happy number
• That have endured shrewd days and nights with us
• Shall share the good of our returned fortune,
• According to the measure of their states.
• Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity
• And fall into our rustic revelry.
• Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all,
• With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall.

• JAQUES:

• Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly,
• The duke hath put on a religious life
• And thrown into neglect the pompous court?

• JAQUES DE BOYS:

• He hath.

• JAQUES:

• To him will I : out of these convertites
• There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.

• [To DUKE SENIOR]

• You to your former honour I bequeath;
• Your patience and your virtue well deserves it:

• [To ORLANDO]

• You to a love that your true faith doth merit:

• [To OLIVER]

• You to your land and love and great allies:

• [To SILVIUS]

• You to a long and well-deserved bed:

• [To TOUCHSTONE]

• And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage
• Is but for two months victuall'd. So, to your pleasures:
• I am for other than for dancing measures.

• DUKE SENIOR:

• Stay, Jaques, stay.

• JAQUES:

• To see no pastime I what you would have
• I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave.

• [Exit]

• DUKE SENIOR:

• Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites,
• As we do trust they'll end, in true delights.

• [A dance]

ACT V, (EPILOGUE)

• ROSALIND:

• It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue;
• but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord
• the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs
• no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no
• epilogue; yet to good wine they do use good bushes,
• and good plays prove the better by the help of good
• epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am
• neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with
• you in the behalf of a good play! I am not
• furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not
• become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin
• with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love
• you bear to men, to like as much of this play as
• please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love
• you bear to women--as I perceive by your simpering,
• none of you hates them--that between you and the
• women the play may please. If I were a woman I
• would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased
• me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I
• defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good
• beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my
• kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

• [Exeunt]