14 As You Like It Act III
ACT III
SCENE I. A Room in the Palace
Enter Duke Frederick, Lords
and Oliver.
DUKE FREDERICK.
Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be.
But were I not the better part made mercy,
I should not seek an absent argument
Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it:
Find out thy brother wheresoe’er he is.
Seek him with candle. Bring him dead or living
Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more
To seek a living in our territory.
Thy lands, and all things that thou dost call thine
Worth seizure, do we seize into our hands,
Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother’s mouth
Of what we think against thee.
OLIVER.
O that your highness knew my heart in this:
I never loved my brother in my life.
DUKE FREDERICK.
More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors,
And let my officers of such a nature
Make an extent upon his house and lands.
Do this expediently, and turn him going.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. The Forest of Arden
Enter Orlando with a
paper.
ORLANDO.
Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love.
And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey
With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
Thy huntress’ name that my full life doth sway.
O Rosalind, these trees shall be my books,
And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character,
That every eye which in this forest looks
Shall see thy virtue witnessed everywhere.
Run, run, Orlando, carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.
[Exit.]
Enter Corin and
Touchstone.
CORIN.
And how like you this shepherd’s life, Master Touchstone?
TOUCHSTONE.
Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life; but in respect that
it is a shepherd’s life, it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like
it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in
respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in
the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life, look you, it fits my humour
well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach.
Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?
CORIN.
No more but that I know the more one sickens, the worse at ease he is; and that
he that wants money, means, and content is without three good friends; that
the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat
sheep; and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that
hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding or comes
of a very dull kindred.
TOUCHSTONE.
Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd?
CORIN.
No, truly.
TOUCHSTONE.
Then thou art damned.
CORIN.
Nay, I hope.
TOUCHSTONE.
Truly, thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.
CORIN.
For not being at court? Your reason.
TOUCHSTONE.
Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never saw’st good manners; if thou never
saw’st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked, and wickedness is sin,
and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.
CORIN.
Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the court are as
ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at
the court. You told me you salute not at the court but you kiss your hands.
That courtesy would be uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds.
TOUCHSTONE.
Instance, briefly. Come, instance.
CORIN.
Why, we are still handling our ewes, and their fells, you know, are greasy.
TOUCHSTONE.
Why, do not your courtier’s hands sweat? And is not the grease of a mutton as
wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance, I say.
Come.
CORIN.
Besides, our hands are hard.
TOUCHSTONE.
Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again. A more sounder instance,
come.
CORIN.
And they are often tarred over with the surgery of our sheep; and would you
have us kiss tar? The courtier’s hands are perfumed with civet.
TOUCHSTONE.
Most shallow man! Thou worm’s meat in respect of a good piece of flesh
indeed! Learn of the wise and perpend. Civet is of a baser birth than tar, the
very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd.
CORIN.
You have too courtly a wit for me. I’ll rest.
TOUCHSTONE.
Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man! God make incision in thee,
thou art raw.
CORIN.
Sir, I am a true labourer. I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate,
envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good, content with my harm; and
the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.
TOUCHSTONE.
That is another simple sin in you, to bring the ewes and the rams together and
to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a
bell-wether and to betray a she-lamb of a twelvemonth to crooked-pated, old,
cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou be’st not damned for this,
the devil himself will have no shepherds. I cannot see else how thou shouldst
’scape.
Enter Rosalind as Ganymede.
CORIN.
Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress’s brother.
ROSALIND.
[Reads.]
From the east to western Inde
No jewel is like Rosalind.
Her worth being mounted on the wind,
Through all the world bears Rosalind.
All the pictures fairest lined
Are but black to Rosalind.
Let no face be kept in mind
But the fair of Rosalind.
TOUCHSTONE.
I’ll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and suppers and sleeping
hours excepted. It is the right butter-women’s rank to market.
ROSALIND.
Out, fool!
TOUCHSTONE.
For a taste:
If a hart do lack a hind,
Let him seek out Rosalind.
If the cat will after kind,
So be sure will Rosalind.
Winter garments must be lined,
So must slender Rosalind.
They that reap must sheaf and bind,
Then to cart with Rosalind.
Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
Such a nut is Rosalind.
He that sweetest rose will find
Must find love’s prick, and Rosalind.
This is the very false gallop of verses. Why do you infect yourself with them?
ROSALIND.
Peace, you dull fool, I found them on a tree.
TOUCHSTONE.
Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.
ROSALIND.
I’ll graft it with you, and then I shall graft it with a medlar. Then it will
be the earliest fruit i’ th’ country, for you’ll be rotten ere you be half
ripe, and that’s the right virtue of the medlar.
TOUCHSTONE.
You have said, but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge.
Enter Celia as Aliena,
reading a paper.
ROSALIND.
Peace, here comes my sister, reading. Stand aside.
CELIA.
[Reads.]
Why should this a desert be?
For it is unpeopled? No!
Tongues I’ll hang on every tree
That shall civil sayings show.
Some, how brief the life of man
Runs his erring pilgrimage,
That the streching of a span
Buckles in his sum of age;
Some, of violated vows
’Twixt the souls of friend and friend.
But upon the fairest boughs,
Or at every sentence’ end,
Will I “Rosalinda” write,
Teaching all that read to know
The quintessence of every sprite
Heaven would in little show.
Therefore heaven nature charged
That one body should be filled
With all graces wide-enlarged.
Nature presently distilled
Helen’s cheek, but not her heart,
Cleopatra’s majesty;
Atalanta’s better part,
Sad Lucretia’s modesty.
Thus Rosalind of many parts
By heavenly synod was devised,
Of many faces, eyes, and hearts
To have the touches dearest prized.
Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
And I to live and die her slave.
ROSALIND.
O most gentle Jupiter, what tedious homily of love have you wearied your
parishioners withal, and never cried “Have patience, good people!”
CELIA.
How now! Back, friends. Shepherd, go off a little. Go with him, sirrah.
TOUCHSTONE.
Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat, though not with bag and
baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.
[Exeunt Corin and
Touchstone.]
CELIA.
Didst thou hear these verses?
ROSALIND.
O yes, I heard them all, and more too, for some of them had in them more feet
than the verses would bear.
CELIA.
That’s no matter. The feet might bear the verses.
ROSALIND.
Ay, but the feet were lame and could not bear themselves without the verse,
and therefore stood lamely in the verse.
CELIA.
But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be hanged and carved
upon these trees?
ROSALIND.
I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder before you came; for look here
what I found on a palm-tree. I was never so berhymed since Pythagoras’ time
that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember.
CELIA.
Trow you who hath done this?
ROSALIND.
Is it a man?
CELIA.
And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck. Change you colour?
ROSALIND.
I prithee, who?
CELIA.
O Lord, Lord, it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains may be
removed with earthquakes and so encounter.
ROSALIND.
Nay, but who is it?
CELIA.
Is it possible?
ROSALIND.
Nay, I prithee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is.
CELIA.
O wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and
after that, out of all whooping!
ROSALIND.
Good my complexion! Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have
a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South Sea of
discovery. I prithee tell me who is it quickly, and speak apace. I would thou
couldst stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as
wine comes out of narrow-mouthed bottle—either too much at once or none at
all. I prithee take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.
CELIA.
So you may put a man in your belly.
ROSALIND.
Is he of God’s making? What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat, or his chin
worth a beard?
CELIA.
Nay, he hath but a little beard.
ROSALIND.
Why, God will send more if the man will be thankful. Let me stay the growth of
his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin.
CELIA.
It is young Orlando, that tripped up the wrestler’s heels and your heart both
in an instant.
ROSALIND.
Nay, but the devil take mocking! Speak sad brow and true maid.
CELIA.
I’ faith, coz, ’tis he.
ROSALIND.
Orlando?
CELIA.
Orlando.
ROSALIND.
Alas the day, what shall I do with my doublet and hose? What did he when thou
saw’st him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes he here?
Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? And when shalt
thou see him again? Answer me in one word.
CELIA.
You must borrow me Gargantua’s mouth first. ’Tis a word too great for any mouth
of this age’s size. To say ay and no to these particulars is more than to
answer in a catechism.
ROSALIND.
But doth he know that I am in this forest and in man’s apparel? Looks he as
freshly as he did the day he wrestled?
CELIA.
It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover. But
take a taste of my finding him, and relish it with good observance. I found him
under a tree, like a dropped acorn.
ROSALIND.
It may well be called Jove’s tree when it drops forth such fruit.
CELIA.
Give me audience, good madam.
ROSALIND.
Proceed.
CELIA.
There lay he, stretched along like a wounded knight.
ROSALIND.
Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground.
CELIA.
Cry “holla!” to thy tongue, I prithee. It curvets unseasonably. He was
furnished like a hunter.
ROSALIND.
O, ominous! He comes to kill my heart.
CELIA.
I would sing my song without a burden. Thou bring’st me out of tune.
ROSALIND.
Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on.
Enter Orlando and
Jaques.
CELIA.
You bring me out. Soft, comes he not here?
ROSALIND.
’Tis he! Slink by, and note him.
[Rosalind and
Celia step aside.]
JAQUES.
I thank you for your company but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself
alone.
ORLANDO.
And so had I, but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for your society.
JAQUES.
God be wi’ you, let’s meet as little as we can.
ORLANDO.
I do desire we may be better strangers.
JAQUES.
I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love songs in their barks.
ORLANDO.
I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.
JAQUES.
Rosalind is your love’s name?
ORLANDO.
Yes, just.
JAQUES.
I do not like her name.
ORLANDO.
There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.
JAQUES.
What stature is she of?
ORLANDO.
Just as high as my heart.
JAQUES.
You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths’
wives, and conned them out of rings?
ORLANDO.
Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your
questions.
JAQUES.
You have a nimble wit. I think ’twas made of Atalanta’s heels. Will you sit
down with me? And we two will rail against our mistress the world and all our
misery.
ORLANDO.
I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most
faults.
JAQUES.
The worst fault you have is to be in love.
ORLANDO.
’Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.
JAQUES.
By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you.
ORLANDO.
He is drowned in the brook. Look but in, and you shall see him.
JAQUES.
There I shall see mine own figure.
ORLANDO.
Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.
JAQUES.
I’ll tarry no longer with you. Farewell, good Signior Love.
ORLANDO.
I am glad of your departure. Adieu, good Monsieur Melancholy.
[Exit Jaques.—Celia
and Rosalind come forward.]
ROSALIND.
I will speak to him like a saucy lackey, and under that habit play the knave
with him.
Do you hear, forester?
ORLANDO.
Very well. What would you?
ROSALIND.
I pray you, what is’t o’clock?
ORLANDO.
You should ask me what time o’ day. There’s no clock in the forest.
ROSALIND.
Then there is no true lover in the forest, else sighing every minute and
groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of time as well as a clock.
ORLANDO.
And why not the swift foot of time? Had not that been as proper?
ROSALIND.
By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I’ll tell
you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time gallops withal, and
who he stands still withal.
ORLANDO.
I prithee, who doth he trot withal?
ROSALIND.
Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and
the day it is solemnized. If the interim be but a se’nnight, time’s pace is so
hard that it seems the length of seven year.
ORLANDO.
Who ambles time withal?
ROSALIND.
With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout; for the
one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because
he feels no pain; the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the
other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury. These time ambles withal.
ORLANDO.
Who doth he gallop withal?
ROSALIND.
With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he
thinks himself too soon there.
ORLANDO.
Who stays it still withal?
ROSALIND.
With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and then
they perceive not how time moves.
ORLANDO.
Where dwell you, pretty youth?
ROSALIND.
With this shepherdess, my sister, here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe
upon a petticoat.
ORLANDO.
Are you native of this place?
ROSALIND.
As the coney that you see dwell where she is kindled.
ORLANDO.
Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a
dwelling.
ROSALIND.
I have been told so of many. But indeed an old religious uncle of mine taught
me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man, one that knew courtship too
well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against
it, and I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offences
as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal.
ORLANDO.
Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of
women?
ROSALIND.
There were none principal. They were all like one another as halfpence are,
every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it.
ORLANDO.
I prithee recount some of them.
ROSALIND.
No. I will not cast away my physic but on those that are sick. There is a man
haunts the forest that abuses our young plants with carving “Rosalind” on their
barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth,
deifying the name of Rosalind. If I could meet that fancy-monger, I would give
him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.
ORLANDO.
I am he that is so love-shaked. I pray you tell me your remedy.
ROSALIND.
There is none of my uncle’s marks upon you. He taught me how to know a man in
love, in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner.
ORLANDO.
What were his marks?
ROSALIND.
A lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye and sunken, which you have not; an
unquestionable spirit, which you have not; a beard neglected, which you have
not—but I pardon you for that, for simply your having in beard is a younger
brother’s revenue. Then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded,
your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and everything about you
demonstrating a careless desolation. But you are no such man. You are rather
point-device in your accoutrements, as loving yourself than seeming the lover
of any other.
ORLANDO.
Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.
ROSALIND.
Me believe it? You may as soon make her that you love believe it, which I
warrant she is apter to do than to confess she does. That is one of the points
in the which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth,
are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired?
ORLANDO.
I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that
unfortunate he.
ROSALIND.
But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?
ORLANDO.
Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.
ROSALIND.
Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a
whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is
that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess
curing it by counsel.
ORLANDO.
Did you ever cure any so?
ROSALIND.
Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress, and
I set him every day to woo me; at which time would I, being but a moonish
youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud,
fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for
every passion something and for no passion truly anything, as boys and women
are for the most part cattle of this colour; would now like him, now loathe
him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him;
that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of
madness, which was to forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a
nook merely monastic. And thus I cured him, and this way will I take upon me to
wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep’s heart, that there shall not be one
spot of love in ’t.
ORLANDO.
I would not be cured, youth.
ROSALIND.
I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day to my
cote and woo me.
ORLANDO.
Now, by the faith of my love, I will. Tell me where it is.
ROSALIND.
Go with me to it, and I’ll show it you; and by the way you shall tell me
where in the forest you live. Will you go?
ORLANDO.
With all my heart, good youth.
ROSALIND.
Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go?
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. Another part of the Forest
Enter Touchstone and
Audrey; Jaques at a distance observing them.
TOUCHSTONE.
Come apace, good Audrey. I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey?
Am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature content you?
AUDREY.
Your features, Lord warrant us! What features?
TOUCHSTONE.
I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid,
was among the Goths.
JAQUES.
[Aside.] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched house!
TOUCHSTONE.
When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a man’s good wit seconded with
the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great
reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.
AUDREY.
I do not know what “poetical” is. Is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true
thing?
TOUCHSTONE.
No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning, and lovers are given to
poetry, and what they swear in poetry may be said, as lovers, they do feign.
AUDREY.
Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical?
TOUCHSTONE.
I do, truly, for thou swear’st to me thou art honest. Now if thou wert a poet,
I might have some hope thou didst feign.
AUDREY.
Would you not have me honest?
TOUCHSTONE.
No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for honesty coupled to beauty is to
have honey a sauce to sugar.
JAQUES.
[Aside.] A material fool!
AUDREY.
Well, I am not fair, and therefore I pray the gods make me honest.
TOUCHSTONE.
Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an
unclean dish.
AUDREY.
I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
TOUCHSTONE.
Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness; sluttishness may come hereafter.
But be it as it may be, I will marry thee. And to that end I have been with Sir
Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next village, who hath promised to meet me in
this place of the forest and to couple us.
JAQUES.
[Aside.] I would fain see this meeting.
AUDREY.
Well, the gods give us joy!
TOUCHSTONE.
Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt, for
here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what
though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is said, “Many a
man knows no end of his goods.” Right. Many a man has good horns and knows no
end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; ’tis none of his own getting.
Horns? Even so. Poor men alone? No, no, the noblest deer hath them as huge as
the rascal. Is the single man therefore blessed? No. As a walled town is more
worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable
than the bare brow of a bachelor. And by how much defence is better than no
skill, by so much is horn more precious than to want.
Enter Sir Oliver Martext.
Here comes Sir Oliver. Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met. Will you dispatch
us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel?
MARTEXT.
Is there none here to give the woman?
TOUCHSTONE.
I will not take her on gift of any man.
MARTEXT.
Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.
JAQUES.
[Coming forward.] Proceed, proceed. I’ll give her.
TOUCHSTONE.
Good even, good Master What-ye-call’t, how do you, sir? You are very well
met. God ’ild you for your last company. I am very glad to see you. Even a toy
in hand here, sir. Nay, pray be covered.
JAQUES.
Will you be married, motley?
TOUCHSTONE.
As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so
man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.
JAQUES.
And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush like a
beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what
marriage is. This fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then
one of you will prove a shrunk panel, and like green timber, warp, warp.
TOUCHSTONE.
[Aside.] I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of
another, for he is not like to marry me well, and not being well married, it
will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife.
JAQUES.
Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.
TOUCHSTONE.
Come, sweet Audrey. We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.
Farewell, good Master Oliver. Not
O sweet Oliver,
O brave Oliver,
Leave me not behind thee.
But
Wind away,—
Begone, I say,
I will not to wedding with thee.
[Exeunt Touchstone, Audrey and
Jaques.]
MARTEXT.
’Tis no matter. Ne’er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my
calling.
[Exit.]
SCENE IV. Another part of the Forest. Before a Cottage
Enter Rosalind and
Celia.
ROSALIND.
Never talk to me, I will weep.
CELIA.
Do, I prithee, but yet have the grace to consider that tears do not become a
man.
ROSALIND.
But have I not cause to weep?
CELIA.
As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.
ROSALIND.
His very hair is of the dissembling colour.
CELIA.
Something browner than Judas’s. Marry, his kisses are Judas’s own children.
ROSALIND.
I’ faith, his hair is of a good colour.
CELIA.
An excellent colour. Your chestnut was ever the only colour.
ROSALIND.
And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.
CELIA.
He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana. A nun of winter’s sisterhood
kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them.
ROSALIND.
But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not?
CELIA.
Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.
ROSALIND.
Do you think so?
CELIA.
Yes. I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer, but for his verity in
love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet or a worm-eaten nut.
ROSALIND.
Not true in love?
CELIA.
Yes, when he is in, but I think he is not in.
ROSALIND.
You have heard him swear downright he was.
CELIA.
“Was” is not “is”. Besides, the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of
a tapster. They are both the confirmer of false reckonings. He attends here in
the forest on the Duke your father.
ROSALIND.
I met the Duke yesterday, and had much question with him. He asked me of what
parentage I was. I told him, of as good as he, so he laughed and let me go. But
what talk we of fathers when there is such a man as Orlando?
CELIA.
O, that’s a brave man! He writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave
oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover,
as a puny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a
noble goose. But all’s brave that youth mounts and folly guides. Who comes
here?
Enter Corin.
CORIN.
Mistress and master, you have oft enquired
After the shepherd that complained of love,
Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
That was his mistress.
CELIA.
Well, and what of him?
CORIN.
If you will see a pageant truly played
Between the pale complexion of true love
And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,
Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you,
If you will mark it.
ROSALIND.
O, come, let us remove.
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
I’ll prove a busy actor in their play.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE V. Another part of the Forest
Enter Silvius and
Phoebe.
SILVIUS.
Sweet Phoebe, do not scorn me, do not, Phoebe.
Say that you love me not, but say not so
In bitterness. The common executioner,
Whose heart th’ accustomed sight of death makes hard,
Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
But first begs pardon. Will you sterner be
Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?
Enter Rosalind, Celia and
Corin, at a distance.
PHOEBE.
I would not be thy executioner;
I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.
Thou tell’st me there is murder in mine eye.
’Tis pretty, sure, and very probable
That eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
Should be called tyrants, butchers, murderers.
Now I do frown on thee with all my heart,
And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.
Now counterfeit to swoon; why, now fall down;
Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.
Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee.
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,
The cicatrice and capable impressure
Thy palm some moment keeps. But now mine eyes,
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;
Nor I am sure there is not force in eyes
That can do hurt.
SILVIUS.
O dear Phoebe,
If ever—as that ever may be near—
You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
Then shall you know the wounds invisible
That love’s keen arrows make.
PHOEBE.
But till that time
Come not thou near me. And when that time comes,
Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not,
As till that time I shall not pity thee.
ROSALIND.
[Advancing.] And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother,
That you insult, exult, and all at once,
Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty—
As, by my faith, I see no more in you
Than without candle may go dark to bed—
Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
I see no more in you than in the ordinary
Of nature’s sale-work. ’Od’s my little life,
I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it.
’Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,
That can entame my spirits to your worship.
You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?
You are a thousand times a properer man
Than she a woman. ’Tis such fools as you
That makes the world full of ill-favoured children.
’Tis not her glass but you that flatters her,
And out of you she sees herself more proper
Than any of her lineaments can show her.
But, mistress, know yourself; down on your knees,
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love.
For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.
Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;
Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.
PHOEBE.
Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together!
I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.
ROSALIND.
He’s fall’n in love with your foulness, and she’ll fall in love with my anger.
If it be so, as fast as she answers thee with frowning looks, I’ll sauce her
with bitter words. Why look you so upon me?
PHOEBE.
For no ill will I bear you.
ROSALIND.
I pray you do not fall in love with me,
For I am falser than vows made in wine.
Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,
’Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.
Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.
Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,
And be not proud. Though all the world could see,
None could be so abused in sight as he.
Come, to our flock.
[Exeunt Rosalind, Celia and
Corin.]
PHOEBE.
Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might:
“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”
SILVIUS.
Sweet Phoebe—
PHOEBE.
Ha, what sayst thou, Silvius?
SILVIUS.
Sweet Phoebe, pity me.
PHOEBE.
Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.
SILVIUS.
Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.
If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
By giving love your sorrow and my grief
Were both extermined.
PHOEBE.
Thou hast my love. Is not that neighbourly?
SILVIUS.
I would have you.
PHOEBE.
Why, that were covetousness.
Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;
And yet it is not that I bear thee love;
But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,
I will endure, and I’ll employ thee too.
But do not look for further recompense
Than thine own gladness that thou art employed.
SILVIUS.
So holy and so perfect is my love,
And I in such a poverty of grace,
That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
To glean the broken ears after the man
That the main harvest reaps. Loose now and then
A scattered smile, and that I’ll live upon.
PHOEBE.
Know’st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?
SILVIUS.
Not very well, but I have met him oft,
And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds
That the old carlot once was master of.
PHOEBE.
Think not I love him, though I ask for him.
’Tis but a peevish boy—yet he talks well.
But what care I for words? Yet words do well
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
It is a pretty youth—not very pretty—
But sure he’s proud, and yet his pride becomes him.
He’ll make a proper man. The best thing in him
Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
He is not very tall, yet for his years he’s tall;
His leg is but so-so, and yet ’tis well.
There was a pretty redness in his lip,
A little riper and more lusty red
Than that mixed in his cheek. ’Twas just the difference
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.
There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him
In parcels as I did, would have gone near
To fall in love with him; but for my part
I love him not nor hate him not; and yet
I have more cause to hate him than to love him.
For what had he to do to chide at me?
He said mine eyes were black and my hair black,
And now I am remembered, scorned at me.
I marvel why I answered not again.
But that’s all one: omittance is no quittance.
I’ll write to him a very taunting letter,
And thou shalt bear it. Wilt thou, Silvius?
SILVIUS.
Phoebe, with all my heart.
PHOEBE.
I’ll write it straight,
The matter’s in my head and in my heart.
I will be bitter with him and passing short.
Go with me, Silvius.
[Exeunt.]