 as you like it, by William Shakespeare. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dramatis Personi Duke Sr. Read by Hevid Duke Frederick Read by Chugosh Amiens Read by Cecilia Pryor Jayquiz Read by Elizabeth Clatt Lobo Read by Simon Lauer Charles Read by Leon Meyer Oliver Read by Larissa Jaworski Jayquiz De Bois Read by David Lawrence Part of Orlando Read by M.B. Adam Read by Brian Edwards Dennis Read by Ross Clement Touchdown, played by Mark Smith Lines for Sir Oliver Marr Text Read by Aaron Elliott St. Louis, Missouri Corrin Read by Cibela Denton Part of Silvius Read by David Nickel William Read by Ernst Patinama Hyman Read by Lorelle Anderson The part of Rosland Read by Roslyn Wells Celia Read by Philippa Phoebe Read by Charlene V. Smith Audrey Read by Mindy H First Lord Read by Adnan Mirza Second Lord Read by David Lawrence First Page Read by Ruth Golding Second Page Read by David O'Connell The Forester Played by Jacqueline Stage Directions End of Dramatist Personi Act I of As You Like It This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org As You Like It by William Shakespeare Act I Scene I, Orchard of Oliver's House Orlando and Adam As I remember Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeath me by will but pour a thousand crowns. And, as thou sayest, charged my brother on his blessing to breed me well, and there begins my sadness. My brother Jake was he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his prophet. 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 a locks? His horses are bred better, for besides that they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their mnage, and to that end, riders dearly hired. But I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth, for the which his animals on his dung-hills 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 to avoid it. Yonder comes my master, your brother. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up. Enter Oliver. Now, sir, what make you here? Nothing. I am not taught to make anything. What mar you then, sir? Mary, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor, unworthy brother of yours, with idleness. Mary, sir, and be better employed and be nought a while. Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion have I spent to come to such peddury? Know you where you are, sir? Oh, very well, sir, herein you're orchard. Know you before whom, sir? I, better than him I am before, know 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 where 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. What, boy? Come, come, Elder Brother, you are too young in this. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain? I am no villain. I am the youngest son of Sir Roland de Bois. He was my father, and he is thrice a villain that says such a father begot villains. Wilt thou not, my brother, I would not take this hand from my throat till this other had pulled out thy tongue for saying so. Thou hast railed on thyself. Sweet Masters, be patient, for your father's remembrance be at accord. Let me go, I say! 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 gentlemen 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 allotry my father left me by testament. With that, I will go by my fortunes. 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. I will no further offend you than becomes me for my good. Get you with him, you old dog! 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. Is it even so, begin you to grow upon me, I will physic your rankness and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Hala, Dennis! Enter Dennis. Called you a worship? Was not Charles the Duke's wrestler here to speak with me? So please you, he is here at the door and in Petune's access to you. Call him in. Exeunt Dennis. Twill be a good way, and tomorrow the wrestling is. Enter Charles. Good morrow to your worship. Good Monsieur Charles, what's the news at the new court? 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 enriched the new Duke. Therefore he gives them good leave to wander. Can you tell if Rosalind the Duke's daughter be banished with her father? Oh, 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. Where will the old Duke live? They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and 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. What? You wrestle tomorrow before the new Duke? Merry do I, sir, and I came to acquaint you with the matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand, that your younger brother Orlando had the dispossession to come in disguised against me to try a fall. Tomorrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit, and he that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well. Your brother is but young and tender, and, for your love, I would be loath to foil him, as I must for my own honour, if he come in. Therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint you with all, that either you might stay him from his intendement, 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. Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my brother's purpose herein, and have by underhand means laboured to dissuade him from it, but he is resolute. I'll tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full of ambition, an envious emulator of every man's good parts. A secret and villainous contriver against me, his natural brother. Therefore use thy discretion. I had as leaf thou didst break his neck as his finger, and thou wert best look to it. 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 tain thy life by some indirect means or other. For I assure thee, and almost with tears I speak, there is not one so young and so villainous this day living. I speak but brotherly of him, but should I anatomise him to thee as he is, I must blush and weep, and thou must look pale and wonder. 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. Farewell, good Charles. Exit Charles. Now will I stir this game-star. 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 of 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. Scene two, long before the Duke's Palace. Enter Celia and Rosalind. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my cars, be merry. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of, and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you can teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure. 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 was thou if the truth of thy love to me was so righteously tempered as mine is to thee. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate to rejoice in yours. 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. From henceforth I will, cause, and devise sports. Let me see, what think you of falling in love? Marry, I pretty do, to make sport with all. But love no man in good earnest, nor no further in sport, neither, than with safety of a pure blush, thou must in honour come off again. What shall be our sport, then? Let us sit and mock the good hath of fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally. 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. True, for those that she makes fair, she scarce makes honest, and those that she makes honest, she makes very ill favouredly. 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. 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. Indeed, there is fortune too hard for nature. When fortune makes nature's natural, the cutter off of nature's wit. For adventure this is not fortune's work, neither, but nature's, who perceives our natural wit too dull to reason of such goddesses, and has sent this natural for our whetstone. For always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How now, wit, where the wonder you? Mistress, you must come away to your father. Were you made the messenger? No, by my honor, but I was bid to come for you. Where learned you that, O fool? Of a certain night that swore by his honor they were good pancakes, and swore by his honor the mustard was not. Now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were not and the mustard was good, and yet was not the night foresworn. I'll prove you that in the great heap of your knowledge. I, Mary, now unmuzzle your wisdom. Stand you both forth now, stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a nave. By our beards, if we had them, thou art. By my navery, if I had it, then I were. But if you swear by that that is not, you were not foresworn? No more was this night swearing by his honor, for he never had any, or if he had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard. Pretty who is that dameanest? One that old Frederick your father loves. My father's love is enough to honor him, enough. Speak no more of him. You'll be whipped for taxation one of these days. The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly. By my truth thou saest 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. With his mouth full of news. Which he will put upon us as pigeons feed their young. Then shall we be news-crammed? All the better we shall be the more marketable. Enter Le Beau. Bonjour Monsieur Le Beau, what's the news? Fair Princess, you have lost much good sport. Sport? Of what color? What color, madam? How shall I answer you? As wit and fortune will. Or as the destinies decree? Well said. That was laid on with a trowel. Nay, if I keep not my rank. Thou loosest thy old smell. You amaze me, ladies. I would have told you of good wrestling which you have lost the sight of. You tell us the manner of the wrestling. 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. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried. There comes an old man and his three sons. I could match this beginning with an old tale. Three proper young men of excellent growth and presence. With bills on their necks. Be it known unto all men by these presence. 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. Alas! But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have lost? Why, this that I speak of. Thus men may grow wiser every day. It is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies. Or I, I promise thee. 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? You must if you stay here, for here is the place appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it. Yonder, sure they are coming. Let us now stay and see it. Flourish. Enter Duke Frederick, lords, Orlando, Charles, and attendance. Come on, since the youth will not be entreated, his own peril on his forwardness. Is Yonder the man? Even he, madam. Alas! he is too young. Yet he looks successfully. How now, daughter and cousin, are you crept hither to see the wrestling? I, my liege, so please you give us leave. 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 feign dissuade him, but he will not be entreated. Speak to him, ladies, see if you can move him. Call him hither, good Monsieur Lebeau. Do so, I'll not be by. Monsieur the challenger, the princesses called for you. I attend them with all respect and duty. Young men, have you challenged Charles, the wrestler? No, fair princess. He is the general challenger I come but in, as others do, to try him with the strength of my youth. Young gentlemen, 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. Do, young sir, your reputation shall not therefore be misprized. We will make it our suit to the duke that the wrestling might not go forward. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts. Wherein I confess me much guilty to deny so fair and excellent ladies anything. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial. Wherein, if I be foiled, there is but one shamed that was never gracious. If killed, but one dead that 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. The little strength that I have, I would it were with you. And mine to eke out hers. Fare you well. Pray heaven I be deceived in you. Your heart's desires be with you. Come, where is this young galanche that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth? Yes, sir, but his will hath in it a more modest working. You shall try but one fall. No, I warrant your grace. You shall not entreat him to a second. That have so mightily persuaded him from a first. And you mean to mock me after. You should not have mocked me before. But come your ways. Now, Hercules, be thy speed, young man. I would I were invisible to catch the strong fellow by the leg. They wrestle. Oh, excellent, young man. If I had a thunderbolt in my eye I can tell who should down. Shout. Charles is thrown. No more, no more. Yes, I beseech your grace. I am not yet well breathed. How dost thou, Charles? He cannot speak, my lord. Bear him away. What is thy name, young man? Orlando, my liege. The youngest son of Sir Roland de Bois. I would thou hadst been son to some man else. The world esteemed thy father honourable, but I did find him still mine enemy. Thou shouldst have better pleased me with this deed hadst thou descended from another house. But fare thee well, thou art a gallant youth, I would thou hadst told me of another father. Exeunt Duke Frederick, Trayne, and Loboe. Well, I, my father, cause would I do this? I am more proud to be Sir Roland's son, his youngest son, and would not change that calling to be adopted heir to Frederick. 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 adventured. 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. Gentlemen. 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, cause? Aye, fare you well, fare gentlemen. Can I not say I thank you? Ah, my better parts are all thrown down, and that which here stands up is but a quintane, a mere lifeless block. 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. Will you go, cause? Have with you. Fare you well. Exiant, Rosalind and Celia. What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue. I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference. Oh, poor Orlando, thou art overthrown. Or Charles, or something weaker, masters thee. Re-enter, LeBeau. 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. 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? Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners, but yet indeed the lesser is his daughter, the other is daughter to the banished duke, and here detained by her usurping uncle to keep his daughter company, whose loves are dearer than the natural bond of sisters. But I can tell you that of late this duke hath tain displeasure against 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 against 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. I rest much bound into you. Fare you well. Exit Lobo. Thus must I from the smoke into the smother, from tyrant duke unto a tyrant brother. But heavenly Rosalind. Exit. Scene three, a room in the palace. Enter Celia and Rosalind. Why cousin? Why Rosalind? Cupid have mercy, not a word. Not one to throw at a dog. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curse. Throw some of them at me, come, lame me with reasons. Then there were two cousins laid up, when the one should be lame with reasons and the other mad without any. But is all this for your father? No, some of it is for my child's father. Oh, how full of briars is this working-day world. They are but burrs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery. If we walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats will catch them. I could shake them off my coat, these burrs are in my heart. Hem them away. I would try if I could cry, hem, and have him. Come, come, wrestle with thy affections. Oh, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself. Oh, 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 Roland's youngest son? The duke my father loved his father dearly. Duff 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. No, Faith, hate him not for my sake. Why should I not? Duff he not deserve well? Let me love him for that, and do you love him because I do. Look, here comes the duke. With his eyes full of anger. Enter Duke Frederick, with lords. Mistress dispatch you with your safest haste and get you from our court. Me, uncle? You, cousin, within these ten days, if that thou beest found so near our public court as twenty miles, thou dyest for it. 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 my 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. 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. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor. Tell me whereon the likelihood depends. Thou art thy father's daughter. There's enough. So was I when your highness took his dukedom. So was I when your highness banished him. Treason is not inherited, my lord. Or if we did derive it from our friends, what's that to me? My father was no traitor. And good my liege, mistake me not so much to think my poverty is treacherous. Dear sovereign, hear me speak. I, Celia, we stayed her for your sake. Else had she with her father ranged along. 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, earned, played, ate together. And where so are we went, like Juneau's swarms, still we went coupled and inseparable. 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 sure more bright and seem more virtuous when she is gone. Then open not thy lips firm and irrevocable is my doom which I have passed upon her. She is banished. Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege. I cannot live out of her company. 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. Exiant Duke Frederick and Lords. O my poor Rosalind, wither wilt thou go. Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine. I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am. I have more cause. Thou hast not, cousin. Prithee, be cheerful. Knows thou not that Duke hath banished me, his daughter? That he hath not. No, hath not. Rosalind lacks then the love which teacheth thee that thou and I am one. Shall we be sundered? Shall we part, sweet girl? No, let my father seek another heir. Therefore divide with me how we may fly, wither 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. Why, wither shall we go? To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden. Alas, what danger will it be to us? Mades as we are to travel forth so far? Beauty provokes thieves sooner than gold. 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. Were it not better, because that I am more than common tall, that I did suit me all points like a man? A gallant curdle acts upon my thigh, a boar spear in my hand, and in my heart lie there what hidden women's fear their will will have a swashing and a marshal outside, as many other mannish cowards have that do outface it with their semblances. And what shall I call thee when thou art a man? I'll have no worse a name than Jov's own page, and therefore look you call me Ganymede. But what will you be called? Something that hath a reference to my state. No longer Celia, but Aliana. But, cousin, what if we are saved to steal the clownish fool out of your father's court? Would he not be a comfort to our travel? He'll go along all 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 pursuits that will be made after my flight. Now go we in content to liberty and not to banishment. Exient. End of Act 1 Act 2 of As You Like It This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. As You Like It by William Shakespeare Act 2 Scene 1, The Forest of Arden Enter Duke Sr., Amiens, and two or three lords like foresters. Now my comates 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 season's difference, as the icy fang and churlish chiding of the winter's wind, which, when it bites and blows upon my body, even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say, This is no flattery, these are counsellors that feelingly persuade me what I am. Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head, and this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it. Happy is your grace, that can translate the stubbornness of fortune into so quiet and so sweet a style. Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools being native burgers of this desert city, sureed in their own confines with forked heads, have their round haunches gored. Indeed, my lord, the metal collage equestrives at that, and in that conswares you do more unsurp than doth your brother that hath punished you. Today, my lord of Amiens and myself did steal behind him as he lay along, under an wagon whose antique root peeps out, upon the brook that brawls along this wood. To the which place a poor squastered stack, that from the hunter's aim had thane a heart, did come to languish and indeed, my lord, the rest animal heaved forth such crumbs, that their discharge did stretch his lather and coat, almost to bursting, and the big round tears caused one another town his innocent nose, in piteous chase, and thus the fairy-fool much marked of the metal collage equestrives stood on the extremist verge of the swift brook augmenting it with tears. But what said equestrives? Did he not moralize this spectacle? Oh, yes, into a thousand smiles, first for his weeping into the needless stream, he cast a testament, as whirlings do, giving thysome of more to that which had too much. Then, being there alone, left and abandoned of his wablet friends, this ride, caught he, thus misery doth part, the flux of company, and own a careless hair, full of pasture jumps along by him, and never stays to greet him, a, caught, j-queer, sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens, this just the fashion. Therefore, do you look upon that poor mancrop there? Thus most invectively he peased through, the body of the country, city, court, yea, and of this our life, swearing that we are mere unsurpros-tyrants and words-wards to fright the animals and to kill them up in the resigned and native-dewelling place. And did you leave him in this contemplation? We did, my lord, weeping and commenting upon the sobbing deer. Show me the place I love to cope him in these sullen fits, for then he's of matter. I will bring you to him straight. Exiant. Seen to, a room in the palace. Enter Duke Frederick with lords. Can it be possible that no man saw them? It cannot be. Some villains of my court are of consent and sufferance in this. I cannot hear of any that did see her. The ladies, her attendants, of her chamber saw her a bed, and in the morning early they found the bed untrayer of their mistress. My lord, the roinish clown, at whom so often your grace was want to laugh, is also missing. Hisperia, the prince's gentle-woman, confesses that she secretly or heard 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. Send to his brother, fetch that talent hither, if he be absent bring his brother to me. I'll make him find him. Do this suddenly, and let not search an inquisition quail to bring again these foolish runaways. Exient. Seen three, before Oliver's house. Enter Orlando and Adam, meeting. Who's there? What, my young master? O my gentle master? O my sweet master? O your memory of old Sir Roland? 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 prizes of the humorous Duke? Your praises come to 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 virtuous gentle master, a rectified and holy traitor's to you. O what a world is this when what is cumbly and venoms him that bears it. Why, what's the matter? O unhappy youth, come not within these doors, within this roof, the enemy of all your graces lives, your brother. No, not your brother. Yet the son, yet not the son. I will not call him son of him I was about to call his father. Have heard your praises, and this night he means to burn the lodging where he used to lie and you within it, if you fail at that he will have other means to cut you off. I overheard him and his practices. This is no place. This house is but a butchery. Abhor it, fear it and do not enter. Why, wither Adam would still have me go. No matter wither, so you do not come here. What would still have me go to my food, or with a base and boisterous sword and force a thievery 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. 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 and unregarded age in corners thrown. Take that, and he that doth the raisins feed, yea providently caters for the sparrow, be comfort to my age. Here is the gold, all this I give you. Let me be your servant, though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty, for in my youth I never did apply hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, nor did with unbashful forehead woo the means of weakness and ability. Therefore my age is as 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. O good old man, how well in thee appears the constant service of the antique world when service sweat for duty, not for mead. Thou art not for the fashion of these times, where none will sweat but for promotion, and having that you 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, we'll go along together, and ere we have thy youthful wages spent, we'll light upon some settled, low content. Master go on, and I will follow thee to the last till now almost forescore. Here live, die, but now live here no more. At seventeen years many their fortunes seek, but at forescore it is too late a week. Yet fortune cannot recompense me better than to die well and not my master's debtor. Exeant. Scene four, the forest of Arden. Enter Rosalind for Ganymede, Celia for Helena, and Touchstone. Oh, Jupiter, how weary are my spirits. I care not for my spirits if my legs were not weary. I could find it in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel and 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. I pray you bear with me, I cannot go no further. You then bear you. Yet I should bear no cross if I did bear you, for I think you have no money on your purse. Well, this is the forest of Arden. Ah, 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. I'd be so good, Touchstone. Enter Coran and Sylveus. Look you who comes here, a young man in an old house. That is the way to make her scorn you still. Oh, Coran, that thou used how I do, lover. I partly guess, for I've loved ere now. No, Coran, be an old, thou canst not guess. Though in thy youth thou was as true a lover as ever sighed upon a midnight pillow. But if thy love were ever like to mine, as sure I think did never man love so, how many actions most ridiculous into a thousand that I have forgotten? Oh, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily. If thou rememberest not the slightest folly that ever loved did make me run into, thou hast not loved. Or if thou hast not sat as I do now, wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise, thou has not loved. Or if thou hast not broke from company abruptly as my passion now makes me, thou has not loved. Oh, Phoebe! Phoebe! Phoebe! Exit. A last poor shepherd. Searching of thy wound I have by heart adventure found mine own. 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 James' smile. And I remember the kissing of her batlet and the cow's dugs that her pretty chopped hands had milked. And I remember the wooing of a peace-cod 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. Thou speaks'd wiser than thou art aware of. Nay, I shall never be aware of mine own wit till I break my shins against it. Jove, jove, this shepherd's passion is much upon my fashion. And mine, but it grows something stale with me. I pray you, one of you question young man if he for gold will give us any food. I faint almost to death. Whole are you clown? Peaceful? He's not thy kinsman. Who calls? You're better, sir. Else they are very wretched. Peace, I say. Good even to your friend. And to you, gentle sir, and to you all. I, prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold can in this desert place by entertainment, bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed. Here's a young maid with travel much oppressed and faints for sucker. 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 share the fleeces that I graze. My master is of churless disposition and little wrecks do find the doing deeds of hospitality. Besides, his coat, his flocks and bounds of feed are now on sale and at our sheepcoat now. By reason of his absence there is nothing that she will feed on. But what is, come see, and in my voice most welcome shall you be. What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture? That young swain that you saw here but ere while, that little care is for buying anything. I pray thee, if it stand with honesty, buy thou the cottage and the flock, and thou shalt have to pay for it of us. And we will mend thy wages. I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it. 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. Exient. Scene five. The forest. Under Amiens, Jaquise and others. Song. Under the green wood tree Who loves to lie with me and turn his merry note Unto the sweet birch throat Come hither, come hither, come hither Here shall he see no enemy but winter and rough weather. More. More, I prithee more. It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaquise. I thank it. More. I prithee more. I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs. More. I prithee more. My voice is ragged. I know I cannot please you. I do not desire you to please me. I do desire you to sing. Come, more. Another stanzo. Call you him stanzos. What you will, Monsieur Jaquise. Nay, I care not for their names. They owe me nothing. Will you sing? More at your request than to please myself. Well then, if I ever 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. Well, I'll end the song. Sirs cover the while the Duke will drink under this tree. He hath been all day to look you. 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, all together here. Who doth ambition shun and loves to live in 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. I'll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in despite of my invention. And I'll sing it. Thus it goes. If it do come to pass, that any man turn ass, leaving his wealth and ease a stubborn will to please. Duke dame, Duke dame, Duke dame. Here shall he see gross fools as he, and if he will come to me. What's that Duke dame? It is 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. And I'll go seek the Duke. His banquet is prepared. Exiant severally. Scene six, the forest. Enter Orlando and Adam. Dear master, I can go no further, or I'd die for food. Here lie I down and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master. Why, how now, Adam? No greater heart in thee? Well, comfort a little. Cheer thyself a little. If this uncouth forest yield anything savage, I will either be food for it, or bring it for food to thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy powers. For my sake be comfortable. Hold death awhile at the arm's end. I will hear thee 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 labor. Well said, thou looks 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 thou live anything in this desert. Cheerly, good Adam. Exiant. Scene seven, the forest. A table set out. Enter Duke Sr., Amiens, and lords like outlaws. I think he be transformed into a beast, for I can nowhere find him like a man. My lord, he is but even now gone hence. Here was he merry, hearing of a song. 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 Jake Weas. He saves my labor by his own approach. Why, how now, monsieur, what a life is this that your poor friends must woo your company. What, you look merrily? A fool! A fool! I met a fool of the forest. A motley fool, a miserable world. As I do live by food, I met a fool who laid him down and basked him in the sun and railed on Lady Fortune in good terms, in good set terms, and yet a motley fool. Good morrow fool, quote I. No, sir, quote he. Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune. And then he drew a dial from his poke, and looking at it with lackluster eye, says very wisely, it is ten o'clock. Thus we may see, quote he, how the world wags. Tis but an hour ago, since it was nine, and after one hour more it will 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 fool 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 where. What fool is this? O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier, and says, if ladies be but young and fair, they have the gift to know it, and in his brain, which is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage, he hath strange places crammed with observation, the which he vents in mangled forms, oh, that I were a fool! I am ambitious for a motley coat. Thou shalt have one. 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 with all, 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 perish 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. Fine thee, I can tell what thou wouldst do. What, for a counter, would I do but good? 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 license of free foot hast caught wouldst thou disgorge into the general world? Why, who cries out on pride that can bear in tax any private party? Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea, tell 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, not a one as she such as 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 metal of my speech? There, then, how, then, what, then? Let me see wherein my tongue hath wronged him. If it do him right, then he hath wronged himself. If he be free, why, then, my taxing like a wild goose flies, unclaimed of any man? Who comes here? Enter Orlando with a sword drawn. For bear and eat no more. Why, I have eat none yet. Nor shout not till necessity be served. Of what kind should this cock come of? Art thou thus boldened man by thy distress, or else a rude despiser of good manners, that in civility thou seems so empty? You touched my vein at first. The thorny point of bear distress obtained from me the show of smooth civility. Yet a my inland bread and no some nurture. But for bear, I say, he dies that touches any of this fruit till I and my affairs are answered. Then you will not be answered with reason. I must die. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to gentleness. I almost die for food. Let me have it. Sit down and feed and welcome to our table. 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 what ere you art, that in this desert inaccessible under the shade of melancholy boughs lose and neglect the creeping hours of time, if ever you have looked on better days, if ever been where bells have knelt to church, if ever sat at any good man's feast, if ever from your eyelids wiped a tear, and know what tears to pity and be pitied, let gentleness my strong enforcement be in the which hope I blush and hide my sword. True is it that we have seen better days and have with holy bell been knelt to church, and sat at good men's feasts and wiped our eyes of drops that sacred pity hath engendered, and therefore sit you down in gentleness and take upon command what help we have that to your wanting may be ministered. Then but forebear your food a little while, while as like a doe I go to find my fawn and give it food. There is an old poor man who after me hath many a weary step limped in pure love. Till he be first sufficed, oppressed with two weak evils age in hunger, I will not touch a bit. Go find him out, and we will nothing waste till you return. I thank ye, and be blessed for your good comfort. Exit. Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy. This wide and universal theatre presents more woeful pageants than the scene wherein we play in. All the worlds 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, mulling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like a furnace with a woeful ballad made to his mistress's 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 cape on-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 tempered 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 towards 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. Welcome. Set down your venerable burden and let him feed. I thank you most for him. So had you need, I best can speak to thank you for myself. Welcome, fall too. I will not trouble you as yet to question you about your fortunes. Give us some music and good cousin sing. Song. Blow, blow thou winter's wind, thou art not so unkind, 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, although thy breath be rude, then hey ho, sing hey ho unto the green holly. Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. Then hey ho, the holly, this life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, thou dost not bite so nigh, thou dost not bite so nigh, as benefits forgot. Though thou the waters warped, thy sting is not so sharp as friends remembered not, as friends remembered not. Then hey ho, sing hey ho unto the green holly. Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. Then hey ho, the holly, this life is most jolly. If that you were the good Sir Roland's son, as you have whispered faithfully you were, and as mine I doth his effigies witness, most truly limbed 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, O 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. Exeant. End of Act II. Act III. Of As You Like It. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. As You Like It. By William Shakespeare. Act III. Scene I. A Room in the Palace. Enter Duke Frederick, Lords, and Oliver. 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, where so ere he is. Seek him with a candle, bring him dead or living within this twelve month, or turn now no more to seek a living in our territory. And let the lands and all things that thou dost call thine worth seizure do ye seize into our hands, till thou canst quit thee by thy brother's mouth of what we think against thee. O, that your Highness knew my heart in this, I have never loved my brother in my life. 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. Exeant. Seen to, the forest. Enter Orlando with a paper. 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 dost sway. O Rosalind! These trees shall be my books, and in their barks my thoughts all 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. Exeant. Enter Corrin in touchstone. And how like you this shepherd's life, master touchstone? Truly shepherd, in respect of itself it is a good life, but in respect that it is a shepherd's life it is not. 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? 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 too 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. Such a one is a natural philosopher. Was Deverin court shepherd? No, truly. Then thou art damned. Nay, I hope. Truly thou art damned like an ill-roasted egg all on one side. For not being at court? Your reason. Why, if thou never watched at court, thou never sawest good manners. If thou never sawest good manners, then thy matters must be wicked, and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd. Not a wit, 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. Instance, briefly. Come. Instance. Why, we are still handling our use, and there fells, you know, are greasy. Why do not your courtiers' 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. Besides, our hands are hard. Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again. A more sounder instance. Come. And they are often tarred over with the sugary of our sheep. And would you have us kiss tar? The courtiers' hands are perfumed with civet. Most shallow man. Thou worms meet in respect of a good piece of flesh indeed. Learn of the wise and prepend. Civet is of a baser berth than tar. The very uncleanly flux of a cat. Men, the instance, shepherd. You have too courtly a wit for me. I'll rest. Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man. God makes incision in thee. Thou art raw. Sir, I am a true laborer. I earn that I eat. Get that I wear. Oh, 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, greys, and my lambs suck. 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 barred to a bell-weather, and to betray a she-lam of a twelve-month to a crooked-painted old cuckoldy 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 escape. Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother. Enter Rosalind with a paper reading. From the east to western end, 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. Now rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours accepted. It is the right butter-women's rank to mark it. Outfall! For a taste? If a heart 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 has sourest rind, such a nut is Rosalind. She 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? Peace, you dull fool, I found them on a tree. Truly the tree yields bad fruit. I'll graft it with you, and then I shall graft it with a medlar. And then it will be the earliest fruit of the country. For you'll be rotten ere you be half-ripe, and that's the right virtue of a medlar. You have said, but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge. Intercelia with a writing. Peace, here comes my sister reading. Stand aside. Read. 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 earring pilgrimage, that the stretching of a span buckles in his sum of age. Some of violated vows twix souls of friend and friend. But upon the fairest vows, 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 charge 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 touch's dearest prized. Heaven would that she these gifts should have, And I to live and die her slave. Oh, most gentle pulpitor, what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners with all and never cried. Patience, good people! How now? Back, friends. Shepherd go off a little. Go with him, sirrah. Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat, though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scripage. Exiant corn and touchstone. Didst thou hear these verses? Oh, yes, I heard them all, and more too, for some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear. That's no matter the feet might bear the verses. I, but the feet were lame and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse. But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be hanged and carved upon these trees? 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 bereigned since Pythagoras's time that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember. Trou, you who have done this. Is it a man? And a chain that you once wore about his neck. Change you colour. I prithee who? Oh, Lord, Lord, it is a hard matter for friends to meet, but mountains may be removed with earthquakes and so encounter. Nay, but who is it? Is it possible? Nay, I prithee now the most petitionary vehemence. Tell me who it is. Oh, wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful, wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all hooping. Good my complexion, dost thou think, though I am comparison'd 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 it is quickly and speak a pace. I would thou could stammer that thou might pour this concealed man out of thy mouth as wine comes out of a narrow mouth 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. So you may put a man in your belly. Is he of God's making? What manner of man is his head worth a hat or his chin worth a beard? Nay, he hath but a little beard. Why, God, we'll 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. It is young Orlando that tripped up the wrestler's heels and your heart both in an instant. Nay, but the devil take mocking. Speak sad, brow, and true-made. If faith caused his he. Orlando. Orlando. Alas, the day! What shall I do with my doublet and hose? What did he when thou sawst him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask from me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee and when shall thou see him again? Answer me in one word. You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first. It is a word too great for any mouth of this age's size. To say I and no to these particulars is more than to answer in a catechism. 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. 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. It may well be called jove's tree when it drops forth such fruit. Give me audience, good madam. Proceed. There lay he, stretched along like a wounded knight. Though it be pity to see such a sight it well becomes the ground. Cry holler to thy tongue, I prithee, at curvits unseasonably. He was furnished like a hunter. Oh, ominous! He comes to kill my heart. I would sing my song without a burden. Thou bringest me out of tune. Do not know I am a woman when I think I must speak. Sweet Seon. You bring me out. Soft. Comes he not here? Enter Orlando and J. Queese. It is he. Slink by and note him. I thank you for your company but good faith I had as leaf have been myself alone. And so have I. I said for fashion's sake I thank you too for your society. God be with you. Let's meet as little as we can. I do desire we may be better strangers. I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love songs in their barks. I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly. Rosalind is your love's name? Yes, just. I do not like her name. There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened. What stature is she of? Just as high as my heart. You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with Goldsmith's wives and conned them out of rings? Not so, but I answer you right-painted cloth from whence you have studied your questions. You have a nimble wit. I think it was made of Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me and we too will rail against our mistress the world and all our misery. I will try no breather in the world save myself against whom I know most faults. The worst fault you have is to be in love. It is a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I weary of you. By my truth I was seeking for a fool when I found you. He is drowned in the brook. Look but in, and you shall see him. There I shall see my own figure. Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher. I'll tarry no longer with you. Farewell, good senior love. I am glad of your departure. Adieu, good, Mr. Melancholy. Exit J. Queese. Aside to Celia. I will speak to him like a saucy lackey and under that habit play the nape with him. Do you hear, Forester? Very well. What would you? I pray you. What is the clock? You should ask me what time of day. There is no clock in the forest. 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 the clock. And why not this swift foot of time? Had not that been as proper? By no means, sir. Time travels in diverse paces with diverse persons. I'll tell you who time ambles with all, who time trots with all, who time gallops with all, and who he stands still with all. I pretty. Who does he trot with all? Mary, he trots hard with the young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized. If the interim be but a sudden night, time's pace is so hard it seems the length of seven year. Who ambles time with all? 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 with all. Who doth he gallop with all? With a thief to the gallows. For though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there. Who stays it still with all? With lawyers in the vacation. For they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how time moves. Where dwell you, pretty youth? With this shepherdess, my sister, here on the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat. Are you native of this place? As the coney that you see dwell where she is kindled. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling. 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 with all. Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of women? There were none principal. They were all as like one another as half-pensar. Every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it. I pretty recount some of them. No, I will not cast away my physic but on those who are sick. There is a man haunts this 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. I am he that is so love-shaked. I pray you tell me your remedy. 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. What were his marks? 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 you're having in beard as a younger brother's revenue. Then your hose should be unguarded, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and everything about you creating a careless desolation. But you are no such man, you are rather point-device in your accoutrements as loving yourself and seeming the lover of any other. Fair youth, I wish I could make thee believe. I love. Me believe it. You may as soon make her that you love believe it, which I warrant she is apter to do than confess she does. That is one of the points in 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. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much. 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. Did you ever cure any so? 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 color, would now like him, now loathe him, then entertain him, then forswear him, then weep for him, then spit at him. That I drave my suitor from his mad humor of love to a living humor of madness, which was to forswear the whole stream of the world and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cured him, and this way will I take it upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in it. I would not be cured, youth. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day to my coat and woo me. Now, by the faith of my love, I will tell me where it is. Go with me to it, and I'll show it to you, and by the way you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go? With all my heart, good youth. Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go? Exeant. Scene Three The Forest Enter Touchstone and Audrey Jakey's behind. Come apace, good Audrey. I will fetch up your goat's Audrey. And how, Audrey? Am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature content you? Your features. Lord warrant us. What features? I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, Honest Ovid was, among the Goths. Aside. Home knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove and a thatched house. 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 have made thee poetical. I do not know what poetical is. Is it honest indeed in word? Is it a true thing? 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. Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical? I do, truly, for thou swarest me, thou art honest. Now, if thou were to poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign. Would ye not have me honest? No, truly, unless thou were hard favoured, for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar. Aside. A material fool. Well, I am not fair, and therefore I pray the gods make me honest. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish. I am not a slut. Though I think the gods I am foul. Well, praise be the gods for thy foulness. Slutishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee. And to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martekst, the vicar of the next village, who hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest and to couple us. Aside, I would fame see this meeting. Well, the gods give us joy. 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 buy so much as 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? Is there none here to give the woman? You will not take her on gift of any man. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful. Advancing. Proceed. Proceed, I'll give her. Good even, good master, what do you call it? How do you, sir? You are very well met. God ill do you for your last company. I am very glad to see you. Even a toy in hand here, sir. Nay, pray be covered. Will you be married, motley? As the ox hath his boser, the horse's curb and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires, and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling. 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 wainscut. Then one of you will prove a shrunk panel and, like green timber, warp, warp. 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. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. Come, sweet Audrey, we must be married, or we must live in Bodry. Farewell, good Master Oliver. Not, oh, sweet Oliver, oh, brave Oliver, leave me not behind thee, but wind away, be gone, I say, I will not to wedding with thee. Exit. Touchstone, and Audrey. Tis no matter. Nair a fantastical nave of them all shall flout me out of my calling. Exit. Scene four. Forest. Enter Rosalind and Celia. Never talk to me, I will weep. Do, I prithee, but yet have the grace to consider that tears do not become a man. But have I not caused to weep? As good a cause as one would desire, therefore weep. His very hair is of the dissembling colour. Something browner than Judas' marry his kisses are Judas' own children. If faith his hair is of a good colour. An excellent colour. Your chestnut was ever the only colour. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread. He have 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. But why did he swear he would come this morning and comes not? Nay, certainly there is no truth in him. Do you think so? Yes. I think he is not a pick-person or a horse-stealer. But for his verity in love do you think him as concave as a covered goblet or a worm-eater-nut? Not true in love? Yes, when he is in. But I think he is not in. You have heard him swear downright he was. 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. 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 have fathers when there is such a man as Orlando? Oh, that's a brave man. He writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely quite traverse a thought to 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 Corrin. Mistress and master, you have often quiet after the shepherd that complained of love, who you saw by me sitting on the turf praising the proud, disdainful shepherdess that was his mistress. Well, and what of him? 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. Oh, come, let us remove. The sight of lovers feedeth those in love. Bring us to this site and you shall say I'll prove a busy actor in their play. Exeant. Scene five, another part of the forest. Enter Silveus in Phoebe. Sweet Phoebe, do not score me. Do not, Phoebe. Say that you love me not, but say not so in bitterness. The common executioner, whose heart the accustomed sight of death makes hard, falls not the axe upon the humble neck, but first begs pardon. Will you stern a bee, then he that dies and lives by bloody drops? Enter Rosalind, Celia and Corrin behind. I would not be thy executioner. I fly thee, for I would not injure thee. Thou tells me there is murder in mine eye. Which is pretty sure and very probable that eyes that are the frailest 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 when thou fall down, or if thou canst not go for shame for shame, lie not to say mine eyes are murderers. Thou 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 cicatris and capable in pressure 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. 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. 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. 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 sail-work. Odds my little life, I think she means to tangle my eyes, too. No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it. It is not your inky brows, your black silk hair, your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream that can entain 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. It is such fools as you that make this world full of ill-favored children. It is 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. Sweet youth, I pray you, chide a year together. I had rather hear you chide than this man woo. 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 saucer with bitter words. Why look you so upon me? For no ill will I bear you. 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, to set 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. Exiant, Rosalind, Celia, and Corrin. Dad, shepherd, now I find thy saw of might. Whoever loved that loved not at first sight. Sweet Phoebe. What says thou, Sylveus? Sweet Phoebe, pity me. Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Sylveus. 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. Thou hast my love is not that neighbourly. I would have you. Why, that were covetousness. Sylveus, 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 irks 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. So holy, and so perfect is my love, and I in such a poverty of grace, that I shall think it a most plentious 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. Knowest now the youth that spoke to me erewhile? Not very well, but I have met him oft, and he had bought the cottage and the bounds that the old carlet once was master of. 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 and pleases those that hear. It is a pretty he, 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 a fence, his eye did heal it up. He's not very tall, yet for his years he's tall. His leg is but so-so, and yet his well. There was a pretty redness in his lip, a little riper and more lusty red than that mixed in his cheek, it was just the difference between the constant red and mingled damask. There be some women, Sylveus, had they marked him in parcels as I did, would have gone near to fall in love with him, but for my part I'd love him not, nor hate him not. And yet I have more cost to hate him than to love him, and what had he to do to chide at me? He said my 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, omittant is no quittance. I'll write to him a very taunting letter, and thou shalt bear it, wilt thou, Sylveus? Febe, with all my heart. I'll write it straight, the matters in my head and in my heart. I will be bitter with him and passing short. Go with me, Sylveus. I'm pretty, pretty youth. Let me be better acquainted with thee. I say you are a melancholy fellow. I am so. I do love it better than laughing. Those that are an extremity of either are abominable fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than drunkards. Why, it is good to be sad and say nothing. Why, then it is good to be a post. I have neither the scholars melancholy, which is emulation, nor the musicians, which is fantastical, nor the courtiers, which is proud, nor the soldiers, which is ambitious, nor the lawyers, which is politic, nor the ladies, which is nice, nor the lovers, which is all these. But it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many symbols, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundries contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness. 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. Why, then, to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands. Yes, I have gained my experience. And your experience makes you sad. I had rather have a fool to make me married than experience to make me sad, and to travel for it too. Enter Orlando. Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind. Nay, then, God be with you when you talk in blank verse. Exit. Farewell, Monsier 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 the countenance that 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, and you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more. My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise. Break an hour's promise in love? He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love. It may be said of him that Cupid hath clapped him on the shoulder, but I'll warrant him heart-hold. Pardon me, dear Rosalind. Nay, and you be so tardy, come no more in my sight. I'd his leaf be wood of a snail. Of a snail? I 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. What's that? Why, horns, which such as you are feigned to be beholden to your wives for, but he comes armed in his fortune and prevents the slander of his wife. Virtue is no hornmaker, and my Rosalind is virtuous. And I am your Rosalind. It pleases him to call you so, but he hath a Rosalind of a better lear than you. 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, if I were your very, very Rosalind? I would kiss before I spoke. Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were graveled for lack of matter you might take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit. Lovers lacking, God warn us, matter. The cleanliest shift is to kiss. How if the kiss be denied? Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress? Mary, that should you, if I were your mistress, or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit. What of my suit? Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. Am I not your Rosalind? I take some joy to say you are, for I would be talking of her. Well, in her person, I say, I will not have you. Then in my own person I die. 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, Videlisit, 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. Here he would have lived many a fair year, though hero had turned none, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night. For good youth he went but forth to wash him in the helispont, and being taken with a cramp was drowned, and the foolish corners of that age found it was hero of Cestos. But these are all lies. Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love. I would not have my right, Rosalind, of this mind, for I protest her frown might kill me. 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. Then love me, Rosalind. Yes, faith will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all. And wilt thou have me? I, and twenty such. What sayest thou? Are you not good? I hope so. Why, then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come, sister, you should be the priest and Marius. Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister? Pray thee, Marius. I cannot say the words. You must begin. Will you, Orlando? Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind? I will. I but when? Why, now, as fast as she can marry us. Then you must say, I take thee Rosalind for wife. I take thee Rosalind for wife. 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. So do all thoughts. They are winged. Now, tell me, how long you would have her, after you have possessed her? Forever. And a day. Say a day, without the ever. No, no, Orlando, men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Mades are may, when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of you than a barbaric cock pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more newfangled 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 married. I will laugh like a hyena, and that when thou art inclined to sleep. But will my Rosalind do so? By my life she will do as I do. Oh, but she is wise. Or else she could not have the wit to do this, the wiser the waywarder. Make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out at the casement. Shut that and twill out at the keyhole. Stop that. Twill out with the smoke at the chimney. A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say wit with a wilt. Nay, you might keep that check for it, till you met your wife's wit going to your neighbor's bed. What wit could wit have to excuse that? Marry to say that she came to seek you there. You shall never take her without her answer unless you take her without her tongue. Oh, the 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. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee. Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours. I must attend the duke at dinner. By two o'clock I will be with thee again. I go your ways, go your ways. I know what you would prove. My friends told me as much, and I thought no less. That flattering tongue of yours won me. It is but one cast away, and so come death. Two o'clock is your hour. Aye, sweet Rosalind. By my truth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and by all prettios 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. With no less religion than if thou would indeed, my Rosalind. So would you. Well, time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let time try. Adieu. Exit Orlando. 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 have done to our own nest. Oh, cause, cause, cause, my pretty little cause, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love. But it cannot be sounded, my affection at the unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal. Or rather bottomless, but as fast as you pour affection in, it runs out. No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot of thought conceived of spleen and born of madness, that blind, rascally boy, that abuses everyone's eyes because his own her out. Let him be judged how deep I am in love. I'll tell the alien I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. I'll go find a shadow and sigh till he come. And I'll sleep. Seen to the forest. Enter jacquies, lords, and foresters. Which is he that killed the deer? Sir, it was I. 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? Yes, sir. Sing it. It is no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough. What shall you have that killed the deer? His leather skin and horns to wear them. Sing him home. The rush shall bear this burden. Take down no scorn to wear the horn. It was a crest deer that was born. My father's father wore it, and my father bore it. The horn, the horn, the lusty horn is not a thing to laugh to scorn. Exiant. Seen three, the forest. Enter Rosalind and Celia. How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock, and hear much Orlando? I warrant you. With pure love and troubled brain he has tamed his bow and arrows and has gone forth to sleep. Look, who comes here? Enter Silvius. My errand is to you, fair youth. My gentle Phoebe 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. 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 where man is rare as phoenix. That's my will, her love is not the hair that I do hunt. Why write she so to me? Well, shepherd, well, this is a letter of your own device. No, I protest, I know not the contents. Phoebe did write it. Come, come, you are a fool and turned into the extremity of love. I saw her hand, she has a leather hand, a freestone-colored hand. I verily did think that her old gloves were on, but was her hand. 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. Sure it is hers. Why, it is 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 inventions, such aethiop words blacker in their effect than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter? So please you, for I never heard it yet. Yet heard too much of Phoebe's cruelty. She Phoebe's me, mark how the tyrant writes. Read. Art thou God to shepherd turned that a maiden's heart hath burned. Can a woman rail thus? Call you this railing? Read. Why, thy God had laid apart worse thou with a woman's heart. Did you ever hear such railing? While's the eye of man did woo me that could do no vengeance to me. Meaning me a beast. If the scorn of your bright eye have power to raise such love in mine, a lack in me what strange effect would they work in mild aspect. While's 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. Call you this chiding? Alas, poor shepherd. Do you pity him? No, he deserves no pity. What 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 Sylveus, enter Oliver. Good morrow, fair ones, pray you if you know, where in the Perlius of this forest stands a sheep-coat fenced about with olive trees? West of this place, down in the neighbour-bottom. The rank of Osias 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. If that an eye may profit by a tongue, then, should I know you by description? Such garments and such years the boy's fear of female favour embistosed 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? It is no boast being asked to say we are. Orlando doth commend him to you both, and to that youth he calls his Rosalind, he sends this bloody napkin. Are you he? I am. What must we understand by this? Some of my shame, if you will know of me, what man I am, and how, and why, and where this Kachif was stainered. I pray you tell it. 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 objected present itself, under an oak whose bowels were must with age and high top bald with dry antiquity, a wretched ragged man all grown with hair, lay sleeping on his back. About his neck a green and gilded snake had wreathed itself. Who, with her head nimble in threats, approached the opening of his mouth, but suddenly seeing Orlando it unlinked itself, and within tended glides did slip away into a bush, under which bushes shade a lioness with udders all drawn dry lay couching, head on the ground with cat-like watch. When that the sleeping man should stir fought his the royal disposition of that beast to prey on nothing that doth seem as dead. This scene Orlando did approach the man and found it was his brother, his elder brother. Oh, I have heard him speak of that same brother, and he did render him the most unnatural that lived amongst men. And well he might so do, for well I know he was unnatural. But to Orlando, did he leave him there, food to the sucked and hungry lioness? 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 awakened. Are you his brother? Was do you he rescued? Was do you that did so oft contrive to kill him? Twas I, but is not I. I do not shame to tell you what I was since my conversion so sweetly tastes being the thing I am. But for the bloody napkin. By and by, when from the first to last betwixt us to our tears, 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 fresher ray and entertainment, committing me unto my brother's love, who led me instantly unto his cave there, stripped himself and up here upon his arm the lioness had torn some flesh away. Which all the while had bled and now he fainted and cried infanting upon Rosalind. Brief I recovered him, bound up his wound, and after some small space being strong at heart he sent me hither, stranger as I am, to tell the story that you might excuse his broken promise, and to give the napkin dyed in his blood unto the shepherd youth that in his sport he doth call his Rosalind. Rosalind swooned. Why, how now, Ganymede? Sweet Ganymede. Many will swoon when they do look on blood. There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede. Look, he recovers. And what I were at home. We'll lead you, thither. I pray you, will you take him by the arm? Be of good cheer, youth. You are man, you lack a man's heart. I do so, I confess it. Ah, Sura, a body would think this was well counterfeited. I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited. Hey, ho! This was not counterfeit. There is too great testimony in your complexion that was a passion of earnest. Counterfeit, I assure you. Well, then, take good heart and counterfeit to be a man. So I do, but in faith I should have been a woman by right. Calm, you look paler and paler. Pray you draw homewards. Good sir, go with us. That will I, for I must bear answer back how you excuse my brother, Rosalind. I shall devise something, but I pray you commend my counterfeiting to him. Will you go? Exiant. End of Act Four.