After the shepherd that complain’d of love,
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Who you saw sitting by me on the turf
Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
That was his mistress.
CELIA Well, and what of him?
CORIN If you will see a pageant truly play’d
Between the pale complexion of true love
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And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,
Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you
If you will mark it.
ROSALIND O come, let us remove.
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
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I’ll prove a busy actor in their play. Exeunt.
3.5 Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE.
SILVIUS Sweet Phebe do not scorn me, do not Phebe.
Say that you love me not, but say not so
In bitterness. The common executioner,
Whose heart th’accustom’d sight of death makes
hard,
Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
5
But first begs pardon. Will you sterner be
Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?
Enter ROSALIND, CELIA and CORIN behind.
PHEBE I would not be thy executioner;
I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.
Thou tell’st me there is murder in mine eye:
10
’Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,
That eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
Should be call’d tyrants, butchers, murderers.
Now I do frown on thee with all my heart,
15
And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.
Now counterfeit to swoon: why now fall down,
Or if thou canst not, O for shame, for shame,
Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.
Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee.
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Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,
The cicatrice and capable impressure
Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not,
25
Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes
That can do hurt.
SILVIUS O dear Phebe,
If ever, as that ever may be near,
You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
Then shall you know the wounds invisible
30
That love’s keen arrows make.
PHEBE But till that time
Come not thou near me; and when that time comes,
Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not,
As till that time I shall not pity thee.
ROSALIND [advancing]
And why I pray you? Who might be your mother,
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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?
40
Why what means this? Why do you look on me?
I see no more in you than in the ordinary
Of Nature’s sale-work. ’Od’s my little life,
I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
No faith proud mistress, hope not after it.
45
’Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream
That can entame my spirits to your worship.
You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her
Like foggy South puffing with wind and rain?
50
You are a thousand times a properer man
Than she a woman. ’Tis such fools as you
That makes the world full of ill-favour’d children.
’Tis not her glass but you that flatters her,
And out of you she sees herself more proper
55
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.
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Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;
Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
So take her to thee shepherd. Fare you well.
PHEBE Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together.
I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.
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ROSALIND [to Phebe] He’s fallen in love with your
foulness, [to Silvius] and she’ll fall in love with my
anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee with
frowning looks, I’ll sauce her with bitter words.
[to Phebe] Why look you so upon me?
70
PHEBE For no ill will I bear you.
ROSALIND I pray you do not fall in love with me,
For I am falser than vows made in wine.
Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,
’Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.
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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 abus’d in sight as he.
Come, to our flock.
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Exeunt Rosalind, Celia and Corin.
PHEBE Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,
‘Who ever lov’d that lov’d not at first sight?’
SILVIUS Sweet Phebe!
PHEBE Hah? What say’st thou, Silvius?
SILVIUS Sweet Phebe pity me.
PHEBE Why I am sorry for thee gentle Silvius.
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SILVIUS Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.
If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
By giving love, your sorrow and my grief
Were both extermined.
PHEBE Thou hast my love. Is not that neighbourly?
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SILVIUS I would have you.
PHEBE Why that were covetousness.
Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;
And yet it is not that I bear thee love,
But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,
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I will endure; and I’ll employ thee too.
But do not look for further recompense
Than thine own gladness that thou art employ’d.
SILVIUS So holy and so perfect is my love,
And I in such a poverty of grace,
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That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
To glean the broken ears after the man
That the main harvest reaps. Loose now and then
A scatter’d smile, and that I’ll live upon.
PHEBE
Know’st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?
105
SILVIUS Not very well, but I have met him oft,
And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds
That the old carlot once was master of.
PHEBE Think not I love him, though I ask for him.
’Tis but a peevish boy – yet he talks well –
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But what care I for words? Yet words do well
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
It is a pretty youth – not very pretty –
But sure he’s proud, and yet his pride becomes him.
He’ll m
ake a proper man. The best thing in him
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Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
He is not very tall, yet for his years he’s tall.
His leg is but so so; and yet ’tis well.
There was a pretty redness in his lip,
120
A little riper and more lusty red
Than that mix’d in his cheek; ’twas just the
difference
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.
There be some women Silvius, had they mark’d him
In parcels as I did, would have gone near
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To fall in love with him: but for my part
I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet
I have more cause to hate him than to love him.
For what had he to do to chide at me?
He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black,
130
And now I am remember’d, scorn’d at me.
I marvel why I answer’d not again.
But that’s all one. Omittance is no quittance.
I’ll write to him a very taunting letter,
And thou shalt bear it, wilt thou Silvius?
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SILVIUS Phebe, with all my heart.
PHEBE I’ll write it straight.
The matter’s in my head, and in my heart.
I will be bitter with him and passing short.
Go with me Silvius. Exeunt.
4.1 Enter ROSALIND, CELIA and JAQUES.
JAQUES I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better
acquainted with thee.
ROSALIND They say you are a melancholy fellow.
JAQUES I am so. I do love it better than laughing.
ROSALIND Those that are in extremity of either are
5
abominable fellows, and betray themselves to every
modern censure, worse than drunkards.
JAQUES Why, ’tis good to be sad and say nothing.
ROSALIND Why then ’tis good to be a post.
JAQUES I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which
10
is emulation; nor the musician’s, which is fantastical;
nor the courtier’s, which is proud; nor the soldier’s,
which is ambitious; nor the lawyer’s, which is politic;
nor the lady’s, which is nice; nor the lover’s, which is
all these; but it is a melancholy of mine own,
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compounded of many simples, extracted from many
objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my
travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a
most humorous sadness.
ROSALIND A traveller! By my faith, you have great
20
reason to be sad. I fear you have sold your own lands
to see other men’s. Then to have seen much and to
have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands.
JAQUES Yes, I have gained my experience.
Enter ORLANDO.
ROSALIND And your experience makes you sad. I had
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rather have a fool to make me merry than experience
to make me sad, and to travel for it too!
ORLANDO Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind.
JAQUES Nay then God buy you, and you talk in blank
verse!
30
ROSALIND Farewell Monsieur Traveller. Look you lisp,
and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits of your
own country; be out of love with your nativity, and
almost chide God for making you that countenance
you are; or I will scarce think you have swam in a
35
gondola. Exit Jaques.
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.
ORLANDO My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of
40
my promise.
ROSALIND Break an hour’s promise in love! He that will
divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but a
part of the thousand part of a minute in the affairs of
love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapped
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him o’th’ shoulder, but I’ll warrant him heart-whole.
ORLANDO Pardon me dear Rosalind.
ROSALIND Nay, and you be so tardy, come no more in
my sight. I had as lief be wooed of a snail.
ORLANDO Of a snail?
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ROSALIND Ay, of a snail. For though he comes slowly, he
carries his house on his head; a better jointure I
think than you make a woman. Besides, he brings his
destiny with him.
ORLANDO What’s that?
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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 71
