The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  AS YOU LIKE IT

  As You Like It is first heard of in the Stationers’ Register on 4 August 1600, and was probably written not long before. In spite of its early entry for publication, it was not printed until 1623. This play, with its contrasts between court and country, its bucolic as well as its aristocratic characters, its inset songs and poems, its predominantly woodland setting, its conscious artifice and its romantic ending, is the one in which Shakespeare makes most use of the conventions of pastoral literature, though he does not wholly endorse them.

  The story of the love between a high-born maiden—Rosalind—oppressed by the uncle—Duke Frederick—who has usurped his elder brother’s dukedom, and Orlando, the third and youngest son of Duke Frederick’s old enemy Sir Rowland de Bois, himself oppressed by his tyrannical eldest brother Oliver, derives from Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynde, a prose romance interspersed with verses, which first appeared in 1590 and was several times reprinted. There are many indications that Shakespeare thought of the action as taking place in the Ardenne area of France, as in Rosalynde, even though there was also a Forest of Arden in Warwickshire. Like Lodge, Shakespeare counterpoints the developing love between Rosalind—who for much of the action is disguised as a boy, Ganymede—with the idealized pastoral romance of Silvius and Phoebe; he adds the down-to-earth, unromantic affair between the jester Touchstone and Audrey. Once Rosalind and her cousin Celia (also disguised) reach the forest, plot is virtually suspended in favour of a series of scintillating conversations making much use of prose. The sudden flowering of love between Celia and Orlando’s brother Oliver, newly converted to virtue, is based on Rosalynde, but Shakespeare alters the climax of the story, bringing Hymen, the god of marriage, on stage to resolve all complications. As well as Touchstone, Shakespeare added the melancholy courtier Jaques, both of whom act as commentators, though from very different standpoints.

  The first performances of Shakespeare’s text after his own time were given in 1740. It rapidly established itself in the theatrical repertoire, and has also been appreciated for its literary qualities. It has usually been played in picturesque settings, often since the late nineteenth century in the open air. Rosalind (written originally, of course, for a boy actor) is the dominant character, but other roles, especially Jaques, Touchstone, Audrey, Corin, and—in his single scene—William, have proved particularly effective when played by performers with a strong sense of their latent individuality.

  THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

  DUKE SENIOR, living in banishment

  ROSALIND, his daughter, later disguised as Ganymede

  TWO PAGES

  DUKE FREDERICK

  CELIA, his daughter, later disguised as Aliena

  LE BEAU, a courtier attending on him

  CHARLES, Duke Frederick’s wrestler

  TOUCHSTONE, a jester

  OLIVER, eldest son of Sir Rowland de Bois

  ADAM, a former servant of Sir Rowland

  DENIS, Oliver’s servant

  SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a country clergyman

  CORIN, an old shepherd

  SILVIUS, a young shepherd, in love with Phoebe

  PHOEBE, a shepherdess

  WILLIAM, a countryman, in love with Audrey

  AUDREY, a goatherd, betrothed to Touchstone

  HYMEN, god of marriage

  Lords, pages, and other attendants

  As You Like It

  1.1 Enter Orlando and Adam

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

  Enter Oliver

  ADAM Yonder comes my master, your brother.

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

  Adam stands aside

  OLIVER Now, sir, what make you here?

  ORLANDO Nothing. I am not taught to make anything.

  OLIVER What mar you then, sir?

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

  OLIVER Marry, sir, be better employed, and be nought awhile.

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

  OLIVER Know you where you are, sir?

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

  OLIVER Know you before whom, sir?

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

  OLIVER (assailing him) What, boy!

  ORLANDO (seizing him by the throat) Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.

  OLIVER Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?

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

  ADAM (coming forward) Sweet masters, be patient. For your father’s remembrance, be at accord.

  OLIVER (to Orlando) Let me go, I say.

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

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

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

  OLIVER (to Adam) Get you with him, you old dog.

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

  Exeunt Orlando and Adam

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

  Enter Denis

  DENIS Calls your worship?

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

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

  OLIVER Call him in.

  Exit Denis

  ’Twill be a good way. And tomorrow the wrestling is.

  Enter Charles

  CHARLES Good morrow to your worship.

  OLIVER Good Monsieur Charles—what’s the new news at the new court?

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

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

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

  OLIVER Where will the old Duke live?

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

  OLIVER What, you wrestle tomorrow before the new Duke?

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

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

  CHARLES I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come tomorrow I’ll give him his payment. If ever he go alone again, I’ll never wrestle for prize more. And so God keep your worship.

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

  1.2 Enter Rosalind and Celia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ROSALIND What shall be our sport; then?

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

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

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

  ROSALIND Nay, now thou goest from Fortune’s office to Nature’s. Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of nature. Enter Touchstone the clown

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

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

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

  TOUCHSTONE Mistress, you must come away to your father. CELIA Were you made the messenger?

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

  ROSALIND Where learned you that oath, fool?

  TOUCHSTONE Of a certain knight that swore ‘by his honour’ they were good pancakes, and swore ’by his honour’ the mustard was naught. Now I’ll stand to it the pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn.

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

  ROSALIND Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.

  TOUCHSTONE Stand you both forth now. Stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.

  CELIA By our beards—if we had them—thou art.

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

  CELIA Prithee, who is’t that thou meanest?

  TOUCHSTONE One that old Frederick, your father, loves.

  [CELIA] My father’s love is enough to honour him. Enough, speak no more of him; you’ll be whipped for taxation one of these days.

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

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

  Enter Le Beau

  ROSALIND With his mouth full of news.

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

  ROSALIND Then shall we be news-crammed.

  CELIA All the better: we shall be the more marketable. Bonjour, Monsieur Le Beau, what’s the news?

  LE BEAU Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.

  CELIA Sport? Of what colour?

  LE BEAU What colour, madam? How shall I answer you?

  ROSALIND As wit and fortune will.

  TOUCHSTONE Or as the destinies decrees.

  CELIA
Well said. That was laid on with a trowel.

  TOUCHSTONE Nay, if I keep not my rank—

  ROSALIND Thou losest thy old smell.

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

  ROSALIND Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.

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

  CELIA Well, the beginning that is dead and buried.

  LE BEAU There comes an old man and his three sons—

  CELIA I could match this beginning with an old tale.

  LE BEAU Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence.

  ROSALIND With bills on their necks: ‘Be it known unto all men by these presents’—

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

  ROSALIND Alas!

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

  LE BEAU Why, this that I speak of.

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

  CELIA Or I, I promise thee.

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