Celia
And I’ll sleep.
Exeunt
SCENE II. THE FOREST.
Enter Jaques, Lords, and Foresters
Jaques
Which is he that killed the deer?
A Lord
Sir, it was I.
Jaques
Let’s present him to the duke, like a Roman conqueror; and it would do well to set the deer’s horns upon his head, for a branch of victory. Have you no song, forester, for this purpose?
Forester
Yes, sir.
Jaques
Sing it: ’tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough.
Forester
[sings] What shall he have that kill’d the deer?
His leather skin and horns to wear.
Then sing him home; (The rest shall bear this burden)
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;
It was a crest ere thou wast born:
Thy father’s father wore it,
And thy father bore it:
The horn, the horn, the lusty horn
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.
Exeunt
SCENE III. THE FOREST.
Enter Rosalind and Celia
Rosalind
How say you now? Is it not past two o’clock? and here much Orlando!
Celia
I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath ta’en his bow and arrows and is gone forth to sleep. Look, who comes here.
Enter Silvius
Silvius
My errand is to you, fair youth;
My gentle Phebe bid me give you this:
I know not the contents; but, as I guess
By the stern brow and waspish action
Which she did use as she was writing of it,
It bears an angry tenor: pardon me:
I am but as a guiltless messenger.
Rosalind
Patience herself would startle at this letter
And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all:
She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;
She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
Were man as rare as phoenix. ‘Od’s my will!
Her love is not the hare that I do hunt:
Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,
This is a letter of your own device.
Silvius
No, I protest, I know not the contents:
Phebe did write it.
Rosalind
Come, come, you are a fool
And turn’d into the extremity of love.
I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand.
A freestone-colour’d hand; I verily did think
That her old gloves were on, but ’twas her hands:
She has a huswife’s hand; but that’s no matter:
I say she never did invent this letter;
This is a man’s invention and his hand.
Silvius
Sure, it is hers.
Rosalind
Why, ’tis a boisterous and a cruel style.
A style for-challengers; why, she defies me,
Like Turk to Christian: women’s gentle brain
Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention
Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect
Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?
Silvius
So please you, for I never heard it yet;
Yet heard too much of Phebe’s cruelty.
Rosalind
She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes.
Reads
Art thou god to shepherd turn’d,
That a maiden’s heart hath burn’d?
Can a woman rail thus?
Silvius
Call you this railing?
Rosalind
[Reads]
Why, thy godhead laid apart,
Warr’st thou with a woman’s heart?
Did you ever hear such railing?
Whiles the eye of man did woo me,
That could do no vengeance to me.
Meaning me a beast.
If the scorn of your bright eyne
Have power to raise such love in mine,
Alack, in me what strange effect
Would they work in mild aspect!
Whiles you chid me, I did love;
How then might your prayers move!
He that brings this love to thee
Little knows this love in me:
And by him seal up thy mind;
Whether that thy youth and kind
Will the faithful offer take
Of me and all that I can make;
Or else by him my love deny,
And then I’ll study how to die.
Silvius
Call you this chiding?
Celia
Alas, poor shepherd!
Rosalind
Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity. Wilt thou love such a woman? What, to make thee an instrument and play false strains upon thee! not to be endured! Well, go your way to her, for I see love hath made thee a tame snake, and say this to her: that if she love me, I charge her to love thee; if she will not, I will never have her unless thou entreat for her. If you be a true lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes more company.
Exit Silvius
Enter Oliver
Oliver
Good morrow, fair ones: pray you, if you know,
Where in the purlieus of this forest stands
A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees?
Celia
West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom:
The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream
Left on your right hand brings you to the place.
But at this hour the house doth keep itself;
There’s none within.
Oliver
If that an eye may profit by a tongue,
Then should I know you by description;
Such garments and such years: ‘The boy is fair,
Of female favour, and bestows himself
Like a ripe sister: the woman low
And browner than her brother.’ Are not you
The owner of the house I did inquire for?
Celia
It is no boast, being ask’d, to say we are.
Oliver
Orlando doth commend him to you both,
And to that youth he calls his Rosalind
He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?
Rosalind
I am: what must we understand by this?
Oliver
Some of my shame; if you will know of me
What man I am, and how, and why, and where
This handkercher was stain’d.
Celia
I pray you, tell it.
Oliver
When last the young Orlando parted from you
He left a promise to return again
Within an hour, and pacing through the forest,
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
Lo, what befell! he threw his eye aside,
And mark what object did present itself:
Under an oak, whose boughs were moss’d with age
And high top bald with dry antiquity,
A wretched ragged man, o’ergrown with hair,
Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck
A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself,
Who with her head nimble in threats approach’d
The opening of his mouth; but suddenly,
Seeing Orlando, it unlink’d itself,
And with indented glides did slip away
Into a bush: under which bush’s shade
A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,
Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch,
When that the sleeping man should stir; for ’tis
The royal disposition of that beast
To prey on nothing that doth seem as
dead:
This seen, Orlando did approach the man
And found it was his brother, his elder brother.
Celia
O, I have heard him speak of that same brother;
And he did render him the most unnatural
That lived amongst men.
Oliver
And well he might so do,
For well I know he was unnatural.
Rosalind
But, to Orlando: did he leave him there,
Food to the suck’d and hungry lioness?
Oliver
Twice did he turn his back and purposed so;
But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,
And nature, stronger than his just occasion,
Made him give battle to the lioness,
Who quickly fell before him: in which hurtling
From miserable slumber I awaked.
Celia
Are you his brother?
Rosalind
Wast you he rescued?
Celia
Was’t you that did so oft contrive to kill him?
Oliver
’Twas I; but ’tis not I I do not shame
To tell you what I was, since my conversion
So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.
Rosalind
But, for the bloody napkin?
Oliver
By and by.
When from the first to last betwixt us two
Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed,
As how I came into that desert place:—
In brief, he led me to the gentle duke,
Who gave me fresh array and entertainment,
Committing me unto my brother’s love;
Who led me instantly unto his cave,
There stripp’d himself, and here upon his arm
The lioness had torn some flesh away,
Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted
And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind.
Brief, I recover’d him, bound up his wound;
And, after some small space, being strong at heart,
He sent me hither, stranger as I am,
To tell this story, that you might excuse
His broken promise, and to give this napkin
Dyed in his blood unto the shepherd youth
That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.
Rosalind swoons
Celia
Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede!
Oliver
Many will swoon when they do look on blood.
Celia
There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede!
Oliver
Look, he recovers.
Rosalind
I would I were at home.
Celia
We’ll lead you thither.
I pray you, will you take him by the arm?
Oliver
Be of good cheer, youth: you a man! you lack a man’s heart.
Rosalind
I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would think this was well counterfeited! I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!
Oliver
This was not counterfeit: there is too great testimony in your complexion that it was a passion of earnest.
Rosalind
Counterfeit, I assure you.
Oliver
Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man.
Rosalind
So I do: but, i’ faith, I should have been a woman by right.
Celia
Come, you look paler and paler: pray you, draw homewards. Good sir, go with us.
Oliver
That will I, for I must bear answer back
How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.
Rosalind
I shall devise something: but, I pray you, commend my counterfeiting to him. Will you go?
Exeunt
ACT V
SCENE I. THE FOREST.
Enter Touchstone and Audrey
Touchstone
We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey.
Audrey
Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old gentleman’s saying.
Touchstone
A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to you.
Audrey
Ay, I know who ’tis; he hath no interest in me in the world: here comes the man you mean.
Touchstone
It is meat and drink to me to see a clown: by my troth, we that have good wits have much to answer for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold.
Enter William
William
Good even, Audrey.
Audrey
God ye good even, William.
William
And good even to you, sir.
Touchstone
Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy head; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend?
William
Five and twenty, sir.
Touchstone
A ripe age. Is thy name William?
William
William, sir.
Touchstone
A fair name. Wast born i’ the forest here?
William
Ay, sir, I thank God.
Touchstone
‘Thank God;’ a good answer. Art rich?
William
Faith, sir, so so.
Touchstone
‘So so’ is good, very good, very excellent good; and yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise?
William
Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.
Touchstone
Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying, ‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.’ The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth; meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do love this maid?
William
I do, sir.
Touchstone
Give me your hand. Art thou learned?
William
No, sir.
Touchstone
Then learn this of me: to have, is to have; for it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other; for all your writers do consent that ipse is he: now, you are not ipse, for I am he.
William
Which he, sir?
Touchstone
He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you clown, abandon,— which is in the vulgar leave,— the society,— which in the boorish is company,— of this female,— which in the common is woman; which together is, abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest; or, to wit I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage: I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction; I will o’errun thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways: therefore tremble and depart.
Audrey
Do, good William.
William
God rest you merry, sir.
Exit
Enter Corin
Corin
Our master and mistress seeks you; come, away, away!
Touchstone
Trip, Audrey! trip, Audrey! I attend, I attend.
Exeunt
SCENE II. THE FOREST.
Enter Orlando and Oliver
Orlando
Is’t possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her? that but seeing you should love her? and loving woo? and, wooing, she should grant? and will you persever to enjoy her?
Oliver
Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden consenting; but say with me, I love Aliena; say with her that she loves me; consent with both tha
t we may enjoy each other: it shall be to your good; for my father’s house and all the revenue that was old Sir Rowland’s will I estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.
Orlando
You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow: thither will I invite the duke and all’s contented followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for look you, here comes my Rosalind.
Enter Rosalind
Rosalind
God save you, brother.
Oliver
And you, fair sister.
Exit
Rosalind
O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf!
Orlando
It is my arm.
Rosalind
I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion.
Orlando
Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.
Rosalind
Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon when he showed me your handkerchief?
Orlando
Ay, and greater wonders than that.
Rosalind
O, I know where you are: nay, ’tis true: there was never any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams and Caesar’s thrasonical brag of ‘I came, saw, and overcame:’ for your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason, no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage: they are in the very wrath of love and they will together; clubs cannot part them.
Orlando
They shall be married to-morrow, and I will bid the duke to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes! By so much the more shall I to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall think my brother happy in having what he wishes for.
Rosalind
Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?
Orlando
I can live no longer by thinking.
Rosalind
I will weary you then no longer with idle talking. Know of me then, for now I speak to some purpose, that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I speak not this that you should bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know you are; neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in some little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good and not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things: I have, since I was three year old, conversed with a magician, most profound in his art and yet not damnable. If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries it out, when your brother marries Aliena, shall you marry her: I know into what straits of fortune she is driven; and it is not impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient to you, to set her before your eyes tomorrow human as she is and without any danger.
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