Sil. My errand is to you, fair youth;
007 My gentle Phebe bid me give you this:
008 I know not the contents; but, as I guess
By the stern brow and waspish action
010 Which she did use as she was writing of it,
011 It bears an angry tenour: pardon me;
I am but as a guiltless messenger.
Ros. Patience herself would startle at this letter
And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all:
015 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 phœnix. ’Od’s my will!
018 Her love is not the hare that I do hunt:
Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,
020 This is a letter of your own device.
Sil. No, I protest, I know not the contents:
022 Phebe did write it.
Come, come, you are a fool,
023 And turn’d into the extremity of love.
I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand,
025 A freestone-colour’d hand; I verily did think
026 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.
030 Sil. Sure, it is hers.
Ros. Why, ’tis a boisterous and a cruel style,
A style for challengers; why, she defies me,
033 Like Turk to Christian: women’s gentle brain
Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention,
035 Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect
Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?
Sil. So please you, for I never heard it yet;
Yet heard too much of Phebe’s cruelty.
Ros. She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes. [Reads.
040 Art thou god to shepherd turn’d,
That a maiden’s heart hath burn’d?
Can a woman rail thus?
Sil. Call you this railing?
Ros. [reads
Why, thy godhead laid apart,
045 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.
050 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!
054 Whiles you chid me, I did love;
055 How then might your prayers move!
He that brings this love to thee
057 Little knows this love in me:
And by him seal up thy mind;
Whether that thy youth and kind
060 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.
Sil. Call you this chiding?
065 Cel. Alas, poor shepherd!
Ros. Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity. Wilt thou love such a woman? What, to make thee an instrument 068 and play false strains upon thee! not to be endured! Well, go your way to her, for I see love hath made thee a 070 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.
Oli. Good morrow, fair ones: pray you, if you know,
075 Where in the purlieus of this forest stands
A sheep-cote fenced about with olive-trees?
Cel. West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom:
The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream
079 Left on your right hand brings you to the place.
080 But at this hour the house doth keep itself;
There’s none within.
Oli. 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,
085 Of female favour, and bestows himself
086 Like a ripe sister: the woman low,
And browner than her brother.’ Are not you
088 The owner of the house I did inquire for?
Cel. It is no boast, being ask’d, to say we are.
090 Oli. Orlando doth commend him to you both,
And to that youth he calls his Rosalind
092 He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?
Ros. I am: what must we understand by this?
Oli. Some of my shame; if you will know of me
095 What man I am, and how, and why, and where
096 This handkercher was stain’d.
I pray you, tell it.
Oli. When last the young Orlando parted from you
He left a promise to return again
099 Within an hour, and pacing through the forest,
100 Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
Lo, what befel! he threw his eye aside,
And mark what object did present itself:
103 Under an oak, whose boughs were moss’d with age
And high top bald with dry antiquity,
105 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,
110 Seeing Orlando, it unlink’d itself,
And with indented glides did slip away
112 Into a bush: under which bush’s shade
A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,
Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch,
115 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.
120 Cel. O, I have heard him speak of that same brother;
And he did render him the most unnatural
122 That lived amongst men.
And well he might so do,
For well I know he was unnatural.
Ros. But, to Orlando: did he leave him there,
125 Food to the suck’d and hungry lioness?
Oil. 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,
130 Who quickly fell before him: in which hurtling
From miserable slumber I awaked.
Cel. Are you his brother?
132 Was’t you he rescued?
Cel. Was’t you that did so oft contrive to kill him?
Oli. ’Twas I; but ’tis not I: I do not shame
135 To tell you what I was, since my conversion
So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.
Ros. But, for the bloody napkin?
By and by.
When from the first to last betwixt us two
Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed,
140 As how I came into that desert place;
141 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,
145 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;
150 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,
154 Dyed in his blood, unto the shepherd youth
155 That he in sport doth call his Rosalind. [Rosalind swoons.
Cel. Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede!
Oli. Many will swoon when they do look on blood.
158 Cel. There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede!
Oli. Look, he recovers.
160 Ros. I would I were at home.
We’ll lead you thither.
I pray you, will you take him by the arm?
Oli. Be of good cheer, youth: you a man! you lack a man’s heart.
164 Ros. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would 165 think this was well counterfeited! I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!
Oli. This was not counterfeit: there is too great testimony 168 in your complexion that it was a passion of earnest.
Ros. Counterfeit, I assure you.
170 Oli. Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man.
Ros. So I do: but, i’faith, I should have been a woman by right.
Cel. Come, you look paler and paler: pray you, draw 175 homewards. Good sir, go with us.
Oli. That will I, for I must bear answer back How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.
Ros. I shall devise something: but, I pray you, commend my counterfeiting to him. Will you go? [Exeunt.
Touch. We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey.
Aud. Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old gentleman’s saying.
005 Touch. A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to you.
Aud. Ay, I know who ’tis: he hath no interest in me in the world: here comes the man you mean.
010 Touch. 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.
Will. Good even, Audrey.
Aud. God ye good even, William.
015 Will. And good even to you, sir.
Touch. Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy head; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend?
Will. Five and twenty, sir.
Touch. A ripe age. Is thy name William?
020 Will. William, sir.
Touch. A fair name. Wast born i’ the forest here?
Will. Ay, sir, I thank God.
Touch. ‘Thank God;’ a good answer. Art rich?
Will. Faith, sir, so so.
025 Touch. ‘So so’ is good, very good, very excellent good; and yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise?
Will. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.
Touch. Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a 029 saying, ‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man 030 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?
034 Will. I do, sir.
035 Touch. Give me your hand. Art thou learned?
Will. No, sir.
Touch. 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; 040 for all your writers do consent that ipse is he: now, you are not ipse, for I am he.
Will. Which he, sir?
Touch. He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you clown, abandon,—which is in the vulgar leave,— 045 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 048 perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest; or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, 050 thy liberty into bondage: I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction; 052 I will o’er-run thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways: therefore tremble, and depart.
Aud. Do, good William.
055 Will. God rest you merry, sir. [Exit.
056 Cor. Our master and mistress seeks you; come, away, away!
Touch. Trip, Audrey! trip, Audrey! I attend, I attend. [Exeunt.
Orl. 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 004 you persever to enjoy her?
005 Oli. Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, 007 nor her sudden consenting; but say with me, I love Aliena; say with her that she loves me; consent with both that we may enjoy each other: it shall be to your good; for my 010 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.
012 Orl. You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow: 013 thither will I invite the Duke and all’s contented followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for look you, here 015 comes my Rosalind.
Ros. God save you, brother.
017 Oli. And you, fair sister. [Exit.
Ros. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf!
020 Orl. It is my arm.
Ros. I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion.
Orl. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.
Ros. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to 025 swoon when he showed me your handkercher?
Orl. Ay, and greater wonders than that.
Ros. O, I know where you are: nay, ’tis true: there 028 was never any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams, 029 and Cæsar’s thrasonical brag of ‘I came, saw, and overcame:’ 030 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 035 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.
Orl. They shall be married to-morrow, and I will bid 040 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.
045 Ros. Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?
Orl. I can live no longer by thinking.
Ros. I will weary you then no longer with idle talking. Know of me then, for now I speak to some purpose, that 050 I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I speak not this that you should bear a good opinion of my knowledge, 052 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. 055 Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things: I 056 have, since I was three year old, conversed with a magician, most profound in his art and yet not damnable. If you do 058 love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries it out, 059 when your brother marries Aliena, shall you marry her: I 060 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 to-morrow human as she is and without any danger.
064 Orl. Speakest thou in sober meanings?
065 Ros. By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I say I am a magician. Therefore, put you in your best array; bid your friends; for if you will be married to-morrow, you shall; and to Rosalind, if you will.
069 Look, here comes a lover of mine and a lover of hers.
070 Phe. Youth, you have done me much ungentleness,
To show the letter that I writ to you.
Ros. I care not if I have: it is my study
To seem despiteful and ungentle to you:
You are there followed by a faithful shepherd;
075 Look upon him, love him; he worships you.
Phe. Good shepherd, tell this youth what ’tis to love.
077 Sil. It is to be all made of sighs and tears;
And so am I for Phebe.
Phe. And I for Ganymede.
080 Orl. And I for Rosalind.
Ros. And I for no woman.
082 Sil. It is to be all made of faith and service;
And so am I for Phebe.
Phe. And I for Ganymede.
085 Orl. And I for Rosalind.
Ros. And I for no woman.
Sil. It is to be all made of fantasy,
All made of passion, and all made of wishes;
089 All adoration, duty, and observance,
090 All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,
091 All purity, all trial, all observance;
And so am I for Phebe.
Phe. And so am I for Ganymede.
Orl. And so am I for Rosalind.
095 Ros. And so am I for no woman.
Phe. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
Sil. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
Orl. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
099 Ros. Who do you speak to, ‘Why blame you me to 100 love you?’
Orl. To her that is not here, nor doth not hear.
Ros. Pray you, no more of this; ’tis like the howling 103 of Irish wolves against the moon. [To Sil.] I will help you, 104 if I can: [To Phe.] I would love you, if I could. To-morrow 105 meet me all together. [To Phe.] I will marry you, if 106 ever I marry woman, and I’ll be married to-morrow: [To Orl.] 107 I will satisfy you, if ever I satisfied man, and you shall be married to-morrow: [To Sil.] I will content you, if what pleases you contents you, and you shall be married 110 to-morrow. [To Orl.] As you love Rosalind, meet: [To Sil.] as you love Phebe, meet: and as I love no woman, I ’ll meet. So, fare you well: I have left you commands.
113 Sil. I’ll not fail, if I live.
Phe. Nor I.
115 Orl. Nor I. [Exeunt.
Touch. To-morrow is the joyful day, Audrey; to-morrow will we be married.
Aud. I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is no dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the world. 005 Here come two of the banished Duke’s pages.
First Page. Well met, honest gentleman.
Touch. By my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, and a song.
Sec. Page. We are for you: sit i’ the middle.
First Page. Shall we clap into’t roundly, without 010 hawking or spitting or saying we are hoarse, which are 011 the only prologues to a bad voice?
Sec. Page. I’faith, i’faith; and both in a tune, like two gipsies on a horse.
It was a lover and his lass,
015 With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o’er the green corn-field did pass
017 In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.
020 Between the acres of the rye,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
022 These pretty country folks would lie,
023 In spring time, &c.
024 This carol they began that hour,
025 With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
026 How that a life was but a flower
027 In spring time, &c.
028 And therefore take the present time,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino;
030 For love is crowned with the prime
In spring time, &c.
Touch. Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no 033 great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable.
034 First Page. You are deceived, sir: we kept time, we 035 lost not our time.
Touch. By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to 037 hear such a foolish song. God buy you; and God mend your voices! Come, Audrey. [Exeunt.
Duke S. Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy
Can do all this that he hath promised?
Orl. I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not;
004 As those that fear they hope, and know they fear.
005 Ros. Patience once more, whiles our compact is urged:
You say, if I bring in your Rosalind,
You will bestow her on Orlando here?
Duke S. That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her.
Ros. And you say, you will have her, when I bring her?
010 Orl. That would I, were I of all kingdoms king.
Ros. You say, you’ll marry me, if I be willing?
Phe. That will I, should I die the hour after.
Ros. But if you do refuse to marry me,
You’ll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?
015 Phe. So is the bargain.
Ros. You say, that you’ll have Phebe, if she will?
Sil. Though to have her and death were both one thing.
Ros. I have promised to make all this matter even.
Keep you your word, O Duke, to give your daughter;
020 You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter:
021 Keep your word, Phebe, that you’ll marry me,
Or else refusing me, to wed this shepherd:
Keep your word, Silvius, that you’ll marry her,
If she refuse me: and from hence I go,
025 To make these doubts all even. [Exeunt Rosalind and Celia.
Duke S. I do remember in this shepherd boy
Some lively touches of my daughter’s favour.
Orl. My lord, the first time that I ever saw him
Methought he was a brother to your daughter:
030 But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born,
And hath been tutor’d in the rudiments
Of many desperate studies by his uncle,
033 Whom he reports to be a great magician,
Obscured in the circle of this forest.
035 Jaq. There is, sure, another flood toward, and these 036 couples are coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools.
Touch. Salutation and greeting to you all!
Jaq. Good my lord, bid him welcome: this is the motley-minded 040 gentleman that I have so often met in the forest: he hath been a courtier, he swears.
Touch. If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation. I have trod a measure; I have flattered a lady; I have been politic with my friend, smooth with mine 045 enemy; I have undone three tailors; I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought one.
Jaq. And how was that ta’en up?
048 Touch. Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the seventh cause.
050 Jaq. How seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow.
Duke S. I like him very well.
053 Touch. God ’ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, 055 to swear and to forswear; according as marriage binds and blood breaks: a poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will: rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster.
060 Duke S. By my faith, he is very swift and sententious.
061 Touch. According to the fool’s bolt, sir, and such dulcet 062 diseases.
Jaq. But, for the seventh cause; how did you find the quarrel on the seventh cause?
065 Touch. Upon a lie seven times removed:—bear your body more seeming, Audrey:—as thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier’s beard: he sent me word, if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind it was: this is called the Retort Courteous. If I sent him word 070 again ‘it was not well cut,’ he would send me word, he cut it to please himself: this is called the Quip Modest. If again ‘it was not well cut,’ he disabled my judgement: this is called the Reply Churlish. If again ‘it was not well cut,’ he would answer, I spake not true: this is called the Reproof 075 Valiant. If again ‘it was not well cut,’ he would say, 076 I lie: this is called the Countercheck Quarrelsome: and so to the Lie Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.
Jaq. And how oft did you say his beard was not well cut?
080 Touch. I durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial, nor he durst not give me the Lie Direct; and so we measured swords and parted.
Jaq. Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?
085 Touch. O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good manners: I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; 090 the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven 093 justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as, 095 ‘If you said so, then I said so;’ and they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If.
098 Jaq. Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? he’s as good at any thing and yet a fool.
100 Duke S. He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.