both the confirmers of false reckonings: He at- Come not thou near me: and, when that time comes, tends here in the forest on the duke your father. Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not; As, till that time, I shall not pity thee. Ros. And why, I pray you? [Advancing.] Who might be your mother,

Ros. 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 laugh'd, and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando?

Enter Corin.

That you insult, exult, and all at once,
Over the wretched? What though you have more
beauty,

Cel. O, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, (As, by my faith, I see no more in you and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart Than without candle may go dark to bed,) the heart of his lover: as a puny tilter, that spurs Must you be therefore proud and pitiless? his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble Why, what means this? Why do you look on me? goose: but all's brave, that youth mounts, and folly I see no more in you, than in the ordinary guides:-Who comes here! Of nature's sale-work:--Od's my little life! I think, she mcans to tangle my eyes too :No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it; Your bugle eye-balls, nor your check of cream, 'Tis not your inky brows, your black-silk hair, That can entame my spirits to your worship.You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her, Like foggy south, putling with wind and rain? You are a thousand times a properer man, Than she a woman: 'Tis such fools as you, That make 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, 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,―

Cor. Mistress, and master, you have oft inquired
After the shepherd that complain'd of love;
Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
That was his mistress.

Cel.

Well, and what of him?

Cor. If you will see a pageant truly play'd,
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.

Ros.
O, come, let us remove;
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love
Bring us unto this sight, and you shall say
I'll prove a busy actor in their play.

SCENE V.-Another part of the Forest.
Silvius and Phebe.

[Exeunt.
Enter

Sil. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do
Phebe:

not,

Say, that you love me not; but say not so
In bitterness: The common executioner,
Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes
hard,

Falls not the axe upon the humble neck,
But first begs pardon; Will you sterner be
Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?
Enter Rosalind, Celia, and Corin, at a distance.
Phe. 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 :
'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,
That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomics,-
Should be call'd 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; 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:
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it; lean but 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;
Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes
That can do hurt.

Sil.

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
That love's keen arrows make.
Phe.

But, till that time,

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.
Phe. Sweet youth, I pray you, chide a year to
gether;
I had rather hear you chide, than this man woo.
Ros. He's fallen in love with her 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
sauce her with bitter words.-Why look you so
upon me?

Phe. For no ill will I bear you.

For I am falser than vows made in wine:
Ros. I pray you, do not fall in love with me,
Besides, I like you not: If you will know my house,
'Tis at 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 abus'd in sight as he.
Come, to our flock. [Exe. Ros. Cel. and Cor.
Phe. Dear shepherd! now I find thy saw of might;
Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not aɩ first sight?
Sil. Sweet Phebe,-

Phe.
Ha! what say'st thou, Silvius?
Sil. Sweet Phebe, pity me.
Phe. Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.
Sil. 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 extermin'd.

Phe. Thou hast my love; Is not that neighbourly?
Sil. I would have you.

Phe.
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,
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,
Sil. So holy, and so perfect is my love,
And I in such a poverty of grace,

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.

Phe. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me
ere while?

Sil. 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.

Phe. 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 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 make a proper man: The best thing in him
Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
He is not 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;
A little riper and more lusty red

Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the dif-
ference

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
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;
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?
Sil. Phebe, with all my heart.
Phe.

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.

ACT IV.

[Exeunt.

SCENE I.-The same. Enter Rosalind, Celia, and Jaques.

Jaq. I pr'ythee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.

and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

Jaq. Yes, I have gained my experience.

Enter Orlando.

Ros. And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me merry, than experience to make me sad; and to travel for it too. Orl. Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind! Jaq. Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse. [Exit.

Ros. 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 gondola.-Why, how now, Orfando! Where have you been all this while? You a lover?-An you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more.

Orl. My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.

Ros. Break an hour's promise in love? He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him, that Cupid hath clap'd him o' the shoulder, but I'warrant him heart-whole.

Orl. Pardon me, dear Rosalind.

Ros. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight; I had as lief be woo'd of a snail. Orl. Of a snail?

Ros. Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head; a better jointure, I think, than you can make a woman: Besides, he brings his destiny with him.

Orl. What's that?

Ros. Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholden to your wives for: but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents the slander of his wife.

Orl. Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.

Ros. And I am your Rosalind.

Cel. It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a better leer than you.

a

Ros. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in holiday humour, and like enough to consent:What would you say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind?

Orl. I would kiss, before I spoke.

Orl. How if the kiss be denied?

Ros. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.

Ros. They say, you are a melancholy fellow. Ros. Nay, you were better speak first; and Jaq. I am so; I do love it better than laughing. when you were gravelled for lack of matter, you Ros. Those, that are in extremity of either, are might take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, abominable fellows; and betray themselves to when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers, every modern censure, worse than drunkards. lacking (God warn us!) matter, the cleanliest shift Jaq. Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing. is to kiss. Ros. Why then, 'tis good to be a post. Jaq. I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which 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, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects: and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which Ros. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of my often rumination wraps me, is a most humorous your suit. Am not I your Rosalind? sadness. Orl. I take some joy to say you arc, because I

Orl. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?

Ros. Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit.

Orl. What, of my suit?

Ros. Well, in her person, I say—I will not have

Ros. A traveller! By my faith, you have great would be talking of her. reason to be sad: I fear, you have sold your own lands, to see other men's; then, to have seen much, you.

(1) Peasant.

(2) Silly. (3) Trifling.

(4) Undervalue.

(5) Complexion.

stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.

Orl. Then, in mine own person, I die. Ros. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this Orl. A man that had a wife with such a wit, he time there was not any man died in his own person, might say,-Wit, whither wilt? videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains Ros. Nay, you might keep that check for it, till dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what you met your wife's wit going to your neighbour's he could to die before; and he is one of the pat- bed.

terns of love. Leander, he would have lived many Orl. And what wit could wit have to excuse that? a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had Ros. Marry, to say,-she came to seek you there. not been for a hot miasummer night: for, good You shall never take her without her answer, unyouth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hel- less you take her without her tongue. O, that lespont, and, being taken with the cramp, was woman that cannot make her fault her husband's drowned; and the foolish chroniclers of that age occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for found it was-Hero of Sestos. But these are all she will breed it like a fool. lies; men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

Orl. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I protest, her frown might kill me. Ros. 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.

Orl. Then love me,

Rosalind.

Or!. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.

Ros. Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.

Orl. I must attend the duke at dinner; by two o'clock I will be with thee again.

Ros. Ay, go your ways, go your ways;-I knew what you would prove; my friends told me as much, and I thought no less:-that flattering tongue

Ros. Yes, faith will I, Fridays, and Saturdays, of yours won me :-'tis but one cast away, and

and all.

Orl. I hope so.

so,-come, death.-Two o'clock is your hour? Orl. Ay, sweet Rosalind.

Ros. By my troth, and in good carnest, and so God mend me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot of your promise, or come one minute behind your hour, I will think

Ros. Why then, can one desire too much of a you the most pathetical break-promise, and the good thing?-Come, sister, you shall be the priest, most hollow lover, and the most unworthy of her and marry us.-Give me your hand, Orlando:-you call Rosalind, that may be chosen out of the What do you say, sister? gross band of the unfaithful: therefore beware my censure, and keep your promise,

Orl. Pray thee, marry us.
Cel. I cannot say the words.

Orl. With no less religion, than if thou wert inRos. You must begin,--Will you, Orlando,—deed my Rosalind: So, adieu. Cel. Go to:- -Will you, Orlando, have to wife

this Rosalind?

Orl. I will.

Ros. Ay, but when?

Ros. Well, time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let time try: Adieu!

[Exit Orlando.

Cel. You have simply misus'd our sex in your love-prate: we must have your doublet and hose Rosa-plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest.

Orl. Why now; as fast as she can marry us. Ros. Then you must say,-I take thee, lind, for wife.

Orl. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.

Ros. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that Ros. I might ask you for your commission; but thou didst know how many fathon deep I am in -I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband: There love! But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath a girl goes before the priest; and, certainly, ajan unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal. woman's thought runs before her actions. Orl. So do all thoughts; they are winged. Ros. Now tell me, how long you would have her, after you have possessed her. Orl. For ever, and a day.

Cel. Or rather bottomless; that as fast as you pour affection in, it runs out.

Ros. No, that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of thought,2 conceived of spleen, and born of madness; that blind rascally boy, that Ros. Say a day, without the ever: No, no, Or-abuses every one's eyes, because his own are out, lando; men are April when they woo, December let him be judge, how deep I am in love:-'il when they wed: maids are May when they are tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. Orlando: I'll go find a shadow, and sigh till he I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-come. pigeon over his hen; more clamorous than a parrot against rain; more new-fangled 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 merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou art inclined to sleep.

Orl. But will my Rosalind do so?
Ros. By my life, she will do as I do.

Orl. O, but she is wise.

Cel. And I'll sleep.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II-Another part of the Forest. Enter
Jaques and Lords, in the habit of Foresters.

Jaq. Which is he that killed the deer?
1 Lord. Sir, it was I.

Jaq. Let's present him to the duke, like a Roman conqueror; and it would do well to set the jdeer's horns upon his head, for a branch of victory: Ros. Or else she could not have the wit to do-Have you no song, forester, for this purpose? this: the wiser, the waywarder: Make the doors' upon a woman's wit, and it will out at the case- Jaq. Sing it; 'tis no matter how it be in tune ment; shut that, and 'twill out at the key-hole; so it make noise enough.

(1) Bar the doors.

2 Lord. Yes, sir.

(2) Melancholy.

[Giving a letter. company.

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 cry'd, 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, Touch. Why, thou say'st well. I do now remem Dy'd in this blood, unto the shepherd youth ber a saying; The fool doth think he is wise, but That he in sport doth call his Rosalind. the wise man knows himself to be a fool. The Cel. Why, how now, Ganymede? sweet Gany-heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a mede ? [Rosalind faints. grape, would open his lips when he put it into his Oli. Many will swoon when they do look on mouth; meaning thereby, that grapes were made blood. to eat, and lips to open. You do love this maid? Will. I do, sir.

Touch. Then learn this of me; To have, is to have: For it is a figure in rhetoric, that drink Oli. Be of good cheer, youth:-You a man?-being poured out of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other: For all your writers Ros. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sir, a body would do consent, that ipse is he; now you are not ipse, think this was well counterfeited: I pray you tell for I am he. your brother how well I counterfeited.-Heigh ho! Touch. He, sir, that must marry this woman: Oli. This was not counterfeit; there is too great Therefore, you clown, abandon, which is in the testimony in your complexion, that it was a pas-vulgar, leave,-the society, which in the boorish sion of earnest. is, company,-of this female,-which in the common is,-woman, which together is, abandon the Oli. Well then, take a good heart, and counter-society of this female; or, clown, thou perishest; feit to be a man.

or, to thy better understanding, diest; to wit, I Ros. So I do: but, i'faith I should have been a kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into woman by right. death, thy liberty into bondage: I will deal in Cel. Come, you look paler and paler; pray you, poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; I draw homewards :-Good sir, go with us.

will bandy with thee in faction; I will o'er run thee Oli. That will I, for I must bear answer back with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fisty How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.