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As You Like It.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-An Orchard, near OLIVER'S House.

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM.

Orl. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me: by will, but a poor 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 manage, 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 it is, 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.

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

Oli. Now, sir! what make you here?
Orl. Nothing: I am not taught to make any-
thing.

Oli. What mar you then, sir?

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

Oli. Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile.

Orl. them?

Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with
What prodigal portion have I spent, that

I should come to such penury?

Oli. Know you where you are, sir?
Orl. O, sir, very well: here in your orchard.
Oli. Know you before whom, sir?

Orl. Ay, better than he 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 firstborn; 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.

Oli. What, boy!

Orl. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.

Oli. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?
Orl. I am no villain: I am the youngest son of

Adam. Yonder comes my master, your brother. Sir Rowland de Bois; he was my father; and he

is thrice a villain, that says such a father begot villains. 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.

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

Adam. Sweet masters, be patient; for your fa- wander. ther's remembrance, be at accord.

Oli. Let me go, I say.

Orl. 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 gentlemanlike qualities: the spirit of my father grows strong in me, and I will no longer endure it: therefore allow me such exercise 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.

Oli. 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.

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

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Oli. Can you tell if Rosalind, the Duke's daughter, be banished with her father?

Cha. 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.

Oli. Where will the old Duke live?

Cha. They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of Eng land: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day; and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the Golden world.

Oli. What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new Duke?

Cha. Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with the 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. To-morrow, 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 loth to foil him, as I must, for my own honor, if he come in therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint you withal; that either

Oli. Was not Charles, the Duke's wrestler, here you might stay him from his intendment, or brook to speak with me?

such disgrace well as he shall run into; in that it

Den. So please you, he is here at the door, and is a thing of his own search, and altogether against importunes access to you.

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my will.

Oli. 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 labored to dissuade him from it; but he is resolute. I'll tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow

Oli. Good Monsieur Charles! —what's the new of France; full of ambition, an envious emulator news at the new court? of every man's good parts, a secret and villainous

Cha. There's no news at the court, sir, but the 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 practice 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 anatomise him to thee as he is, I must blush and weep, and thou must look pale and wonder.

Cha. I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come to-morrow, 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!

[Exit.

so wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously tempered as mine is to thee.

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

Cel. 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 honor I will; and when I break that oath, let me turn monster: therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.

Ros. From henceforth, I will, coz, and devise sports let me see; - what think you of falling in love?

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Cel. Marry, I pr'y thee 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 honor come off again.

Ros. What shall be our sport, then?
Cel. Let us sit and mock the good housewife,
Fortune, from her wheel, that her gifts may hence-
forth be bestowed equally.

Oli. Farewell, good 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 Ros. I would we could do so; for her benefits enchantingly beloved; and, indeed, so much in the are mightily misplaced: and the bountiful blind heart of the world, and especially of my own peo-woman doth most mistake in her gifts to woman. ple, who best know him, that I am altogether misprised; but it shall not be so long; this wrestler shall clear all nothing remains, but that I'll kindle the boy thither, which now I'll go about.

Cel. 'Tis true: for those that she makes fair, she scarce makes honest; and those that she makes honest, she makes very ill-favoredly.

Ros. Nay, now thou goest from fortune's office [Exit. to nature's fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of nature.

SCENE II. - A Lawn before the DUKE's Palace.

Enter ROSALIND and CELIA.

Enter TOUCHSTONE.

Cel. No? When nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by fortune fall into the fire?

Cel. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be Though nature hath given us wit to flout at for

merry.

Ros. Dear Celia, I shew 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.

Cel. 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:

tune, hath not fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument?

Ros. Indeed, there is fortune too hard for nature; when fortune makes nature's natural the cutter-off of nature's wit.

Cel. Peradventure, this is not fortune's work neither, but nature's; who perceiving our natural wits too dull to reason of such goddesses, 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?

Touch. Mistress, you must come away to your father.

Cel. Were you made the messenger?

Touch. No, by mine honor; but I was bid to come for you.

Ros. Where learned you that oath, fool?

Touch. Of a certain knight, that swore by his honor they were good pancakes, and swore by his honor 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. Cel. How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge?

Ros. Ay, marry; now unmuzzle your wisdom. Touch. Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.

Cel. By our beards, if we had them, thou art. Touch. 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 honor, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.

Cel. Pr'y thee, who is 't that thou mean'st? Touch. One that old Frederick, your father, loves.

Cel. My father's love is enough to honor him. Enough! speak no more of him; you'll be whipped for taxation, one of these days.

Le Beau. What color, madam? How shall I answer you?

Ros. As wit and fortune will.

Touch. Or as the destinies decree.

Cel. Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.
Touch. Nay, if I keep not my rank,—
Ros. 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.

Ros. 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.

Cel. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried.

Le Beau. There comes the old man and his three sons,—

Cel. I could match this beginning with an old

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Touch. The more pity, that fools may not speak the poor old man, their father, making such pitiwisely what wise men do foolishly.

Cel. By my troth, thou sayest 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.

Ros. With his mouth full of news.

ful dole over them, that all the beholders take his part with weeping.

Ros. Alas!

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

Le Beau. Why, this that I speak of.

Touch. Thus men may grow wiser every day!

it is the first time that ever I heard breaking of

Cel. Which he will put on us as pigeons feed ribs was sport for ladies. their young.

Ros. Then shall we be news-crammed.

Cel. All the better; we shall be the more marketable. Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: what's the news?

Le Beau. Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.

Cel. Sport? of what color?

Cel. Or I, I promise thee.

Ros. 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?

Le Beau. You must, if you stay here: for here is the place appointed for the wrestling, and they ready to perform it.

Cel. Yonder, sure, they are coming: let us now stay and see it.

no wrong, for I have none to lament me: the world
no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in the
world I fill up a place which may be better supplied

Flourish. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, OR- when I have made it empty.
LANDO, CHARLES, and Attendants.

Ros. The little strength that I have, I would it

Duke F. Come on; since the youth will not be were with you. entreated, his own peril on his forwardness.

Ros. Is yonder the man?

Le Beau. Even he, madam.

Cel. Alas, he is too young: yet he looks successfully.

Duke F. How now, daughter and cousin? are you crept hither to see the wrestling?

Ros. Ay, my liege; so please you give us leave. Duke F. You will take little delight in it, I can tell there is such odds in the men. you, In pity of the challenger's youth, I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated. Speak to him, ladies; see if you can move him. Cel. Call him hither, good Monsieur Le beau. Duke F. Do so; I'll not be by.

[DUKE goes apart. Le Beau. Monsieur the challenger, the princesses call for you.

Orl. I attend them, with all respect and duty. Ros. Young man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler?

Orl. No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I come but in, as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth.

Cel. Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years. You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength: if you saw yourself with your eyes, or knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to embrace your own safety, and give over this attempt.

Ros. Do, young sir: your reputation shall not therefore be misprized: we will make it our suit to the Duke that the wrestling might not go forward. Orl. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts; wherein I confess me much guilty to deny so fair and excellent ladies anything. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one dead that is willing to be so. I shall do my friends

Cel. And mine, to eke out hers.

Ros. Fare you well. Pray heaven, I be deceived in you!

you.

Cel. Your heart's desires be with Cha. Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth?

Orl. Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working.

Duke F. You shall try but one fall.

Cha. No, I warrant your grace; you shall not entreat him to a second, that have so mightily persuaded him from a first.

Orl. You mean to mock me after; you should not have mocked me before: but come your ways. Ros. Now, Hercules be thy speed, young man! Cel. I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg.

[CHARLES and ORLANDO wrestle. Ros. O excellent young man! Cel. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should down.

[CHARLES is thrown. Shout. Duke F. No more, no more. Orl. Yes, I beseech your grace; I am not yet well breathed.

Duke F. How dost thou, Charles?
Le Beau. He cannot speak, my lord.
Duke F. Bear him away.

[CHARLES is borne out.

What is thy name, young man?
Orl. Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of
Sir Rowland de Bois.

Duke F. I would thou hadst been son to some man else.

The world esteemed thy father honorable,
But I did find him still mine enemy:
Thou shouldst have better pleased me with this

deed,

Hadst thou descended from another house.
But fare thee well; thou art a gallant youth:
I would thou hadst told me of another father.
[Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK, Train, and LE Beau.

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