And knows me, and knows me, How pitiful I deserve, I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme; I have tried: I can find out no rhyme to 'lady' but baby,' an innocent rhyme for 'scorn,' horn,' a hard rhyme; for, school,' 'fool,' a babbling rhyme; very ominous endings: no, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms. Enter BEATRICE. 41 Beat. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed. Bene. Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge; and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me? 61 Beat. For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me? Bene. Suffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will. Beat. In spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart! If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates. Bene. Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably. Bat. It appears not in this confession : there's not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself. Bene. An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time of good neighbors. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps. Beat. And how long is that, think you? Bene. Question: why, an hour in clamor and a quarter in rheum: therefore is it most Urs. Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder's old coil at home: it is proved my Lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the prince and Claudio mightily abused; and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone. Will you come presently? Beat. Will you go hear this news, signior? Bene. I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap and be buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with thee to thy uncle's. [Exeunt. And then to Leonato's we will go. Claud. And Hymen now with luckier issue "speed's Than this for whom we render'd up this woe. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A room in LEONATO's house. Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, BENEDICK, BEATRICE, MARGARET, URSULA, FRIAR FRANCIS, and HERO. Friar. Did I not tell you she was innocent? Leon. So are the prince and Claudio, who accused her Upon the error that you heard debated: Ant. Well, I am glad that all things sort so well Bene. And so am I, being else by faith enforced To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it. Leon. Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all, 10 Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves, And when I send for you, come hither mask'd. [Exeunt Ladies. The prince and Claudio promised by this hour To visit me. You know your office, brother: You must be father to your brother's daughter, And give her to young Claudio. Ant. Which I will do with confirm'd countenance. Bene. Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think. Friar. To do what, signior? Bene. To bind me, or undo me; one of them. 20 Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior, Your niece regards me with an eye of favor. Leon. That eye my daughter lent her: 'tis most true. Bene. And I do with an eye of love requite her. Leon. The sight whereof I think you had from me, From Claudio and the prince but what's your will? Claud. Another Hero! Nothing certainer : Leon. She died, my lord, but whiles her slander lived. Friar. All this amazement can I qualify; When after that the holy rites are ended, I'll tell you largely of fair Hero's death: Meantime let wonder seem familiar, And to the chapel let us presently. Bene. Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice? 70 Beat. [Unmasking] I answer to that name. What is your will? Beat. Why, no; no more than reason. and Claudio Have been deceived; they swore you did. Bene. Troth, no; no more than reason. Beat. Why, then my cousin Margaret and [did. Ursula Are much deceived for they did swear you And here's another Writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket, Containing her affection unto Benedick. 90 Bene. A miracle! here's our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity. Beat. I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion; and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption. Bene. Peace! I will stop your mouth. [Kissing her. D. Pedro. How dost thou, Benedick, the married man? 100 Bene. I'll tell thee what, prince; a college or wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humor. Dost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram? No: if a man will be beaten with brains he shall wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruised and love my cousin. Claud. I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that might have cudgelled thee out of thy single life, to make thee a double-dealer; which, out of question, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look exceedingly narrowly to thee. Bene. Come, come, we are friends: let's have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts and our wives' heels. Leon. We'll have dancing afterward. Bene. First, of my word; therefore play, music. Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife: there is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn. AS YOU (WRITTEN ABOUT 1599.) INTRODUCTION. As You Like It was entered on the Stationers' register together with Henry V., Much Ado About Nothing, and Jonson's Every Man in His Humour, "to be staied," i.e. not printed; the date is August 4, but the year is not mentioned. The previous entry is dated May 27, 1600, and as the other plays were printed in 1600 and 1601, we infer that the August was that of the year 1600. The comedy is not mentioned by Meres. A line, "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?" is quoted (Act III., Sc. v., L 82) from Marlowe's Hero and Leander, which was published in 1598. We may set down the following year, 1599, as the probable date of the creation of this charming comedy. The story is taken from Thomas Lodge's prose tale, Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie, first printed in 1590, and a passage in Lodge's dedication probably suggested to Shakespeare the name of his play. Lodge, who wrote this tale on his voyage to the Canaries, founded it in part on the Cook's Tale of Gameiga, wrongly ascribed to Chaucer, and inserted in some editions as one of the Canterbury Tales. In parts of his work the dramatist follows the story-teller closely, but there are some important differences. The heroic names Orlando, Oliver, and Sir Rowland are due to Shakespeare. It was a thought of Shakespeare to make the rightful and usurping dukes, as in The Tempest, brothers. In Lodge's novel the girl-friends pass in the forest for lady and page, in Shakespeare for brother and sister. Shakespeare omits the incident of Aliena's rescue from robbers by her future husband; love at first sight was natural in Arden, but a band of robbers would have marred the tranquillity of the scene. To Shakespeare we owe the creation of the characters of Jacques, Touchstone, and Audrey. Written perhaps immediately after Henry V., the play presents a striking contrast with that high-pitched historical drama. It is as if Shakespeare's imagination craved repose and refreshment after the life of courts and camps. We are still on French soil, but instead of the sound of the shock of battle at Agincourt, we, hear the waving forest boughs, and the forest streams of Arden, where "they fleet the time carelessly as they did in the Golden World." There is an open-air feeling about this play, as there is about The Merry Wives of Windsor, but in The Merry Wives all the surroundings are English and real, here they belong to a land of romance. For the Renaissance, that age of vast energy, national enterprise, religious strife, and court intrigue, pastoral or idyllic poetry possessed a peculiar charm; the quiet and innocence of a poetical Arcadia was a solace to a life of highly-wrought ambition and aspiration. "Sweet are the uses of adversity," moralizes the banished Duke, and external, material adversity has come to him, to Rosalind, and to Orlando; but if fortune is harsh, nature-both external nature and human character-is sound and sweet, and of real suffering there is none in the play. All that is evil remains in the society which the denizens of the forest have left behind; and both seriously, in the characters of the usurping Duke and Oliver, and playfully, through Touchstone's mockery of court follies, a criticism on what is evil and artificial in society is suggested in contrast with the woodland life. Yet Shakespeare never falls into the conventional, pastoral manner. Orlando is an ideal of youthful strength, beauty, and noble innocence of heart; and Rosalind's bright, tender womanhood seems but to grow more exquisitely feminine in the male attire which she has assumed in self-defence. Her feelings are almost as quick and fine as those of Imogen (she has not, like Imogen, known fear and sorrow), and she uses her wit and bright play of intellect as a protection against her own eager and vivid emotions. Possessed of a delighted consciousness of power to confer happiness, she can dally with disguises, and make what is most serious to her at the same time possess the charm of an exquisite frolic. The melancholy Jacques is a sentimentalist and in some degree a superficial cynic, but he is not a bad-hearted egoist, like Don John; he is a perfectly idle seeker for new sensations and an observer of his own feelings; he is weary of all he has found, and especially professes to despise the artificial society, which yet he never really escapes from as the others do His wisdom is half foolery, as Touchstone's foolery is half wisdom. Touchstone is the daintiest fool of the comedies, and in comparing him with the clowns of The Comedy of Errors or The Two Gentlemen of Verona, we perceive how Shakespeare's humor has grown in refinement. JAQUES, sons of Sir Rowland de Boys. ACT I. SCENE I. Orchard of OLIVER's house. Enter ORLANDO and ADAM. Orl. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayest, 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 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. Adam. Yonder comes my master, your brother. Orl. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up. Enter OLIVER. 30 Oli. Know you before whom, sir? Orl. 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. 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 Sir Rowland de Boys; 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. Adam. Sweet masters, be patient: for your father'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 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. 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. Oli. 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. Oli. Is it even so ? begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla, Dennis ! Enter DENNIS. Den, Calls your worship |