fancy, Then shall you know the wounds invisible 30 Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not; Ros. And why, I pray you? Who might That you insult, exult, and all at once, As, by my faith, I see no more in you I see no more in you than in the ordinary Like foggy south puffing with wind and rain ? '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, [love: And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's For I must tell you friendly in your ear, 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 together: I had rather hear you chide than this man woo. Ros. He's fallen in love with your 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. 70 Ros. I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine: 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 "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?' Sil. Sweet Phebe, Phe. Phe. Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Sil. vius. 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 extermined. Phe. Thou hast my love: is not that neighborly? Sil. I would have you. 90 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 en ploy'd. 100 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 now the youth that spoke to me erewhile ? 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 ; There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him In parcels as I did, would have gone near 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? And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me : I'll write it straight; ACT IV. SCENE I. The forest. [Exeunt. Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES. Jaq. I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee." Ros. They say you are a melancholy fellow. Jaq. I am so; I do love it better than laughing. Ros. Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than drunkards. Jaq. Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing. 9 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's contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sad20 ness. Ros. A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then, to have seen much and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands. Jaq. Yes, I have gained my experience. 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! Enter ORLANDO. 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, Orlando! where have you been all this while ? You a lover! An you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more. 41 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 clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant him heart-whole. Ros. Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head ; & better jointure, I think, than you make a wo man besides he brings his destiny with him. Orl. What's that? Ros. Why, horns, which such as you are fain to be beholding 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. Ros. Come, woo me, woo me. for now I am in a holiday humor 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. 71 Ros. Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were gravelled for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit, and for lovers lacking-God warn us !-matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss. Orl. How if the kiss be denied? Ros. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter. 81 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. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. Am not I your Rosalind? Örl. I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her. 91 Ros. Well in her person I say I will not have all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being taken with the cramp was drowned: and the foolish coroners of that age found it was Hero of Sestos.' But these are all lies: men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love. Ort. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind, for, I protest, her frown might kill For ever and a day. Ros. Saya day,' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-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. Ros. 160 Or else she could not have the wit to do this the wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney. Orl. A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say 'Wit, whither wilt?' Ros. Nay, you might keep that check for it till you met your wife's wit going to your neighbor's bed. 171 Örl. And what wit could wit have to excuse that? Ros. Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never take her without her answer, unless you take her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool! Orl. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee. 181 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 of yours won me: 'tis but one cast away, and so, come, death! Two o'clock is your hour? Orl. Ay, sweet Rosalind. 190 Ros. By my troth, and in good earnest, 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 you the most pathetical break-promise and the most hollow lover and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind that may be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful therefore beware my censure and keep your promise. 200 Orl. With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind so adieu. Ros. Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try: adieu. [Exit Orlando. Cel. You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate we must have your doublet. and hose plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest. Ros. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal. 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, conceived of spleen and born of madness, that blind_ras Sil. 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, 10 It bears an angry tenor: 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 : Were man as rare as phoenix. 'Od's my will ! 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. Art thou god to shepherd turn'd, Can a woman rail thus? Sil. Call you this railing? Why, thy godhead laid apart, Whiles the eye of man did woo me, Meaning me a beast. 40 50 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. Sil. Call you this chiding? Cel. Alas, poor shepherd! 60 Ros. 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 com pany. [Exit Silvius. Enter OLIVER. Oli. Good morrow, fair ones: pray you, you know, if Where in the purlieus of this forest stands The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream Left on your right hand brings you to the place. 81 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, Of female favor, and bestows himself Oli. And well he might so do, For well I know he was unnatural. Ros. But, to Orlando: did he leave him there, Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness? Oli. Twice did he turn his back and purposed so; 131 But kindness, nobler ever than revenge, From miserable slumber I awaked. 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 To tell you what I was, since my conversion So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am. Ros. But, for the bloody napkin? Oli. By and by. When from the first to last betwixt us two 140 Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed, As how I came into that desert place :- 110 The opening of his mouth; but suddenly, Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself, Cel. Oli. Look, he recovers. And with indented glides did slip away 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 120 And found it was his brother, his elder brother. There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede ! Ros. I would I were at home. Cel. 160 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. Ros. 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! 169 Oli. This was not counterfeit : there is too great testimony in your complexion that it was a passion of earnest. Ros. Counterfeit, I assure you. Oli. Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man. |