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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 a 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. Tomorrow, 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 loath to foil him, as I must for my own honour if he come in: therefore, out of my love to you I came hither to acquaint you withal, that either you might stay him from his intendment, or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is a thing of his own search, and altogether against 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, laboured to dissuade him from it; but he is resolute. I'll tell thee, Charles: it is the stubbornest young fellow of France; full of ambition, an envious emulator of every man's good parts, a secret and villainous 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 practise 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 anatomize 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.

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 enchantingly beloved, and, indeed, so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, 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 kindle the boy thither, which now I'll go about. [Exit. SCENE II.-A Lawn before the DUKE's Palace.

Enter ROSALIND and CELIA.

Cel. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry. Ros. Dear Celia, I show 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: 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 honour, I will; and when I break that bath 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?

Cel. Marry, I pr'ythee, 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 may'st in honour 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 henceforth be bestowed equally.

1 I, was added by Pope.

Ros. I would, we could do so; for her benefits are mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women.

Cel. 'T is true, for those that she makes fair, she scarce makes honest; and those that she makes honest, she makes very ill-favoured.

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

Enter TOUCHSTONE.

Cel. No when nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by fortune fall into the fire?—Though nature hath given us wit to flout at fortune, 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 dulí to reason of such goddesses, hath sent this natural for our whetstone: for always the dulness 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 honour; but I was bid to come

for you.

Ros. Where learned you that oath, fool?

Touch. Of a certain knight, that swore by his honour they were good pancakes, and swore by his honour 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 honour, 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'ythee, who is 't that thou mean'st?

Touch. One that old Frederick, your father, loves. Ros'. My father's love is enough to honour him enough. Speak no more of him: you'll be whipped for taxation, one of these days.

Touch. The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely, what wise men do foolishly.

Cel. By my troth, thou say'st 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.

Cel. Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.

Ros. Then shall we be news-cramm'd.

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. Spot? Of what colour?

Le Beau. What colour, 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.

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Cel. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried. Le Beau. There comes an old man, and his three sons,―

Cel. I could match this beginning with an old tale.

1 Some eds. give this speech to Celia. 2 Scandal. 3 sport: in f. e. • Confuse.

Le Beau. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence;—

Ros. With bills' on their necks,-"Be it known unto all men by these presents,"

Le Beau. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the duke's wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him: so he served the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie, the poor old man, their father, making such pitiful 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 ribs was sport for ladies.

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 are ready to perform it.

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

Flourish. Enter Duke FREDERICK, Lords, ORLANDO, CHARLES, and Attendants.

Duke F. Come on: since the youth will not be 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 you, there is such odds in the men'. 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.

1 A kind of pike, or halbert. 2 man: in f. e.

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