As I do trust I am not, then, dear uncle,
Never so much as in a thought unborn
Did I offend your highness.

Duke F

Thus do all traitors;

If their purgation1 did consist in words,
They are as innocent as grace itself.

Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.

Rosalind. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor. Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.

Duke F. Thou art thy father's daughter- there's enough. Rosalind. So was I when your highness took his dukedom; So was 1 when your highness banish'd him.

Treason is not inherited, my lord;

Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
What's that to me ? my father was no traitor.
Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
To think my poverty is treacherous.

Celia. Dear sovereign, hear me speak.

Duke F. Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake,
Else had she with her father rang'd along.

Celia. I did not then entreat to have her stay;
It was your pleasure and your own remorse.2
I was too young that time to value her;
But now I know her. If she be a traitor,

Why, so am I; we still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together,
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,3

Still we went coupled and inseparable.

Duke F. She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,

Her very silence, and her patience

Speak to the people, and they pity her.

1 Clearance from guilt. 2 Tenderness of heart.

3 " 'Juno's swans," i.e., the swans that drew the goddess's chariot. But the mythologists tell us the swan was sacred to Venus, and that Juno's car was drawn by peacocks.

Thou art a fool; she robs thee of thy name,

And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
When she is gone. Then open not thy lips.

Firm and irrevocable is my doom

Which I have pass'd upon her: she is banish'd.

Celia. Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege;

I cannot live out of her company.

Duke F. You are a fool!-You, niece, provide yourself. If you outstay the time, upon mine honor,

And in the greatness of my word, you die.

[Exeunt Duke Frederick and Lords. Celia. O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go? Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.

I charge thee, be not thou more griev'd than I am.

Rosalind. I have more cause.
Celia.

Prithee, be cheerful.

Thou hast not, cousin;

Know'st thou not the Duke

Hath banish'd me, his daughter ?

Rosalind.

That he hath not.

Celia. No? hath not ? Rosalind lacks then the love

Which teacheth thee that thou and I am1 one.

Shall we be sunder'd ? shall we part, sweet girl?
No: let my father seek another heir.
Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
Whither to go, and what to bear with us;
And do not seek to take the charge upon you,
To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out;
For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.

Rosalind. Why, whither shall we go?

Celia. To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.
Rosalind. Alas, what danger will it be to us,

Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

1 Are.

Celia. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,
And with a kind of umber smirch my face;
The like do you; so shall we pass along

And never stir assailants.

Rosalind.

Were it not better,

Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtle ax1 upon my thigh,

A boar spear in my hand; and—in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will-
We'll have a swashing 2 and a martial outside,
As many other mannish cowards have

That do outface it with their semblances.

Celia. What shall I call thee when thou art a man?

Rosalind. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page; And therefore look you call me Ganymede.3

But what will you be call'd?

Celia. Something that hath a reference to my state: No longer Celia, but Aliena.

Rosalind. But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal
The clownish fool out of your father's court?
Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

Celia. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me;
Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away,
And get our jewels and our wealth together,
Devise the fittest time and safest way
To hide us from pursuit that will be made
After my flight. Now go we in content
To liberty and not to banishment.

1 ""

lass."

[Exeunt.

Curtle ax," i.e., a short sword. The name is a corruption of cut

2 Swaggering.

3 A beautiful youth of Phrygia, son of Tros, who, while feeding his father's flocks on Mount Ida, was taken up to Olympus by Jupiter, and became the cupbearer of the gods. 4 Persuade; gain over.

ACT II.

SCENE I. The Forest of Arden.

Enter DUKE Senior, AMIENS, and two or three Lords, like foresters.

Duke S. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile',
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say,
"This is no flattery; these are counselors
That feelingly persuade me what I am."
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

1

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

I would not change it.

Amiens.

Happy is your grace,

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune

Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

Duke S. Come, shall we go and kill us venison ?

And yet it irks 2 me the poor dappled fools,

Being native burghers3 of this desert city,

1 That the toad was venomous, and that it had a precious jewel in its head, were old superstitions in Shakespeare's day. The toadstone was supposed to be an antidote for poison.

Should in their own confines', with forked heads 1
Have their round haunches gor'd.

First Lord.

Indeed, my lord,

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,
And, in that kind,2 swears you do more usurp
Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.
To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself

Did steal behind him as he lay along

Under an oak whose an'tique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood.
To the which place a poor sequester'd3 stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,

Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

Duke S.

But what said Jaques ?

Did he not moralize this spectacle ?

First Lord. O yes, into a thousand similes.

First, for his weeping into the needless stream:

"Poor deer," quoth he, "thou mak'st a testament

As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

To that which had too much." Then, being there alone, Left and abandon'd of his velvet 5 friends,

""Tis right," quoth he; "thus misery doth part

The flux of company." Anon a careless herd,

4 "Needless stream," i.e., a stream that already had water enough.

5 Sleek; prosperous.

6 Coming together.