Ros.

Duke F.

Me, uncle?

You, cousin;

Within these ten days if that thou be'st found
So near our public court as twenty miles,
Thou diest for it.

Ros.

I do beseech your grace,

Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me.
If with myself I hold intelligence,

Or have acquaintance with mine own desires;
If that I do not dream, or be not frantic,
(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 purgation did consist in words,
They are as innocent as grace itself.—
Let it suffice thee, that I trust thee not.

Ros. 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.

Ros. So was I when your highness took his duke

dom;

So was I when your highness banished 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.

Cel. Dear sovereign, hear me speak.

Duke F. Ay, Celia; we stayed her for your sake, Else had she with her father ranged along.

Cel. I did not then entreat to have her stay;
It was your pleasure and your own remorse.1
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, learned, played, ate together,

I i. e. compassion.

And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,
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.

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 passed upon her; she is banished.
Cel. Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege.
I cannot live out of her company.

If

Duke. F. You are a fool.-You, niece, provide yourself;

you outstay the time, upon mine honor, And in the greatness of my word, you die.

[Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK and Lords. Cel. O my poor Rosalind! whither wilt thou go? Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine. I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am. Ros. I have more cause.

Cel. Thou hast not, cousin; Pr'ythee be cheerful. Know'st thou not, the duke Hath banished me, his daughter?

Ros.

That he hath not.

Cel. No? Hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love Which teacheth me that thou and I are one.

Shall we be sundered? 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 your change1 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.

1 The second folio reads charge. Malone explains it "to take your change or reverse of fortune upon yourself, without any aid or participation."

VOL. II.

35

Ros. Why, whither shall we go?

Cel. To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden.
Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

Cel. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,
And with a kind of umber1 smirch my face.
The like do you; so shall we pass along,
And never stir assailants.

Ros.

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-axe upon my thigh,

2

A boar-spear in my hand; and (in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will)
We'll have a swashing 3 and a martial outside ;
As many other mannish cowards have,

That do outface it with their semblances.

Cel. What shall I call thee, when thou art a man? Ros. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own

page,

And therefore, look you, call me Ganymede.

But what will you be called?

Cel. Something that hath a reference to my state;

No longer Celia, but Aliena.

Ros. But, cousin, what if we assayed to steal The clownish fool out of your father's court?

Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

Cel. 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.

[Exeunt.

1 "A kind of umber," a dusky yellow-colored earth, brought from Umbria in Italy, well known to artists.

2 This was one of the old words for a cutlass, or short, crooked sword; coutelas (French). It was variously spelled, courtlas, courtlax, curtlax. 3 i. e. as we now say, dashing.

ACT II.

SCENE I. The Forest of Arden.

Enter Duke senior, AMIENS, and other Lords, in the dress of Foresters.

Duke S. Now, my co-mates, and brothers in exíle,
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 not1 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 counsellors,
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;2
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

Ami. I would not change it. 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 me, the poor dappled fools,Being native burghers of this desert city,— Should, in their own confines, with forked heads Have their round haunches gored.

1 Lord.

Indeed, my lord,

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;

1 The old copy reads thus. Theobald proposed to read but, and has been followed by subsequent editors.

2 It was currently believed, in the time of Shakspeare, that the toad had a stone contained in its head, which was endued with singular virtues. This was called the toad-stone.

And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp
Than doth your brother that hath banished you.
To-day, my lord of Amiens, and myself,
Did steal behind him as he lay along

Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood;
To the which place a poor sequestered stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Coursed 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?

1 Lord. O yes, into a thousand similes.
First, for his weeping in 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 alone,
Left and abandoned of his velvet friends;
'Tis right, quoth he; this misery doth part
The flux of company. Anon, a careless herd,
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,
And never stays to greet him; Ay, quoth Jaques,
Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
'Tis just the fashion. Wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?
Thus most invectively he pierceth through
The body of country, city, court,

Yea, and of this our life; swearing that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what's worse,
To fright the animals, and to kill them up,
In their assigned and native dwelling-place.
Duke S. And did you leave him in this contem-
plation?