The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 63
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
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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.
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Enter OLIVER.
ORLANDO Go apart Adam, and thou shalt hear how he
will shake me up.
OLIVER Now sir, what make you here?
ORLANDO Nothing. I am not taught to make anything.
OLIVER What mar you then sir?
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ORLANDO Marry sir, I am helping you to mar that
which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours,
with idleness.
OLIVER Marry sir, be better employed, and be naught
awhile.
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ORLANDO Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with
them? What prodigal portion have I spent that I
should come to such penury?
OLIVER Know you where you are sir?
ORLANDO O sir, very well: here in your orchard.
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OLIVER Know you before whom sir?
ORLANDO 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
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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.
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OLIVER [striking him] What, boy!
ORLANDO [putting a wrestler’s grip on him] Come, come,
elder brother, you are too young in this.
OLIVER Wilt thou lay hands on me villain?
ORLANDO I am no villain. I am the youngest son of Sir
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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.
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ADAM Sweet masters be patient. For your father’s
remembrance, be at accord.
OLIVER Let me go I say.
ORLANDO I will not till I please: you shall hear me. My
father charged you in his will to give me good
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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
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the poor allottery my father left me by testament; with
that I will go buy my fortunes.
OLIVER 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
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leave me.
ORLANDO I will no further offend you than becomes me
for my good.
OLIVER Get you with him, you old dog.
ADAM Is old dog my reward? Most true, I have lost my
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teeth in your service. God be with my old master! – he
would not have spoke such a word.
Exeunt Orlando and Adam.
OLIVER Is it even so? Begin you to grow upon me? I will
physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand
crowns neither. Holla Dennis!
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Enter DENNIS.
DENNIS Calls your worship?
OLIVER Was not Charles the Duke’s wrestler here to
speak with me?
DENNIS So please you, he is here at the door and
importunes access to you.
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OLIVER Call him in. Exit Dennis.
’Twill be a good way. And tomorrow the wrestling is.
Enter CHARLES.
CHARLES Good morrow to your worship.
OLIVER Good Monsieur Charles! What’s the new news
at the new court?
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CHARLES There’s no news at the court sir, but the old
news. That is, the old Duke is banished by his younger
brother the new Duke, and three or four loving lords
have put themselves into voluntary exile with him,
whose lands and revenues enrich the new Duke,
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therefore he gives them good leave to wander.
OLIVER Can you tell if Rosalind the Duke’s daughter
be banished with her father?
CHARLES O no; for the Duke’s daughter her cousin so
loves her, being ever from their cradles bred together,
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that she would have followed her exile, or have died to
stay behind her. She is at the court, and no less
beloved of her uncle than his own daughter, and never
two ladies loved as they do.
OLIVER Where will the old Duke live?
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CHARLES They say he is already in the Forest of Arden,
and a many merry men with him; and there they live
like the old Robin Hood of England. They say many
young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the
time carelessly as they did in the golden world.
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OLIVER What, you wrestle tomorrow before the new
Duke?
CHARLES 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
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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
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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
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will.
OLIVER 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;
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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
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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
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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
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must look pale and wonder.
CHARLES I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he
come tomorrow, 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.
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OLIVER Farewell good Charles. Exit 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
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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,
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which now I’ll go about. Exit.
1.2 Enter ROSALIND and CELIA.
CELIA I pray thee Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.
ROSALIND 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
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pleasure.
CELIA Herein I see thou lov’st 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
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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.
ROSALIND Well, I will forget the condition of my estate,
to rejoice in yours.
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CELIA 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 oath, let
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me turn monster. Therefore my sweet Rose, my dear
Rose, be merry.
ROSALIND From henceforth I will, coz, and devise
sports. Let me see, what think you of falling in love?
CELIA Marry I prithee do, to make sport withal. But
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love no man in good earnest, nor no further in sport
neither, than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst in
honour come off again.
ROSALIND What shall be our sport then?
CELIA Let us sit and mock the good hussif Fortune
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from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be
bestowed equally.
ROSALIND 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.
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CELIA ’Tis true, for those that she makes fair, she scarce
makes honest; and those that she makes honest, she
makes very ill-favouredly.
ROSALIND Nay now thou goest from Fortune’s office to
Nature’s; Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in
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the lineaments of Nature.
CELIA 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?
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Enter TOUCHSTONE.
ROSALIND Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature,
when Fortune makes Nature’s natural the cutter-off of
Nature’s wit.
CELIA Peradventure this is not Fortune’s work neither,
but Nature’s, who perceiveth our natural wits too dull
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to reason of such goddesses, and hath sent this natural
for our whetstone; for always the dullness of the fool is
the whetstone of the wits. How now Wit, whither
wander you?
TOUCHSTONE Mistress, you must come away to your
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father.
CELIA Were you made the messenger?
TOUCHSTONE No by mine honour, but I was bid to
come for you.
CELIA Where learned you that oath, fool?