The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  ORLANDO For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.

  ROSALIND Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.

  ORLANDO I must attend the Duke at dinner. By two o’clock I will be with thee again.

  ROSALIND 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?

  ORLANDO Ay, sweet Rosalind.

  ROSALIND 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.

  ORLANDO With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind. So, adieu.

  ROSALIND Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders; and let Time try. Adieu. Exit Orlando

  CELIA 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.

  ROSALIND 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.

  CELIA Or rather bottomless, that as fast as you pour affection in, it runs out.

  ROSALIND No, that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of thought, conceived of spleen, and born of madness, that blind rascally boy that abuses everyone’s eyes because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I am in love. I’ll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. I’ll go find a shadow and sigh till he come.

  CELIA And I’ll sleep. Exeunt

  4.2 Enter Jaques and Lords dressed as foresters JAQUES Which is he that killed the deer? FIRST LORD Sir, it was I.

  JAQUES (to the others) Let’s present him to the Duke like a Roman conqueror. And it would do well to set the deer’s horns upon his head for a branch of victory. Have you no song, forester, for this purpose?

  SECOND LORD Yes, sir.

  JAQUES Sing it. ’Tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough.

  LORDS (sing)

  What shall he have that killed the deer?

  His leather skin and horns to wear.

  Then sing him home; the rest shall bear

  This burden.

  Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;

  It was a crest ere thou wast born.

  Thy father’s father wore it,

  And thy father bore it.

  The horn, the horn, the lusty horn

  Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.

  Exeunt

  4.3 Enter Rosalind as Ganymede and Celia as Aliena

  ROSALIND How say you now? Is it not past two o’clock? And here much Orlando.

  CELIA I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain he hath ta’en his bow and arrows and is gone forth to sleep.

  ⌈Enter Silvius⌉

  Look who comes here.

  SILVIUS (to Rosalind)

  My errand is to you, fair youth.

  My gentle Phoebe did bid me give you this.

  He offers Rosalind a letter, which she takes and reads

  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,

  It bears an angry tenor. Pardon me;

  I am but as a guiltless messenger.

  ROSALIND

  Patience herself would startle at this letter,

  And play the swaggerer. Bear this, bear all.

  She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;

  She calls me proud, and that she could not love me

  Were man as rare as Phoenix. ‘Od’s my will,

  Her love is not the hare that I do hunt.

  Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,

  This is a letter of your own device.

  SILVIUS

  No, I protest; I know not the contents.

  Phoebe did write it.

  ROSALIND Come, come, you are a fool,

  And turned into the extremity of love.

  I saw her hand. She has a leathern hand,

  A free-stone coloured hand. I verily did think

  That her old gloves were on; but ’twas her hands.

  She has a housewife’s hand—but that’s no matter.

  I say she never did invent this letter.

  This is a man’s invention, and his hand.

  SILVIUS Sure, it is hers.

  ROSALIND

  Why, ’tis a boisterous and a cruel style,

  A style for challengers. Why, she defies me,

  Like Turk to Christian. Women’s gentle brain

  Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention,

  Such Ethiop words, blacker in their effect

  Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?

  SILVIUS

  So please you, for I never heard it yet,

  Yet heard too much of Phoebe’s cruelty.

  ROSALIND

  She Phoebes me. Mark how the tyrant writes:

  (reads) ‘Art thou god to shepherd turned,

  That a maiden’s heart hath burned?’

  Can a woman rail thus?

  SILVIUS Call you this railing?

  ROSALIND (reads)

  ‘Why, thy godhead laid apart,

  Warr’st thou with a woman’s heart?’

  Did you ever hear such railing?

  ‘Whiles the eye of man did woo me

  That could do no vengeance to me.’—

  Meaning me a beast.

  ‘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.’

  SILVIUS Call you this chiding?

  CELIA Alas, poor shepherd.

  ROSALIND Do you pity him? No, he deserves no pity. (To Silvius) 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 company.

  Exit Silvius

  Enter Oliver

  OLIVER

  Good morrow, fair ones. Pray you, if you know,

  Where in the purlieus of this forest stands

  A sheepcote fenced about with olive trees?

  CELIA

  West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom.

  The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream

  Left on your right hand brings you to the place.

  But at this hour the house doth keep itself.

  There’s none within.

  OLIVER

  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 favour, and bestows himself

  Like a ripe sister. The woman low

  And browner than her brother.’ Are not you

  The owner of the house I did enquire for?

  CELIA

  It is no boast, bei
ng asked, to say we are.

  OLIVER

  Orlando doth commend him to you both,

  And to that youth he calls his Rosalind

  He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?

  ROSALIND

  I am. What must we understand by this?

  OLIVER

  Some of my shame, if you will know of me

  What man I am, and how, and why, and where

  This handkerchief was stained.

  CELIA I pray you tell it.

  OLIVER

  When last the young Orlando parted from you,

  He left a promise to return again

  Within an hour, and pacing through the forest,

  Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,

  Lo what befell. He threw his eye aside,

  And mark what object did present itself.

  Under an old oak, whose boughs were mossed with age

  And high top bald with dry antiquity,

  A wretched, ragged man, o‘ergrown with hair,

  Lay sleeping on his back. About his neck

  A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself,

  Who with her head, nimble in threats, approached

  The opening of his mouth. But suddenly

  Seeing Orlando, it unlinked itself,

  And with indented glides did slip away

  Into a bush, under which bush’s shade

  A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,

  Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch

  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

  And found it was his brother, his elder brother.

  CELIA

  O, I have heard him speak of that same brother,

  And he did render him the most unnatural

  That lived amongst men.

  OLIVER And well he might so do,

  For well I know he was unnatural.

  ROSALIND

  But to Orlando. Did he leave him there,

  Food to the sucked and hungry lioness?

  OLIVER

  Twice did he turn his back, and purposed so.

  But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,

  And nature, stronger than his just occasion,

  Made him give battle to the lioness,

  Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling

  From miserable slumber I awaked.

  CELIA

  Are you his brother?

  ROSALIND

  Was’t you he rescued?

  CELIA

  Was’t you that did so oft contrive to kill him?

  OLIVER

  ‘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.

  ROSALIND

  But for the bloody napkin?

  OLIVER By and by.

  When from the first to last betwixt us two

  Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed—

  As how I came into that desert place—

  I’ brief, he led me to the gentle Duke,

  Who gave me fresh array, and entertainment,

  Committing me unto my brother’s love,

  Who led me instantly unto his cave,

  There stripped himself, and here upon his arm

  The lioness had torn some flesh away,

  Which all this while had bled. And now he fainted,

  And cried in fainting upon Rosalind.

  Brief, I recovered him, bound up his wound,

  And after some small space, being strong at heart,

  He sent me hither, stranger as I am,

  To tell this story, that you might excuse

  His broken promise, and to give this napkin,

  Dyed in his blood, unto the shepherd youth

  That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.

  Rosalind faints

  CELIA

  Why, how now, Ganymede, sweet Ganymede!

  OLIVER

  Many will swoon when they do look on blood.

  CELIA

  There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede!

  OLIVER Look, he recovers.

  ROSALIND I would I were at home.

  CELIA We’ll lead you thither.

  (To Oliver) I pray you, will you take him by the arm?

  OLIVER Be of good cheer, youth. You a man? You lack a man’s heart.

  ROSALIND 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!

  OLIVER This was not counterfeit. There is too great testimony in your complexion that it was a passion of earnest.

  ROSALIND Counterfeit, I assure you.

  OLIVER Well then, take a good heart, and counterfeit to be a man.

  ROSALIND So I do; but, i’faith, I should have been a woman by right.

  CELIA Come, you look paler and paler. Pray you, draw homewards. Good sir, go with us.

  OLIVER

  That will I, for I must bear answer back

  How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.

  ROSALIND I shall devise something. But I pray you commend my counterfeiting to him. Will you go?

  Exeunt

  5.1 Enter Touchstone the clown and Audrey

  TOUCHSTONE We shall find a time, Audrey. Patience, gentle Audrey.

  AUDREY Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old gentleman’s saying.

  TOUCHSTONE A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to you.

  AUDREY Ay, I know who ’tis. He hath no interest in me in the world. Here comes the man you mean.

  Enter William

  TOUCHSTONE It is meat and drink to me to see a clown. By my troth, we that have good wits have much to answer for. We shall be flouting; we cannot hold.

  WILLIAM Good ev’n, Audrey.

  AUDREY God ye good ev’n, William.

  WILLIAM (to Touchstone) And good ev’n to you, sir.

  TOUCHSTONE Good ev’n, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy head. Nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend?

  WILLIAM Five-and-twenty, sir.

  TOUCHSTONE A ripe age. Is thy name William?

  WILLIAM William, sir.

  TOUCHSTONE A fair name. Wast born i’th’ forest here?

  WILLIAM Ay, sir, I thank God.

  TOUCHSTONE Thank God—a good answer. Art rich?

  WILLIAM Faith, sir, so-so.

  TOUCHSTONE So-so is good, very good, very excellent good. And yet it is not, it is but so-so. Art thou wise?

  WILLIAM Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.

  TOUCHSTONE Why, thou sayst well. I do now remember a saying: ‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.’ The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth, meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat, and lips to open. You do love this maid?

  WILLIAM I do, sir.

  TOUCHSTONE Give me your hand. Art thou learned?

  WILLIAM No, sir.

  TOUCHSTONE Then learn this of me: to have is to have. For it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other. For all your writers do consent that ipse is he. Now you are not ipse, for I am he.

  WILLIAM Which he, sir?

  TOUCHSTONE He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you clown, abandon—which is in the vulgar, leave—the society—which in the boorish is company—of this femate—which in the common is woman; which together is, abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest; or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage. I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel. I will bandy with thee i
n faction, I will o’errun thee with policy. I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways. Therefore tremble, and depart.

  AUDREY Do, good William.

  WILLIAM God rest you merry, sir.

  Exit

  Enter Corin

  CORIN Our master and mistress seeks you. Come, away, away.

  TOUCHSTONE Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey. (To Corin) I attend, I attend.

  Exeunt

  5.2 Enter Orlando and Oliver

  ORLANDO Is’t possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her? That but seeing, you should love her? And loving, woo? And wooing, she should grant? And will you persevere to enjoy her?

  OLIVER Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden consenting; but say with me, ‘I love Aliena’; say with her, that she loves me; consent with both that we may enjoy each other. It shall be to your good, for my father’s house and all the revenue that was old Sir Rowland’s will I estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.

  Enter Rosalind as Ganymede

  ORLANDO You have my consent. Let your wedding be tomorrow. Thither will I invite the Duke and all’s contented followers. Go you, and prepare Aliena; for look you, here comes my Rosalind.

  ROSALIND God save you, brother.

  OLIVER And you, fair sister. Exit

  ROSALIND O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf.

  ORLANDO It is my arm.

  ROSALIND I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion.

  ORLANDO Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.

  ROSALIND Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon when he showed me your handkerchief?

  ORLANDO Ay, and greater wonders than that.

  ROSALIND O, I know where you are. Nay, ‘tis true. There was never anything so sudden but the fight of two rams, and Caesar’s thrasonical brag of ‘I came, saw, and overcame’, for your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage. They are in the very wrath of love, and they will together. Clubs cannot part them.