The Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Plain and Simple English (Translated)
Page 217
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.
Yes, sir, I will be – and I have come to talk with you
about a relevant problem. I was secretly informed
that your younger brother, Orlando, is planning
to fight against me in a disguise.
Tomorrow, sir, I am fighting to show off, so anyone
who escapes without a broken bone is lucky.
Your brother is young and weak still, and,
out of my love for you, I would feel bad if I destroyed him,
as I must in order to win the honor I am looking to win. So,
since I admire you, I came to tell you
so that you can either force him away from this
plan or can prepare him for the disgrace
he will face in fighting me – disgrace that will be his fault
and not something I am looking forward to.
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, 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 villanous 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 villanous 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.
Charles, thank you for your respect and loyalty, which
I will certainly reward you for. I
discovered my brother’s intentions and
have subtly tried to persuade him against
it, but he is determined to go through with it. I will tell you, Charles,
that Orlando is one of the most stubborn men in France, very
ambitious, and also very jealous of every man’s
good qualities. Also, he is a cunning and villainous liar who schemes
against me, his own brother. Do whatever you think
is best – in fact, I would be just as happy if you broke his neck
as his finger. You should be careful, too, because if
you do disgrace him, or even if he does not
beat you by a lot, he will come
against you with poison or he will trap you by some
dangerous plan, and he will never leave
until he has killed you, some way or another.
I promise you, and it saddens me to tears to say
it, no man so young and yet so cruel and bad
exists except for him. And I am speaking as his brother –
if I were to talk to you as he really is, I
would blush and cry and you would look shocked and amazed.
CHARLES
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!
I am very glad I came here. If he fights me
tomorrow, then I will give him what he deserves. If he can
walk without assistance after the fight, I will not wrestle for money again.
God keep you well, your worship!
OLIVER
Farewell, good Charles.
Goodbye, 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 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.
Now I will see what happens to this dandy brother. I hope I see
him killed, for honestly, and I don’t know why, I
hate him more than everything, even though he is nice, has never
been taught anything but is still educated, is noble,
is loved by all kinds of people, is loved in fact
by the whole world, and especially of my
people, who know him best. Because they love him,
they despise me – but it won’t be this way for long. The
wrestler, Charles, will fix all of this. All I have to do
is convince Orlando to fight tomorrow, which I will do now.
Exit
Enter CELIA and ROSALIND
CELIA
I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.
I hope that you are happy, Rosalind, my sweet cousin.
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 pleasure.
Dear Celia, I present myself as happier than I really am,
and you want me to be even happier? Unless you can
teach me how to forget about my father and his banishment, you should not
expect me to remember such great pleasure.
CELIA
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.
Now I see that you do not love me as fully
as I love you. If my uncle, your banished father,
had banished your uncle, my father the duke, and if
I was still here with you, then I would have been able to
love your father as my own. You would be able to also,
if your love for me was so strong and overpowering
as mine is for you.
ROSALIND
Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to
rejoice in yours.
Fine, then I will forget my own situation in order
to be happy for you and rejoice in your situation.
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 me turn monster:
therefore, my
sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.
You know my father has only me as his child, and is
not likely to have anymore. And, when he dies, you will
be his heir – what he took away from your
father by force I will give to you in
love. I swear it by my own honor, and if I break
that promise, than I hope I become a monster. Now, my
sweet, dear Rose, be happy.
ROSALIND
From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let
me see; what think you of falling in love?
From now on, I will be merry and come up with various games, for you, my cousin. Let’s
see: what do you think about falling in love.
CELIA
Marry, I prithee, 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 mayst
in honour come off again.
Yes, please, let’s do that and fall in love – but
we should not love seriously, and we shouldn’t play any game
that we can’t get out of safely, with a simple blush.
ROSALIND
What shall be our sport, then?
So what shall we do instead?
CELIA
Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from
her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.
Let’s sit here and make fun of Fortune, that loose housewife,
and see if she will give her gifts more 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.
I wish we could get her to do that. Her gifts are
so wrongly distributed, and that blind woman
mistakes her gifts to women most of all.
CELIA
'Tis true; for those that she makes fair she scarce
makes honest, and those that she makes honest she
makes very ill-favouredly.
It’s true: whoever she makes beautiful, she rarely
makes them faithful and pure, and those whom she makes pure, she
also makes ugly.
ROSALIND
Nay, now thou goest from Fortune's office to
Nature's: Fortune reigns in gifts of the world,
not in the lineaments of Nature.
No, you are not talking about Fortune now, you mean
Nature: Fortune decides what we are given in the world,
but Nature decides what we are given as humans.
Enter TOUCHSTONE
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?
Really? When Nature makes a beautiful person, couldn’t that person
then fall into the fire because of Fortune, turning her ugly? And even though Nature
endowed us with the intelligence to make fun of Fortune, didn’t
Fortune send this fool Touchstone to ruin our argument?
ROSALIND
Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when
Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of
Nature's wit.
Yes, and now Fortune is being difficult with Nature:
Fortune has made Nature’s natural fool cut off
two women whom Nature made naturally witty.
CELIA
Peradventure this is not Fortune's work neither, but
Nature's; who perceiveth our natural wits too dull
to reason of such goddesses and 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?
Perhaps this is not Fortune’s doing either, but is
Nature’s: Nature saw that we are not naturally smart enough
to talk about either goddess, and so sent us
this natural fool to make us smarter. After all, the ignorance of
the fool always makes the wits of the smart person sharper. Hello,
fool! Where are you off to?
TOUCHSTONE
Mistress, you must come away to your father.
Mistress, you must come see your father.
CELIA
Were you made the messenger?
And he sent you to take me away?
TOUCHSTONE
No, by mine honour, but I was bid to come for you.
By my honor, not to take you away like a police officer! But I was sent to get you.
ROSALIND
Where learned you that oath, fool?
Where did you learn an oath like that, “by my honor,” you fool?
TOUCHSTONE
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.
A knight I knew swore by his honor that the
pancakes were good and he swore by his honor that the
mustard was not good – but truly, the
pancakes were not good and the mustard was fine, and
yet still, since the knight had sworn, he had not lied.
CELIA
How prove you that, in the great heap of your
knowledge?
How do you figure that? Prove it from your great amount
of knowledge.
ROSALIND
Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.
Yes, unleash all of your wisdom.
TOUCHSTONE
Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and
swear by your beards that I am a knave.
Then stand back, both of you. First stroke your chins and
swear by your beards that I am a rascal.
CELIA
By our beards, if we had them, thou art.
By our beards (if we had them, that is), you are a rascal.
TOUCHSTONE
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.
And I swear by my trickery, if I had any, that I am a rascal as well: but if you
swear by something that you don’t have, then even a lie doesn’t break that oath.
The knight swore by his honor, but really he
never had any to begin with – or if he did, then he lost it by making oaths
long before he saw the pancakes or the mustard.
CELIA
Prithee, who is't that thou meanest?
Tell us, who are you talking about?
TOUCHSTONE
One that old Frederick, your father, loves.
A knight whom your father, old Frederick, loves.
CELIA
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.
Then my father’s love is enough to make him honorable! Now stop
and don’t speak any more about him, or else you will be whipped for slander.
I’m sure you will some day anyway.
TOUCHSTONE
The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what
wise men do foolishly.
It is sad that fools are not allowed to talk wisely about
the foolish actions of wise men.
CELIA
By my troth, thou sayest 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.
That’s true: since the little
wisdom that fools might have has been silenced, the little foolishness
that wise men have ends up being obvious and apparent. Here comes
Mister Le Beau.
ROSALIND
With his mouth full of news.
No doubt full of news to tell us.
CELIA
Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.
He will force it on us the same way that pigeons feed their young.
ROSALIND
Then shall we be news-crammed.
And then we shall be stuffed with news.
CELIA
All the better; we shall be the more marketable.
Good, a fatter bird is worth more anyway.
Enter LE BEAU
Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: what's the news?
Hello, Mister Le Beau: what is new?
LE BEAU
Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.
Fair princess, you are missing out on some fun.
CELIA
Sport! of what colour?
Fun! What color of fun?
LE BEAU
What colour, madam! how shall I answer you?
What color, madam? I don’t understand; how am I supposed to respond to that?
ROSALIND
As wit and fortune will.