William Shakespeare - As You Like It
William Shakespeare - As You Like It
William Shakespeare - As You Like It
This edition by William George Clark and William Aldis Wright was first published in 1887.
This ebook edition was created and published by Global Grey in 2018,
and updated on the 4th April 2023.
The artwork used for the cover is ‘The Wrestling Scene in 'As You Like It'’
painted by Daniel Maclise.
This book can be found on the site here:
globalgreyebooks.com/as-you-like-it-ebook.html
32T U U32T
Dramatis Personae
Duke, living in banishment
Frederick, his brother, and usurper of his dominions
Amiens, lord attending on the banished duke
Jaques, lord attending on the banished duke
Le Beau, a courtier attending on Frederick
Charles, wrestler to Frederick.
Oliver, son of Sir Rowland de Boys
Jaques, son of Sir Rowland de Boys
Orlando, son of Sir Rowland de Boys
Adam, servant to Oliver
Dennis, servant to Oliver
Touchstone, a clown
Sir Oliver Martext, a vicar
Corin, shepherd
Silvius, shepherd
William, a country fellow, in love with Audrey
A person representing Hymen
Rosalind, daughter to the banished duke
Celia, daughter to Frederick
Phebe, a shepherdess
Audrey, a country wench
Lords, pages, and attendants, etc.
Scene: Oliver’s house; Duke Frederick’s court; and the Forest of Arden.
2
Act I
3
Scene I
Orlando: I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir 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.
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 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 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, 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 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!
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.
Oliver: Call him in.
Exit Dennis.
’Twill be a good way; and to-morrow the wrestling is.
Enter Charles.
Charles: Good morrow to your worship.
Oliver: Good Monsieur Charles, what’s the new news at the new court?
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; 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, 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?
5
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.
Oliver: What, you wrestle to-morrow 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 to come in disguised
against me to try a fall. To-morrow, 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 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.
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: 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!
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 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.
Exit.
6
Scene II
Le Beau: You amaze me, ladies: I would have told you of good wrestling, which you have
lost the sight of.
Rosalind: You tell us the manner of the wrestling.
Le Beau: I will tell you the beginning; and, if it please your ladyships, you may see the end;
for the best is yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.
Celia: Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried.
Le Beau: There comes an old man and his three sons—
Celia: I could match this beginning with an old tale.
Le Beau: Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence.
Rosalind: With bills on their necks, “Be it known unto all men by these presents.”
Le Beau: The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the duke’s wrestler; which Charles in
a moment threw him and broke three of his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him: so he
served the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man, their father, making
such pitiful dole over them that all the beholders take his part with weeping.
Rosalind: Alas!
Touchstone: But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have lost?
Le Beau: Why, this that I speak of.
Touchstone: Thus men may grow wiser every day: it is the first time that ever I heard
breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.
Celia: Or I, I promise thee.
Rosalind: But is there any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? is there yet
another dotes upon rib-breaking? Shall we see this wrestling, cousin?
Le Beau: You must, if you stay here; for here is the place appointed for the wrestling, and
they are ready to perform it.
Celia: Yonder, sure, they are coming: let us now stay and see it.
Flourish. Enter Duke Frederick, Lords, Orlando, Charles, and Attendants.
Duke Frederick: Come on: since the youth will not be entreated, his own peril on his
forwardness.
Rosalind: Is yonder the man?
Le Beau: Even he, madam.
Celia: Alas, he is too young! yet he looks successfully.
Duke Frederick: How now, daughter and cousin! are you crept hither to see the wrestling?
Rosalind: Ay, my liege, so please you give us leave.
Duke Frederick: You will take little delight in it, I can tell you; there is such odds in the
man. In pity of the challenger’s youth I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated.
Speak to him, ladies; see if you can move him.
Celia: Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau.
Duke Frederick: Do so: I’ll not be by.
9
Duke Frederick: Bear him away. What is thy name, young man?
Orlando: Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys.
Duke Frederick: I would thou hadst been son to some man else:
The world esteem’d thy father honourable,
But I did find him still mine enemy:
Thou shouldst have better pleased me with this deed,
Hadst thou descended from another house.
But fare thee well; thou art a gallant youth:
I would thou hadst told me of another father.
Exeunt Duke Frederick, train, and Le Beau.
Celia: Were I my father, coz, would I do this?
Orlando: I am more proud to be Sir Rowland’s son,
His youngest son; and would not change that calling,
To be adopted heir to Frederick.
Rosalind: My father loved Sir Rowland as his soul,
And all the world was of my father’s mind:
Had I before known this young man his son,
I should have given him tears unto entreaties,
Ere he should thus have ventured.
Celia: Gentle cousin,
Let us go thank him and encourage him:
My father’s rough and envious disposition
Sticks me at heart. Sir, you have well deserved:
If you do keep your promises in love
But justly, as you have exceeded all promise,
Your mistress shall be happy.
Rosalind: Gentleman,
Giving him a chain from her neck.
Wear this for me, one out of suits with fortune,
That could give more, but that her hand lacks means.
Shall we go, coz?
Celia: Ay. Fare you well, fair gentleman.
Orlando: Can I not say, I thank you? My better parts
Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up
Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block.
Rosalind: He calls us back: my pride fell with my fortunes;
I’ll ask him what he would. Did you call, sir?
Sir, you have wrestled well and overthrown
More than your enemies.
Celia: Will you go, coz?
Rosalind: Have with you. Fare you well.
Exeunt Rosalind and Celia.
11
Scene III
Act II
17
Scene I
Scene II
Scene III
Scene IV
Exit.
Rosalind: Alas, poor shepherd! searching of thy wound,
I have by hard adventure found mine own.
Touchstone: And I mine. I remember, when I was in love I broke
my sword upon a stone and bid him take that for
coming a-night to Jane Smile; and I remember the
kissing of her batlet and the cow’s dugs that her
pretty chopt hands had milked; and I remember the
wooing of a peascod instead of her, from whom I took
two cods and, giving her them again, said with
weeping tears “Wear these for my sake.” We that are
true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is
mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.
Rosalind: Thou speakest wiser than thou art ware of.
Touchstone: Nay, I shall ne’er be ware of mine own wit till I break my shins against it.
Rosalind: Jove, Jove! this shepherd’s passion
Is much upon my fashion.
Touchstone: And mine; but it grows something stale with me.
Celia: I pray you, one of you question yond man
If he for gold will give us any food:
I faint almost to death.
Touchstone: Holla, you clown!
Rosalind: Peace, fool: he’s not thy kinsman.
Corin: Who calls?
Touchstone: Your betters, sir.
Corin: Else are they very wretched.
Rosalind: Peace, I say. Good even to you, friend.
Corin: And to you, gentle sir, and to you all.
Rosalind: I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold
Can in this desert place buy entertainment,
Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed:
Here’s a young maid with travel much oppress’d
And faints for succor.
Corin: Fair sir, I pity her
And wish, for her sake more than for mine own,
My fortunes were more able to relieve her;
But I am shepherd to another man
And do not shear the fleeces that I graze:
My master is of churlish disposition
And little recks to find the way to heaven
By doing deeds of hospitality:
Besides, his cote, his flocks and bounds of feed
Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now,
24
Scene V
The Forest.
Enter Amiens, Jaques, and others.
Song.
Amiens: Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird’s throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
Jaques: More, more, I prithee, more.
Amiens: It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.
Jaques: I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel
sucks eggs. More, I prithee, more.
Amiens: My voice is ragged: I know I cannot please you.
Jaques: I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing. Come, more; another
stanzo: call you ’em stanzos?
Amiens: What you will, Monsieur Jaques.
Jaques: Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing. Will you sing?
Amiens: More at your request than to please myself.
Jaques: Well then, if ever I thank any man, I’ll thank you; but that they call compliment is
like the encounter of two dog-apes, and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks I have
given him a penny and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you that will not,
hold your tongues.
Amiens: Well, I’ll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the duke will drink under this tree. He
hath been all this day to look you.
Jaques: And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is too disputable for my company: I
think of as many matters as he, but I give heaven thanks and make no boast of them. Come,
warble, come.
Song.
Amiens: Who doth ambition shun
All together here.
And loves to live i’ the sun,
Seeking the food he eats
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
26
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
Jaques: I’ll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in despite of my invention.
Amiens: And I’ll sing it.
Jaques: Thus it goes:—
If it do come to pass
That any man turn ass,
Leaving his wealth and ease,
A stubborn will to please,
Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame:
Here shall he see
Gross fools as he,
An if he will come to me.
Amiens: What’s that “ducdame”?
Jaques: ’Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle. I’ll go sleep, if I can; if I cannot,
I’ll rail against all the first-born of Egypt.
Amiens: And I’ll go seek the duke: his banquet is prepared.
Exeunt severally.
27
Scene VI
The forest.
Enter Orlando and Adam.
Adam: Dear master, I can go no further. O, I die for food! Here lie I down, and measure out
my grave. Farewell, kind master.
Orlando: Why, how now, Adam! no greater heart in thee? Live a little; comfort a little; cheer
thyself a little. If this uncouth forest yield any thing savage, I will either be food for it or
bring it for food to thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy powers. For my sake be
comfortable; hold death awhile at the arm’s end: I will here be with thee presently; and if I
bring thee not something to eat, I will give thee leave to die: but if thou diest before I come,
thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said! thou lookest cheerly, and I’ll be with thee quickly.
Yet thou liest in the bleak air: come, I will bear thee to some shelter; and thou shalt not die
for lack of a dinner, if there live any thing in this desert. Cheerly, good Adam!
Exeunt.
28
Scene VII
The forest.
A table set out. Enter Duke Senior, Amiens, and Lords like outlaws.
Duke Senior: I think he be transform’d into a beast;
For I can no where find him like a man.
First Lord: My lord, he is but even now gone hence:
Here was he merry, hearing of a song.
Duke Senior: If he, compact of jars, grow musical,
We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.
Go, seek him: tell him I would speak with him.
Enter Jaques.
First Lord: He saves my labour by his own approach.
Duke Senior: Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this,
That your poor friends must woo your company?
What, you look merrily!
Jaques: A fool, a fool! I met a fool i’ the forest,
A motley fool; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool
Who laid him down and bask’d him in the sun,
And rail’d on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms and yet a motley fool.
“Good morrow, fool,” quoth I. “No, sir,” quoth he,
“Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:”
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, “It is ten o’clock:
Thus we may see,” quoth he, “how the world wags:
’Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more ’twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.” When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep-contemplative,
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley’s the only wear.
Duke Senior: What fool is this?
Jaques: O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier,
And says, if ladies be but young and fair,
They have the gift to know it: and in his brain,
Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit
29
Act III
34
Scene I
Scene II
The forest.
Enter Orlando, with a paper.
Orlando: Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love:
And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey
With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
Thy huntress’ name that my full life doth sway.
O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books
And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character;
That every eye which in this forest looks
Shall see thy virtue witness’d every where.
Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she.
Exit.
Enter Corin and Touchstone.
Corin: And how like you this shepherd’s life, Master Touchstone?
Touchstone: Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life, but in respect that it is a
shepherd’s life, it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that
it is private, it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in
respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As is it a spare life, look you, it fits my humour
well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any
philosophy in thee, shepherd?
Corin: No more but that I know the more one sickens the worse at ease he is; and that he that
wants money, means and content is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to
wet and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and that a great cause of the night is
lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good
breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.
Touchstone: Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd?
Corin: No, truly.
Touchstone: Then thou art damned.
Corin: Nay, I hope.
Touchstone: Truly, thou art damned like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.
Corin: For not being at court? Your reason.
Touchstone: Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never sawest good manners; if thou never
sawest good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is
damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.
Corin: Not a whit, Touchstone: those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in
the country as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me you
salute not at the court, but you kiss your hands: that courtesy would be uncleanly, if courtiers
were shepherds.
36
Rosalind: Why, God will send more, if the man will be thankful: let me stay the growth of
his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin.
Celia: It is young Orlando, that tripped up the wrestler’s heels and your heart both in an
instant.
Rosalind: Nay, but the devil take mocking: speak, sad brow and true maid.
Celia: I’ faith, coz, ’tis he.
Rosalind: Orlando?
Celia: Orlando.
Rosalind: Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose? What did he when thou
sawest him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes him here? Did he
ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? and when shalt thou see him
again? Answer me in one word.
Celia: You must borrow me Gargantua’s mouth first: ’tis a word too great for any mouth of
this age’s size. To say ay and no to these particulars is more than to answer in a catechism.
Rosalind: But doth he know that I am in this forest and in man’s apparel? Looks he as freshly
as he did the day he wrestled?
Celia: It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover; but take a taste
of my finding him, and relish it with good observance. I found him under a tree, like a
dropped acorn.
Rosalind: It may well be called Jove’s tree, when it drops forth such fruit.
Celia: Give me audience, good madam.
Rosalind: Proceed.
Celia: There lay he, stretched along, like a wounded knight.
Rosalind: Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground.
Celia: Cry “holla” to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets unseasonably. He was furnished like a
hunter.
Rosalind: O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart.
Celia: I would sing my song without a burden: thou bringest me out of tune.
Rosalind: Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on.
Celia: You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here?
Enter Orlando and Jaques.
Rosalind: ’Tis he: slink by, and note him.
Jaques: I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.
Orlando: And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for your society.
Jaques: God be wi’ you: let’s meet as little as we can.
Orlando: I do desire we may be better strangers.
Jaques: I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks.
Orlando: I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.
40
Rosalind: With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout, for the one
sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain,
the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of
heavy tedious penury; these Time ambles withal.
Orlando: Who doth he gallop withal?
Rosalind: With a thief to the gallows, for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks
himself too soon there.
Orlando: Who stays it still withal?
Rosalind: With lawyers in the vacation, for they sleep between term and term and then they
perceive not how Time moves.
Orlando: Where dwell you, pretty youth?
Rosalind: With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a
petticoat.
Orlando: Are you native of this place?
Rosalind: As the cony that you see dwell where she is kindled.
Orlando: Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.
Rosalind: I have been told so of many: but indeed an old religious uncle of mine taught me to
speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell
in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it, and I thank God I am not a woman, to
be touched with so many giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal.
Orlando: Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of women?
Rosalind: There were none principal; they were all like one another as half-pence are, every
one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it.
Orlando: I prithee, recount some of them.
Rosalind: No, I will not cast away my physic but on those that are sick. There is a man
haunts the forest, that abuses our young plants with carving “Rosalind” on their barks; hangs
odes upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles, all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind: if
I could meet that fancy-monger I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have
the quotidian of love upon him.
Orlando: I am he that is so love-shaked: I pray you tell me your remedy.
Rosalind: There is none of my uncle’s marks upon you: he taught me how to know a man in
love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner.
Orlando: What were his marks?
Rosalind: A lean cheek, which you have not, a blue eye and sunken, which you have not, an
unquestionable spirit, which you have not, a beard neglected, which you have not; but I
pardon you for that, for simply your having in beard is a younger brother’s revenue: then
your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe
untied and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation; but you are no such
man; you are rather point-device in your accoutrements as loving yourself than seeming the
lover of any other.
Orlando: Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.
42
Rosalind: Me believe it! you may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant,
she is apter to do than to confess she does: that is one of the points in the which women still
give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the
trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired?
Orlando: I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate
he.
Rosalind: But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?
Orlando: Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.
Rosalind: Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a
whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the
lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel.
Orlando: Did you ever cure any so?
Rosalind: Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress; and I
set him every day to woo me: at which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be
effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full
of tears, full of smiles, for every passion something and for no passion truly any thing, as
boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour; would now like him, now loathe
him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave
my suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness; which was, to
forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cured
him; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep’s heart,
that there shall not be one spot of love in’t.
Orlando: I would not be cured, youth.
Rosalind: I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day to my
cote and woo me.
Orlando: Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me where it is.
Rosalind: Go with me to it and I’ll show it you and by the way you shall tell me where in the
forest you live. Will you go?
Orlando: With all my heart, good youth.
Rosalind: Nay you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go?
Exeunt.
43
Scene III
The forest.
Enter Touchstone and Audrey; Jaques behind.
Touchstone: Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how,
Audrey? am I the man yet? doth my simple feature content you?
Audrey: Your features! Lord warrant us! what features!
Touchstone: I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was
among the Goths.
Jaques: (Aside) O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched house!
Touchstone: When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a man’s good wit seconded
with the forward child Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a
little room. Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.
Audrey: I do not know what “poetical” is: is it honest in deed and word? is it a true thing?
Touchstone: No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to
poetry, and what they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign.
Audrey: Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?
Touchstone: I do, truly; for thou swearest to me thou art honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I
might have some hope thou didst feign.
Audrey: Would you not have me honest?
Touchstone: No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for honesty coupled to beauty is to
have honey a sauce to sugar.
Jaques: (Aside) A material fool!
Audrey: Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest.
Touchstone: Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an
unclean dish.
Audrey: I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
Touchstone: Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter. But
be it as it may be, I will marry thee, and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martext, the
vicar of the next village, who hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest and to
couple us.
Jaques: (Aside) I would fain see this meeting.
Audrey: Well, the gods give us joy!
Touchstone: Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here
we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage!
As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is said, “many a man knows no end of his goods:”
right; many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his
wife; ’tis none of his own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer
hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man therefore blessed? No: as a walled town is
44
more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the
bare brow of a bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no skill, by so much is a
horn more precious than to want. Here comes Sir Oliver.
Enter Sir Oliver Martext.
Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met: will you dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go
with you to your chapel?
Sir Oliver Martext: Is there none here to give the woman?
Touchstone: I will not take her on gift of any man.
Sir Oliver Martext: Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.
Jaques: (Advancing) Proceed, proceed I’ll give her.
Touchstone: Good even, good Master What-ye-call’t: how do you, sir? You are very well
met: God ’ild you for your last company: I am very glad to see you: even a toy in hand here,
sir: nay, pray be covered.
Jaques: Will you be married, motley?
Touchstone: As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb and the falcon her bells, so man
hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.
Jaques: And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush like a beggar?
Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is: this fellow will
but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel and,
like green timber, warp, warp.
Touchstone: (Aside) I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of
another: for he is not like to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good
excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife.
Jaques: Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.
Touchstone: Come, sweet Audrey:
We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.
Farewell, good Master Oliver: not—
O sweet Oliver,
O brave Oliver,
Leave me not behind thee:
but—
Wind away,
Begone, I say,
I will not to wedding with thee.
Exeunt Jaques, Touchstone and Audrey.
Sir Oliver Martext: ’Tis no matter: ne’er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of
my calling.
Exit.
45
Scene IV
The forest.
Enter Rosalind and Celia.
Rosalind: Never talk to me; I will weep.
Celia: Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider that tears do not become a man.
Rosalind: But have I not cause to weep?
Celia: As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.
Rosalind: His very hair is of the dissembling colour.
Celia: Something browner than Judas’s marry, his kisses are Judas’s own children.
Rosalind: I’ faith, his hair is of a good colour.
Celia: An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour.
Rosalind: And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.
Celia: He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana: a nun of winter’s sisterhood kisses not
more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them.
Rosalind: But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not?
Celia: Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.
Rosalind: Do you think so?
Celia: Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer, but for his verity in love, I do
think him as concave as a covered goblet or a worm-eaten nut.
Rosalind: Not true in love?
Celia: Yes, when he is in; but I think he is not in.
Rosalind: You have heard him swear downright he was.
Celia: “Was” is not “is:” besides, the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster;
they are both the confirmer of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest on the duke your
father.
Rosalind: I met the duke yesterday and had much question with him: he asked me of what
parentage I was; I told him, of as good as he; so he laughed and let me go. But what talk we
of fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando?
Celia: O, that’s a brave man! he writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths
and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; as a puisny tilter, that
spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose: but all’s brave that youth
mounts and folly guides. Who comes here?
Enter Corin.
Corin: Mistress and master, you have oft inquired
After the shepherd that complain’d of love,
Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
46
Scene V
Act IV
52
Scene I
The forest.
Enter Rosalind, Celia, and Jaques.
Jaques: I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.
Rosalind: They say you are a melancholy fellow.
Jaques: I am so; I do love it better than laughing.
Rosalind: Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows and betray themselves
to every modern censure worse than drunkards.
Jaques: Why, ’tis good to be sad and say nothing.
Rosalind: Why then, ’tis good to be a post.
Jaques: I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation, nor the musician’s,
which is fantastical, nor the courtier’s, which is proud, nor the soldier’s, which is ambitious,
nor the lawyer’s, which is politic, nor the lady’s, which is nice, nor the lover’s, which is all
these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from
many objects, and indeed the sundry’s contemplation of my travels, in which my often
rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.
Rosalind: A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad: I fear you have sold your
own lands to see other men’s; then, to have seen much and to have nothing, is to have rich
eyes and poor hands.
Jaques: Yes, I have gained my experience.
Rosalind: And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me merry
than experience to make me sad; and to travel for it too!
Enter Orlando.
Orlando: Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!
Jaques: Nay, then, God be wi’ you, an you talk in blank verse.
Exit.
Rosalind: Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and wear strange suits, disable all the
benefits of your own country, be out of love with your nativity and almost chide God for
making you that countenance you are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola.
Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been all this while? You a lover! An you serve me
such another trick, never come in my sight more.
Orlando: My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.
Rosalind: Break an hour’s promise in love! He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts
and break but a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of
him that Cupid hath clapped him o’ the shoulder, but I’ll warrant him heart-whole.
Orlando: Pardon me, dear Rosalind.
Rosalind: Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I had as lief be wooed of a
snail.
53
Orlando: Of a snail?
Rosalind: Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head; a
better jointure, I think, than you make a woman: besides he brings his destiny with him.
Orlando: What’s that?
Rosalind: Why, horns, which such as you are fain to be beholding to your wives for: but he
comes armed in his fortune and prevents the slander of his wife.
Orlando: Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.
Rosalind: And I am your Rosalind.
Celia: It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a better leer than you.
Rosalind: Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday humour and like enough to
consent. What would you say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind?
Orlando: I would kiss before I spoke.
Rosalind: Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were gravelled for lack of matter,
you might take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for
lovers lacking—God warn us!—matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.
Orlando: How if the kiss be denied?
Rosalind: Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.
Orlando: Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?
Rosalind: Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or I should think my honesty
ranker than my wit.
Orlando: What, of my suit?
Rosalind: Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. Am not I your Rosalind?
Orlando: I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her.
Rosalind: Well in her person I say I will not have you.
Orlando: Then in mine own person I die.
Rosalind: No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in
all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus
had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he could to die before, and he
is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero
had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but
forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being taken with the cramp was drowned and the
foolish coroners of that age found it was “Hero of Sestos.” But these are all lies: men have
died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
Orlando: I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind, for, I protest, her frown might kill
me.
Rosalind: By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I will be your Rosalind in a more
coming-on disposition, and ask me what you will. I will grant it.
Orlando: Then love me, Rosalind.
Rosalind: Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all.
Orlando: And wilt thou have me?
54
Rosalind: Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never take her without her
answer, unless you take her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her
husband’s occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool!
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 every one’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.
56
Scene II
The forest.
Enter Jaques, Lords, and Foresters.
Jaques: Which is he that killed the deer?
A Lord: Sir, it was I.
Jaques: 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?
Forester: Yes, sir.
Jaques: Sing it: ’tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough.
Song.
Forester: What shall he have that kill’d 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.
57
Scene III
The forest.
Enter Rosalind and Celia.
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. Look, who comes here.
Enter Silvius.
Silvius: My errand is to you, fair youth;
My gentle Phebe bid me give you this:
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:
Phebe did write it.
Rosalind: Come, come, you are a fool
And turn’d into the extremity of love.
I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand.
A freestone-colour’d hand; I verily did think
That her old gloves were on, but ’twas her hands:
She has a huswife’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 Ethiope 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 Phebe’s cruelty.
Rosalind: She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes. (Reads.)
58
Act V
63
Scene I
The forest.
Enter Touchstone 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.
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.
Enter William.
William: Good even, Audrey.
Audrey: God ye good even, William.
William: And good even to you, sir.
Touchstone: Good even, 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’ the 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 sayest 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.
64
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 female—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 in 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! I attend, I attend.
Exeunt.
65
Scene II
The forest.
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 persever 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.
Orlando: You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow: thither will I invite the
duke and all’s contented followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for look you, here comes my
Rosalind.
Enter 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 any thing 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.
Orlando: They shall be married to-morrow, and I will bid the duke to the nuptial. But, O,
how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes! By so much the
more shall I to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall think my
brother happy in having what he wishes for.
Rosalind: Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?
Orlando: I can live no longer by thinking.
66
Rosalind: I will weary you then no longer with idle talking. Know of me then, for now I
speak to some purpose, that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I speak not this that
you should bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know you are; neither do
I labour for a greater esteem than may in some little measure draw a belief from you, to do
yourself good and not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things: I
have, since I was three year old, conversed with a magician, most profound in his art and yet
not damnable. If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries it out, when
your brother marries Aliena, shall you marry her: I know into what straits of fortune she is
driven; and it is not impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient to you, to set her before
your eyes tomorrow human as she is and without any danger.
Orlando: Speakest thou in sober meanings?
Rosalind: By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I say I am a magician. Therefore,
put you in your best array: bid your friends; for if you will be married to-morrow, you shall,
and to Rosalind, if you will.
Enter Silvius and Phebe.
Look, here comes a lover of mine and a lover of hers.
Phebe: Youth, you have done me much ungentleness,
To show the letter that I writ to you.
Rosalind: I care not if I have: it is my study
To seem despiteful and ungentle to you:
You are there followed by a faithful shepherd;
Look upon him, love him; he worships you.
Phebe: Good shepherd, tell this youth what ’tis to love.
Silvius: It is to be all made of sighs and tears;
And so am I for Phebe.
Phebe: And I for Ganymede.
Orlando: And I for Rosalind.
Rosalind: And I for no woman.
Silvius: It is to be all made of faith and service;
And so am I for Phebe.
Phebe: And I for Ganymede.
Orlando: And I for Rosalind.
Rosalind: And I for no woman.
Silvius: It is to be all made of fantasy,
All made of passion and all made of wishes,
All adoration, duty, and observance,
All humbleness, all patience and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all observance;
And so am I for Phebe.
Phebe: And so am I for Ganymede.
Orlando: And so am I for Rosalind.
Rosalind: And so am I for no woman.
67
Scene III
The forest.
Enter Touchstone and Audrey.
Touchstone: To-morrow is the joyful day, Audrey; to-morrow will we be married.
Audrey: I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is no dishonest desire to desire to be a
woman of the world. Here comes two of the banished duke’s pages.
Enter two Pages.
First Page: Well met, honest gentleman.
Touchstone: By my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, and a song.
Second Page: We are for you: sit i’ the middle.
First Page: Shall we clap into’t roundly, without hawking or spitting or saying we are hoarse,
which are the only prologues to a bad voice?
Second Page: I’faith, i’faith; and both in a tune, like two gipsies on a horse.
Song.
It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o’er the green corn-field did pass
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.
Between the acres of the rye,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino
These pretty country folks would lie,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.
This carol they began that hour,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
How that a life was but a flower
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.
And therefore take the present time,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino;
For love is crowned with the prime
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.
Touchstone: Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the
note was very untuneable.
69
First Page: You are deceived, sir: we kept time, we lost not our time.
Touchstone: By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear such a foolish song. God be wi’
you; and God mend your voices! Come, Audrey.
Exeunt.
70
Scene IV
The forest.
Enter Duke Senior, Amiens, Jaques, Orlando, Oliver, and Celia.
Duke Senior: Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy
Can do all this that he hath promised?
Orlando: I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not;
As those that fear they hope, and know they fear.
Enter Rosalind, Silvius, and Phebe.
Rosalind: Patience once more, whiles our compact is urged:
You say, if I bring in your Rosalind,
You will bestow her on Orlando here?
Duke Senior: That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her.
Rosalind: And you say, you will have her, when I bring her?
Orlando: That would I, were I of all kingdoms king.
Rosalind: You say, you’ll marry me, if I be willing?
Phebe: That will I, should I die the hour after.
Rosalind: But if you do refuse to marry me,
You’ll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?
Phebe: So is the bargain.
Rosalind: You say, that you’ll have Phebe, if she will?
Silvius: Though to have her and death were both one thing.
Rosalind: I have promised to make all this matter even.
Keep you your word, O duke, to give your daughter;
You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter:
Keep your word, Phebe, that you’ll marry me,
Or else refusing me, to wed this shepherd:
Keep your word, Silvius, that you’ll marry her.
If she refuse me: and from hence I go,
To make these doubts all even.
Exeunt Rosalind and Celia.
Duke Senior: I do remember in this shepherd boy
Some lively touches of my daughter’s favour.
Orlando: My lord, the first time that I ever saw him
Methought he was a brother to your daughter:
But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born,
And hath been tutor’d in the rudiments
Of many desperate studies by his uncle,
Whom he reports to be a great magician,
Obscured in the circle of this forest.
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Duke Senior: He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under the presentation of that he
shoots his wit.
Enter Hymen, Rosalind, and Celia.
Still Music.
Hymen: Then is there mirth in heaven,
When earthly things made even
Atone together.
Good duke, receive thy daughter
Hymen from heaven brought her,
Yea, brought her hither,
That thou mightst join her hand with his
Whose heart within his bosom is.
Rosalind: (To Duke Senior) To you I give myself, for I am yours.
(To Orlando) To you I give myself, for I am yours.
Duke Senior: If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter.
Orlando: If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind.
Phebe: If sight and shape be true,
Why then, my love adieu!
Rosalind: I’ll have no father, if you be not he:
I’ll have no husband, if you be not he:
Nor ne’er wed woman, if you be not she.
Hymen: Peace, ho! I bar confusion:
’Tis I must make conclusion
Of these most strange events:
Here’s eight that must take hands
To join in Hymen’s bands,
If truth holds true contents.
You and you no cross shall part:
You and you are heart in heart
You to his love must accord,
Or have a woman to your lord:
You and you are sure together,
As the winter to foul weather.
Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing,
Feed yourselves with questioning;
That reason wonder may diminish,
How thus we met, and these things finish.
Song.
Wedding is great Juno’s crown:
O blessed bond of board and bed!
’Tis Hymen peoples every town;
High wedlock then be honoured:
Honour, high honour and renown,
To Hymen, god of every town!
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