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- $Unique_ID{SSP00965}
- $Title{As You Like It: Act III, Scene V}
- $Author{Shakespeare, William}
- $Subject{}
- $Log{Dramatis Personae*00950.txt}
-
- Portions copyright (c) CMC ReSearch, Inc., 1989
-
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
-
- AS YOU LIKE IT
-
-
- ACT III
- ................................................................................
-
-
- SCENE V: Another part of the forest.
- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-
- {Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE.}
-
- SILVIUS: Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe;
- Say that you love me not, but say not so
- In bitterness. The common executioner,
- Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard,
- Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
- But first begs pardon: will you sterner be
- Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?
-
- {Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, behind.}
-
- PHEBE: I would not be thy executioner:
- I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.
- Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye: 10
- 'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,
- That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,
- Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
- Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!
- Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
- And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee:
- Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down;
- Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
- Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers!
- Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee: 20
- Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
- Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush,
- The cicatrice and capable impressure
- Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,
- Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not,
- Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes
- That can do hurt.
-
- SILVIUS: O dear Phebe,
- If ever,--as that ever may be near,--
- You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
- Then shall you know the wounds invisible 30
- That love's keen arrows make.
-
- PHEBE: But till that time
- Come not thou near me: and when that time comes,
- Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;
- As till that time I shall not pity thee.
-
- ROSALIND: And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother,
- That you insult, exult, and all at once,
- Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty,--
- As, by my faith, I see no more in you
- Than without candle may go dark to bed--
- Must you be therefore proud and pitiless? 40
- Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
- I see no more in you than in the ordinary
- Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life,
- I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
- No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it:
- 'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
- Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,
- That can entame my spirits to your worship.
- You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
- Like foggy south puffing with wind and rain? 50
- You are a thousand times a properer man
- Than she a woman: 'tis such fools as you
- That makes the world full of ill-favor'd children:
- 'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;
- And out of you she sees herself more proper
- Than any of her lineaments can show her.
- But, mistress, know yourself: down on your knees,
- And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love:
- For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
- Sell when you can: you are not for all markets: 60
- Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer:
- Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
- So take her to thee, shepherd: fare you well.
-
- PHEBE: Sweet youth, I pray you, chide a year together:
- I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.
-
- ROSALIND: He's fallen in love with your foulness and she'll
- fall in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as
- she answers thee with frowning looks, I'll sauce her
- with bitter words. Why look you so upon me?
-
- PHEBE: For no ill will I bear you. 70
-
- ROSALIND: I pray you, do not fall in love with me,
- For I am falser than vows made in wine:
- Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,
- 'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.
- Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.
- Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,
- And be not proud: though all the world could see,
- None could be so abused in sight as he.
- Come, to our flock.
-
- [Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA and CORIN.]
-
- PHEBE: Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, 80
- 'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'
-
- SILVIUS: Sweet Phebe,--
-
- PHEBE: Ha, what say'st thou, Silvius?
-
- SILVIUS: Sweet Phebe, pity me.
-
- PHEBE: Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.
-
- SILVIUS: Wherever sorrow is, relief would be:
- If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
- By giving love your sorrow and my grief
- Were both extermined.
-
- PHEBE: Thou hast my love: is not that neighborly?
-
- SILVIUS: I would have you.
-
- PHEBE: Why, that were covetousness. 90
- Silvius, the time was that I hated thee,
- And yet it is not that I bear thee love;
- But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
- Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,
- I will endure, and I'll employ thee too:
- But do not look for further recompense
- Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd.
-
- SILVIUS: So holy and so perfect is my love,
- And I in such a poverty of grace,
- That I shall think it a most plenteous crop 100
- To glean the broken ears after the man
- That the main harvest reaps: loose now and then
- A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon.
-
- PHEBE: Know'st now the youth that spoke to me erewhile?
-
- SILVIUS: Not very well, but I have met him oft;
- And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds
- That the old carlot once was master of.
-
- PHEBE: Think not I love him, though I ask for him:
- 'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well;
- But what care I for words? yet words do well 110
- When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
- It is a pretty youth: not very pretty:
- But, sure, he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him:
- He'll make a proper man: the best thing in him
- Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
- Did make offence his eye did heal it up.
- He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall:
- His leg is but so so; and yet 'tis well:
- There was a pretty redness in his lip,
- A little riper and more lusty red 120
- Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the
- difference
- Between the constant red and mingled damask.
- There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him
- In parcels as I did, would have gone near
- To fall in love with him; but, for my part,
- I love him not nor hate him not; and yet
- I have more cause to hate him than to love him:
- For what had he to do to chide at me?
- He said mine eyes were black and my hair black:
- And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me: 130
- I marvel why I answer'd not again:
- But that's all one; omittance is no quittance.
- I'll write to him a very taunting letter,
- And thou shalt bear it: wilt thou, Silvius?
-
- SILVIUS: Phebe, with all my heart.
-
- PHEBE: I'll write it straight;
- The matter's in my head and in my heart:
- I will be bitter with him and passing short.
- Go with me, Silvius.
-
- [Exeunt.]
-