The Complete Works of William Shakespeare/The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.iso/shakespr/you_like.txt

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    AS YOU LIKE IT


    DRAMATIS PERSONAE


DUKE SENIOR    living in banishment.

DUKE FREDERICK    his brother, an usurper of his dominions.


AMIENS    |
    |  lords attending on the banished duke.
JAQUES    |


LE BEAU    a courtier attending upon Frederick.

CHARLES    wrestler to Frederick.


OLIVER        |
        |
JAQUES (JAQUES DE BOYS:)      |  sons of Sir Rowland de Boys.
        |
ORLANDO        |


ADAM    |
    |  servants to Oliver.
DENNIS    |


TOUCHSTONE    a clown.

SIR OLIVER MARTEXT    a vicar.


CORIN    |
    |  shepherds.
SILVIUS    |


WILLIAM    a country fellow in love with Audrey.

    A person representing HYMEN. (HYMEN:)

ROSALIND    daughter to the banished duke.

CELIA    daughter to Frederick.

PHEBE    a shepherdess.

AUDREY    a country wench.

    Lords, pages, and attendants, &c.
    (Forester:)
    (A Lord:)
    (First Lord:)
    (Second Lord:)
    (First Page:)
    (Second Page:)


SCENE    Oliver's house; Duke Frederick's court; and the
    Forest of Arden.




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT I



SCENE I    Orchard of Oliver's house.


    [Enter ORLANDO and ADAM]

ORLANDO    As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion
    bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns,
    and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his
    blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my
    sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and
    report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part,
    he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more
    properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you
    that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that
    differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses
    are bred better; for, besides that they are fair
    with their feeding, they are taught their manage,
    and to that end riders dearly hired: but I, his
    brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for the
    which his animals on his dunghills are as much
    bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so
    plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave
    me his countenance seems to take from me: he lets
    me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a
    brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my
    gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that
    grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I
    think is within me, begins to mutiny against this
    servitude: I will no longer endure it, though yet I
    know no wise remedy how to avoid it.

ADAM    Yonder comes my master, your brother.

ORLANDO    Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will
    shake me up.

    [Enter OLIVER]

OLIVER    Now, sir! what make you here?

ORLANDO    Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing.

OLIVER    What mar you then, sir?

ORLANDO    Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God
    made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.

OLIVER    Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile.

ORLANDO    Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them?
    What prodigal portion have I spent, that I should
    come to such penury?

OLIVER    Know you where your are, sir?

ORLANDO    O, sir, very well; here in your orchard.

OLIVER    Know you before whom, sir?

ORLANDO    Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know
    you are my eldest brother; and, in the gentle
    condition of blood, you should so know me. The
    courtesy of nations allows you my better, in that
    you are the first-born; but the same tradition
    takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers
    betwixt us: I have as much of my father in me as
    you; albeit, I confess, your coming before me is
    nearer to his reverence.

OLIVER    What, boy!

ORLANDO    Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.

OLIVER    Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?

ORLANDO    I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir
    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?

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]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT I



SCENE II    Lawn before the Duke's palace.


    [Enter CELIA and ROSALIND]

CELIA    I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.

ROSALIND    Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of;
    and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could
    teach me to forget a banished father, you must not
    learn me how to remember any extraordinary 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.

ROSALIND    Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to
    rejoice in yours.

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.

ROSALIND    From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let
    me see; what think you of falling in love?

CELIA    Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal: but
    love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport
    neither than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst
    in honour come off again.

ROSALIND    What shall be our sport, then?

CELIA    Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from
    her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.

ROSALIND    I would we could do so, for her benefits are
    mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman
    doth most mistake in her gifts to women.

CELIA    'Tis true; for those that she makes fair she scarce
    makes honest, and those that she makes honest she
    makes very ill-favouredly.

ROSALIND    Nay, now thou goest from Fortune's office to
    Nature's: Fortune reigns in gifts of the world,
    not in the lineaments of Nature.

    [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?

ROSALIND    Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when
    Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of
    Nature's wit.

CELIA    Peradventure this is not Fortune's work neither, but
    Nature's; who perceiveth our natural wits too dull
    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?

TOUCHSTONE    Mistress, you must come away to your father.

CELIA    Were you made the messenger?

TOUCHSTONE    No, by mine honour, but I was bid to come for you.

ROSALIND    Where learned you that oath, 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.

CELIA    How prove you that, in the great heap of your
    knowledge?

ROSALIND    Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.

TOUCHSTONE    Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and
    swear by your beards that I am a knave.

CELIA    By our beards, if we had them, thou art.

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.

CELIA    Prithee, who is't that thou meanest?

TOUCHSTONE    One that old Frederick, your father, 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.

TOUCHSTONE    The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what
    wise men do foolishly.

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.

ROSALIND    With his mouth full of news.

CELIA    Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.

ROSALIND    Then shall we be news-crammed.

CELIA    All the better; we shall be the more marketable.

    [Enter LE BEAU]

    Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: what's the news?

LE BEAU    Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.

CELIA    Sport! of what colour?

LE BEAU    What colour, madam! how shall I answer you?

ROSALIND    As wit and fortune will.

TOUCHSTONE    Or as the Destinies decree.

CELIA    Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.

TOUCHSTONE    Nay, if I keep not my rank,--

ROSALIND    Thou losest thy old smell.

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.

LE BEAU    Monsieur the challenger, the princesses call for you.

ORLANDO    I attend them with all respect and duty.

ROSALIND    Young man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler?

ORLANDO    No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I
    come but in, as others do, to try with him the
    strength of my youth.

CELIA    Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your
    years. You have seen cruel proof of this man's
    strength: if you saw yourself with your eyes or
    knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your
    adventure would counsel you to a more equal
    enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to
    embrace your own safety and give over this attempt.

ROSALIND    Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore
    be misprised: we will make it our suit to the duke
    that the wrestling might not go forward.

ORLANDO    I beseech you, punish me not with your hard
    thoughts; wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny
    so fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let
    your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my
    trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one
    shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one
    dead that was willing to be so: I shall do my
    friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me, the
    world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in
    the world I fill up a place, which may be better
    supplied when I have made it empty.

ROSALIND    The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.

CELIA    And mine, to eke out hers.

ROSALIND    Fare you well: pray heaven I be deceived in you!

CELIA    Your heart's desires be with you!

CHARLES    Come, where is this young gallant that is so
    desirous to lie with his mother earth?

ORLANDO    Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working.

DUKE FREDERICK    You shall try but one fall.

CHARLES    No, I warrant your grace, you shall not entreat him
    to a second, that have so mightily persuaded him
    from a first.

ORLANDO    An you mean to mock me after, you should not have
    mocked me before: but come your ways.

ROSALIND    Now Hercules be thy speed, young man!

CELIA    I would I were invisible, to catch the strong
    fellow by the leg.

    [They wrestle]

ROSALIND    O excellent young man!

CELIA    If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who
    should down.

    [Shout. CHARLES is thrown]

DUKE FREDERICK    No more, no more.

ORLANDO    Yes, I beseech your grace: I am not yet well breathed.

DUKE FREDERICK    How dost thou, Charles?

LE BEAU    He cannot speak, my lord.

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]

ORLANDO    What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?
    I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference.
    O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown!
    Or Charles or something weaker masters thee.

    [Re-enter LE BEAU]

LE BEAU    Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you
    To leave this place. Albeit you have deserved
    High commendation, true applause and love,
    Yet such is now the duke's condition
    That he misconstrues all that you have done.
    The duke is humorous; what he is indeed,
    More suits you to conceive than I to speak of.

ORLANDO    I thank you, sir: and, pray you, tell me this:
    Which of the two was daughter of the duke
    That here was at the wrestling?

LE BEAU    Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners;
    But yet indeed the lesser is his daughter
    The other is daughter to the banish'd duke,
    And here detain'd by her usurping uncle,
    To keep his daughter company; whose loves
    Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters.
    But I can tell you that of late this duke
    Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece,
    Grounded upon no other argument
    But that the people praise her for her virtues
    And pity her for her good father's sake;
    And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady
    Will suddenly break forth. Sir, fare you well:
    Hereafter, in a better world than this,
    I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.

ORLANDO    I rest much bounden to you: fare you well.

    [Exit LE BEAU]

    Thus must I from the smoke into the smother;
    From tyrant duke unto a tyrant brother:
    But heavenly Rosalind!

    [Exit]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT I



SCENE III    A room in the palace.


    [Enter CELIA and ROSALIND]

CELIA    Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! not a word?

ROSALIND    Not one to throw at a dog.

CELIA    No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon
    curs; throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.

ROSALIND    Then there were two cousins laid up; when the one
    should be lamed with reasons and the other mad
    without any.

CELIA    But is all this for your father?

ROSALIND    No, some of it is for my child's father. O, how
    full of briers is this working-day world!

CELIA    They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in
    holiday foolery: if we walk not in the trodden
    paths our very petticoats will catch them.

ROSALIND    I could shake them off my coat: these burs are in my heart.

CELIA    Hem them away.

ROSALIND    I would try, if I could cry 'hem' and have him.

CELIA    Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.

ROSALIND    O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself!

CELIA    O, a good wish upon you! you will try in time, in
    despite of a fall. But, turning these jests out of
    service, let us talk in good earnest: is it
    possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so
    strong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest son?

ROSALIND    The duke my father loved his father dearly.

CELIA    Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son
    dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him,
    for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate
    not Orlando.

ROSALIND    No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.

CELIA    Why should I not? doth he not deserve well?

ROSALIND    Let me love him for that, and do you love him
    because I do. Look, here comes the duke.

CELIA    With his eyes full of anger.

    [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords]

DUKE FREDERICK    Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste
    And get you from our court.

ROSALIND    Me, uncle?

DUKE FREDERICK    You, cousin
    Within these ten days if that thou be'st found
    So near our public court as twenty miles,
    Thou diest for it.

ROSALIND                      I do beseech your grace,
    Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me:
    If with myself I hold intelligence
    Or have acquaintance with mine own desires,
    If that I do not dream or be not frantic,--
    As I do trust I am not--then, dear uncle,
    Never so much as in a thought unborn
    Did I offend your highness.

DUKE FREDERICK    Thus do all traitors:
    If their purgation did consist in words,
    They are as innocent as grace itself:
    Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.

ROSALIND    Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor:
    Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.

DUKE FREDERICK    Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough.

ROSALIND    So was I when your highness took his dukedom;
    So was I when your highness banish'd him:
    Treason is not inherited, my lord;
    Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
    What's that to me? my father was no traitor:
    Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
    To think my poverty is treacherous.

CELIA    Dear sovereign, hear me speak.

DUKE FREDERICK    Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake,
    Else had she with her father ranged along.

CELIA    I did not then entreat to have her stay;
    It was your pleasure and your own remorse:
    I was too young that time to value her;
    But now I know her: if she be a traitor,
    Why so am I; we still have slept together,
    Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together,
    And wheresoever we went, like Juno's swans,
    Still we went coupled and inseparable.

DUKE FREDERICK    She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,
    Her very silence and her patience
    Speak to the people, and they pity her.
    Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name;
    And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
    When she is gone. Then open not thy lips:
    Firm and irrevocable is my doom
    Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd.

CELIA    Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege:
    I cannot live out of her company.

DUKE FREDERICK    You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself:
    If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,
    And in the greatness of my word, you die.

    [Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK and Lords]

CELIA    O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go?
    Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
    I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.

ROSALIND    I have more cause.

CELIA                      Thou hast not, cousin;
    Prithee be cheerful: know'st thou not, the duke
    Hath banish'd me, his daughter?

ROSALIND    That he hath not.

CELIA    No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love
    Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one:
    Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl?
    No: let my father seek another heir.
    Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
    Whither to go and what to bear with us;
    And do not seek to take your change upon you,
    To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out;
    For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
    Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.

ROSALIND    Why, whither shall we go?

CELIA    To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden.

ROSALIND    Alas, what danger will it be to us,
    Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
    Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

CELIA    I'll put myself in poor and mean attire
    And with a kind of umber smirch my face;
    The like do you: so shall we pass along
    And never stir assailants.

ROSALIND    Were it not better,
    Because that I am more than common tall,
    That I did suit me all points like a man?
    A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
    A boar-spear in my hand; and--in my heart
    Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will--
    We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,
    As many other mannish cowards have
    That do outface it with their semblances.

CELIA    What shall I call thee when thou art a man?

ROSALIND    I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page;
    And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
    But what will you be call'd?

CELIA    Something that hath a reference to my state
    No longer Celia, but Aliena.

ROSALIND    But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal
    The clownish fool out of your father's court?
    Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

CELIA    He'll go along o'er the wide world with me;
    Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away,
    And get our jewels and our wealth together,
    Devise the fittest time and safest way
    To hide us from pursuit that will be made
    After my flight. Now go we in content
    To liberty and not to banishment.

    [Exeunt]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT II



SCENE I    The Forest of Arden.


    [Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three Lords,
    like foresters]

DUKE SENIOR    Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
    Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
    Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
    More free from peril than the envious court?
    Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
    The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
    And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
    Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
    Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
    'This is no flattery: these are counsellors
    That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
    Sweet are the uses of adversity,
    Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
    Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
    And this our life exempt from public haunt
    Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
    Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
    I would not change it.

AMIENS    Happy is your grace,
    That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
    Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

DUKE SENIOR    Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
    And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
    Being native burghers of this desert city,
    Should in their own confines with forked heads
    Have their round haunches gored.

First Lord    Indeed, my lord,
    The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,
    And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp
    Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.
    To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself
    Did steal behind him as he lay along
    Under an oak whose antique root peeps out
    Upon the brook that brawls along this wood:
    To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,
    That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
    Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord,
    The wretched animal heaved forth such groans
    That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
    Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
    Coursed one another down his innocent nose
    In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool
    Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
    Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
    Augmenting it with tears.

DUKE SENIOR    But what said Jaques?
    Did he not moralize this spectacle?

First Lord    O, yes, into a thousand similes.
    First, for his weeping into the needless stream;
    'Poor deer,' quoth he, 'thou makest a testament
    As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
    To that which had too much:' then, being there alone,
    Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends,
    ''Tis right:' quoth he; 'thus misery doth part
    The flux of company:' anon a careless herd,
    Full of the pasture, jumps along by him
    And never stays to greet him; 'Ay' quoth Jaques,
    'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
    'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you look
    Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?'
    Thus most invectively he pierceth through
    The body of the country, city, court,
    Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we
    Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse,
    To fright the animals and to kill them up
    In their assign'd and native dwelling-place.

DUKE SENIOR    And did you leave him in this contemplation?

Second Lord    We did, my lord, weeping and commenting
    Upon the sobbing deer.

DUKE SENIOR    Show me the place:
    I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
    For then he's full of matter.

First Lord    I'll bring you to him straight.

    [Exeunt]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT II



SCENE II    A room in the palace.


    [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords]

DUKE FREDERICK    Can it be possible that no man saw them?
    It cannot be: some villains of my court
    Are of consent and sufferance in this.

First Lord    I cannot hear of any that did see her.
    The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,
    Saw her abed, and in the morning early
    They found the bed untreasured of their mistress.

Second Lord    My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft
    Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.
    Hisperia, the princess' gentlewoman,
    Confesses that she secretly o'erheard
    Your daughter and her cousin much commend
    The parts and graces of the wrestler
    That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles;
    And she believes, wherever they are gone,
    That youth is surely in their company.

DUKE FREDERICK    Send to his brother; fetch that gallant hither;
    If he be absent, bring his brother to me;
    I'll make him find him: do this suddenly,
    And let not search and inquisition quail
    To bring again these foolish runaways.

    [Exeunt]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT II



SCENE III    Before OLIVER'S house.


    [Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting]

ORLANDO    Who's there?

ADAM    What, my young master? O, my gentle master!
    O my sweet master! O you memory
    Of old Sir Rowland! why, what make you here?
    Why are you virtuous? why do people love you?
    And wherefore are you gentle, strong and valiant?
    Why would you be so fond to overcome
    The bonny priser of the humorous duke?
    Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.
    Know you not, master, to some kind of men
    Their graces serve them but as enemies?
    No more do yours: your virtues, gentle master,
    Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.
    O, what a world is this, when what is comely
    Envenoms him that bears it!

ORLANDO    Why, what's the matter?

ADAM    O unhappy youth!
    Come not within these doors; within this roof
    The enemy of all your graces lives:
    Your brother--no, no brother; yet the son--
    Yet not the son, I will not call him son
    Of him I was about to call his father--
    Hath heard your praises, and this night he means
    To burn the lodging where you use to lie
    And you within it: if he fail of that,
    He will have other means to cut you off.
    I overheard him and his practises.
    This is no place; this house is but a butchery:
    Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.

ORLANDO    Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?

ADAM    No matter whither, so you come not here.

ORLANDO    What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food?
    Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce
    A thievish living on the common road?
    This I must do, or know not what to do:
    Yet this I will not do, do how I can;
    I rather will subject me to the malice
    Of a diverted blood and bloody brother.

ADAM    But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,
    The thrifty hire I saved under your father,
    Which I did store to be my foster-nurse
    When service should in my old limbs lie lame
    And unregarded age in corners thrown:
    Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed,
    Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
    Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold;
    And all this I give you. Let me be your servant:
    Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
    For in my youth I never did apply
    Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
    Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
    The means of weakness and debility;
    Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
    Frosty, but kindly: let me go with you;
    I'll do the service of a younger man
    In all your business and necessities.

ORLANDO    O good old man, how well in thee appears
    The constant service of the antique world,
    When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
    Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
    Where none will sweat but for promotion,
    And having that, do choke their service up
    Even with the having: it is not so with thee.
    But, poor old man, thou prunest a rotten tree,
    That cannot so much as a blossom yield
    In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry
    But come thy ways; well go along together,
    And ere we have thy youthful wages spent,
    We'll light upon some settled low content.

ADAM    Master, go on, and I will follow thee,
    To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.
    From seventeen years till now almost fourscore
    Here lived I, but now live here no more.
    At seventeen years many their fortunes seek;
    But at fourscore it is too late a week:
    Yet fortune cannot recompense me better
    Than to die well and not my master's debtor.

    [Exeunt]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT II



SCENE IV    The Forest of Arden.


    [Enter ROSALIND for Ganymede, CELIA for Aliena,
    and TOUCHSTONE]

ROSALIND    O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!

TOUCHSTONE    I care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary.

ROSALIND    I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's
    apparel and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort
    the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show
    itself courageous to petticoat: therefore courage,
    good Aliena!

CELIA    I pray you, bear with me; I cannot go no further.

TOUCHSTONE    For my part, I had rather bear with you than bear
    you; yet I should bear no cross if I did bear you,
    for I think you have no money in your purse.

ROSALIND    Well, this is the forest of Arden.

TOUCHSTONE    Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was
    at home, I was in a better place: but travellers
    must be content.

ROSALIND    Ay, be so, good Touchstone.

    [Enter CORIN and SILVIUS]

    Look you, who comes here; a young man and an old in
    solemn talk.

CORIN    That is the way to make her scorn you still.

SILVIUS    O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love her!

CORIN    I partly guess; for I have loved ere now.

SILVIUS    No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess,
    Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover
    As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow:
    But if thy love were ever like to mine--
    As sure I think did never man love so--
    How many actions most ridiculous
    Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?

CORIN    Into a thousand that I have forgotten.

SILVIUS    O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily!
    If thou remember'st not the slightest folly
    That ever love did make thee run into,
    Thou hast not loved:
    Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,
    Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,
    Thou hast not loved:
    Or if thou hast not broke from company
    Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,
    Thou hast not loved.
    O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe!

    [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,
    By reason of his absence, there is nothing
    That you will feed on; but what is, come see.
    And in my voice most welcome shall you be.

ROSALIND    What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture?

CORIN    That young swain that you saw here but erewhile,
    That little cares for buying any thing.

ROSALIND    I pray thee, if it stand with honesty,
    Buy thou the cottage, pasture and the flock,
    And thou shalt have to pay for it of us.

CELIA    And we will mend thy wages. I like this place.
    And willingly could waste my time in it.

CORIN    Assuredly the thing is to be sold:
    Go with me: if you like upon report
    The soil, the profit and this kind of life,
    I will your very faithful feeder be
    And buy it with your gold right suddenly.

    [Exeunt]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT II



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.
    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 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]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT II



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]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT II



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
    After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd
    With observation, the which he vents
    In mangled forms. O that I were a fool!
    I am ambitious for a motley coat.

DUKE SENIOR    Thou shalt have one.

JAQUES    It is my only suit;
    Provided that you weed your better judgments
    Of all opinion that grows rank in them
    That I am wise. I must have liberty
    Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
    To blow on whom I please; for so fools have;
    And they that are most galled with my folly,
    They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?
    The 'why' is plain as way to parish church:
    He that a fool doth very wisely hit
    Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
    Not to seem senseless of the bob: if not,
    The wise man's folly is anatomized
    Even by the squandering glances of the fool.
    Invest me in my motley; give me leave
    To speak my mind, and I will through and through
    Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,
    If they will patiently receive my medicine.

DUKE SENIOR    Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.

JAQUES    What, for a counter, would I do but good?

DUKE SENIOR    Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin:
    For thou thyself hast been a libertine,
    As sensual as the brutish sting itself;
    And all the embossed sores and headed evils,
    That thou with licence of free foot hast caught,
    Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.

JAQUES    Why, who cries out on pride,
    That can therein tax any private party?
    Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,
    Till that the weary very means do ebb?
    What woman in the city do I name,
    When that I say the city-woman bears
    The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
    Who can come in and say that I mean her,
    When such a one as she such is her neighbour?
    Or what is he of basest function
    That says his bravery is not of my cost,
    Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits
    His folly to the mettle of my speech?
    There then; how then? what then? Let me see wherein
    My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right,
    Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free,
    Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies,
    Unclaim'd of any man. But who comes here?

    [Enter ORLANDO, with his sword drawn]

ORLANDO    Forbear, and eat no more.

JAQUES    Why, I have eat none yet.

ORLANDO    Nor shalt not, till necessity be served.

JAQUES    Of what kind should this cock come of?

DUKE SENIOR    Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress,
    Or else a rude despiser of good manners,
    That in civility thou seem'st so empty?

ORLANDO    You touch'd my vein at first: the thorny point
    Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show
    Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred
    And know some nurture. But forbear, I say:
    He dies that touches any of this fruit
    Till I and my affairs are answered.

JAQUES    An you will not be answered with reason, I must die.

DUKE SENIOR    What would you have? Your gentleness shall force
    More than your force move us to gentleness.

ORLANDO    I almost die for food; and let me have it.

DUKE SENIOR    Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.

ORLANDO    Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you:
    I thought that all things had been savage here;
    And therefore put I on the countenance
    Of stern commandment. But whate'er you are
    That in this desert inaccessible,
    Under the shade of melancholy boughs,
    Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time
    If ever you have look'd on better days,
    If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church,
    If ever sat at any good man's feast,
    If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear
    And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied,
    Let gentleness my strong enforcement be:
    In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword.

DUKE SENIOR    True is it that we have seen better days,
    And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church
    And sat at good men's feasts and wiped our eyes
    Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd:
    And therefore sit you down in gentleness
    And take upon command what help we have
    That to your wanting may be minister'd.

ORLANDO    Then but forbear your food a little while,
    Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn
    And give it food. There is an old poor man,
    Who after me hath many a weary step
    Limp'd in pure love: till he be first sufficed,
    Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger,
    I will not touch a bit.

DUKE SENIOR    Go find him out,
    And we will nothing waste till you return.

ORLANDO    I thank ye; and be blest for your good comfort!

    [Exit]

DUKE SENIOR    Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
    This wide and universal theatre
    Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
    Wherein we play in.

JAQUES    All the world's a stage,
    And all the men and women merely players:
    They have their exits and their entrances;
    And one man in his time plays many parts,
    His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
    Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
    And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
    And shining morning face, creeping like snail
    Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
    Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
    Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
    Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
    Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
    Seeking the bubble reputation
    Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
    In fair round belly with good capon lined,
    With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
    Full of wise saws and modern instances;
    And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
    Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
    With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
    His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
    For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
    Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
    And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
    That ends this strange eventful history,
    Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

    [Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM]

DUKE SENIOR    Welcome. Set down your venerable burthen,
    And let him feed.

ORLANDO    I thank you most for him.

ADAM    So had you need:
    I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.

DUKE SENIOR    Welcome; fall to: I will not trouble you
    As yet, to question you about your fortunes.
    Give us some music; and, good cousin, sing.

    SONG.
AMIENS    Blow, blow, thou winter wind.
    Thou art not so unkind
    As man's ingratitude;
    Thy tooth is not so keen,
    Because thou art not seen,
    Although thy breath be rude.
    Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
    Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
    Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
    This life is most jolly.
    Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
    That dost not bite so nigh
    As benefits forgot:
    Though thou the waters warp,
    Thy sting is not so sharp
    As friend remember'd not.
    Heigh-ho! sing, &c.

DUKE SENIOR    If that you were the good Sir Rowland's son,
    As you have whisper'd faithfully you were,
    And as mine eye doth his effigies witness
    Most truly limn'd and living in your face,
    Be truly welcome hither: I am the duke
    That loved your father: the residue of your fortune,
    Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man,
    Thou art right welcome as thy master is.
    Support him by the arm. Give me your hand,
    And let me all your fortunes understand.

    [Exeunt]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT III



SCENE I    A room in the palace.


    [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, and OLIVER]

DUKE FREDERICK    Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be:
    But were I not the better part made mercy,
    I should not seek an absent argument
    Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it:
    Find out thy brother, wheresoe'er he is;
    Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living
    Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more
    To seek a living in our territory.
    Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine
    Worth seizure do we seize into our hands,
    Till thou canst quit thee by thy brothers mouth
    Of what we think against thee.

OLIVER    O that your highness knew my heart in this!
    I never loved my brother in my life.

DUKE FREDERICK    More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors;
    And let my officers of such a nature
    Make an extent upon his house and lands:
    Do this expediently and turn him going.

    [Exeunt]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT III



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.

TOUCHSTONE    Instance, briefly; come, instance.

CORIN    Why, we are still handling our ewes, and their
    fells, you know, are greasy.

TOUCHSTONE    Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? and is not
    the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of
    a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance, I say; come.

CORIN    Besides, our hands are hard.

TOUCHSTONE    Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again.
    A more sounder instance, come.

CORIN    And they are often tarred over with the surgery of
    our sheep: and would you have us kiss tar? The
    courtier's hands are perfumed with civet.

TOUCHSTONE    Most shallow man! thou worms-meat, in respect of a
    good piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the wise, and
    perpend: civet is of a baser birth than tar, the
    very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd.

CORIN    You have too courtly a wit for me: I'll rest.

TOUCHSTONE    Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man!
    God make incision in thee! thou art raw.

CORIN    Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get
    that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's
    happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my
    harm, and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes
    graze and my lambs suck.

TOUCHSTONE    That is another simple sin in you, to bring the ewes
    and the rams together and to offer to get your
    living by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a
    bell-wether, and to betray a she-lamb of a
    twelvemonth to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram,
    out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not
    damned for this, the devil himself will have no
    shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst
    'scape.

CORIN    Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother.

    [Enter ROSALIND, with a paper, reading]

ROSALIND         From the east to western Ind,
    No jewel is like Rosalind.
    Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
    Through all the world bears Rosalind.
    All the pictures fairest lined
    Are but black to Rosalind.
    Let no fair be kept in mind
    But the fair of Rosalind.

TOUCHSTONE    I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and
    suppers and sleeping-hours excepted: it is the
    right butter-women's rank to market.

ROSALIND    Out, fool!

TOUCHSTONE    For a taste:
    If a hart do lack a hind,
    Let him seek out Rosalind.
    If the cat will after kind,
    So be sure will Rosalind.
    Winter garments must be lined,
    So must slender Rosalind.
    They that reap must sheaf and bind;
    Then to cart with Rosalind.
    Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
    Such a nut is Rosalind.
    He that sweetest rose will find
    Must find love's prick and Rosalind.
    This is the very false gallop of verses: why do you
    infect yourself with them?

ROSALIND    Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.

TOUCHSTONE    Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.

ROSALIND    I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it
    with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit
    i' the country; for you'll be rotten ere you be half
    ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar.

TOUCHSTONE    You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the
    forest judge.

    [Enter CELIA, with a writing]

ROSALIND    Peace! Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside.

CELIA    [Reads]

    Why should this a desert be?
    For it is unpeopled? No:
    Tongues I'll hang on every tree,
    That shall civil sayings show:
    Some, how brief the life of man
    Runs his erring pilgrimage,
    That the stretching of a span
    Buckles in his sum of age;
    Some, of violated vows
    'Twixt the souls of friend and friend:
    But upon the fairest boughs,
    Or at every sentence end,
    Will I Rosalinda write,
    Teaching all that read to know
    The quintessence of every sprite
    Heaven would in little show.
    Therefore Heaven Nature charged
    That one body should be fill'd
    With all graces wide-enlarged:
    Nature presently distill'd
    Helen's cheek, but not her heart,
    Cleopatra's majesty,
    Atalanta's better part,
    Sad Lucretia's modesty.
    Thus Rosalind of many parts
    By heavenly synod was devised,
    Of many faces, eyes and hearts,
    To have the touches dearest prized.
    Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
    And I to live and die her slave.

ROSALIND    O most gentle pulpiter! what tedious homily of love
    have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never
    cried 'Have patience, good people!'

CELIA    How now! back, friends! Shepherd, go off a little.
    Go with him, sirrah.

TOUCHSTONE    Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat;
    though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.

    [Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE]

CELIA    Didst thou hear these verses?

ROSALIND    O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of
    them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.

CELIA    That's no matter: the feet might bear the verses.

ROSALIND    Ay, but the feet were lame and could not bear
    themselves without the verse and therefore stood
    lamely in the verse.

CELIA    But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name
    should be hanged and carved upon these trees?

ROSALIND    I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder
    before you came; for look here what I found on a
    palm-tree. I was never so be-rhymed since
    Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I
    can hardly remember.

CELIA    Trow you who hath done this?

ROSALIND    Is it a man?

CELIA    And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck.
    Change you colour?

ROSALIND    I prithee, who?

CELIA    O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for friends to
    meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes
    and so encounter.

ROSALIND    Nay, but who is it?

CELIA    Is it possible?

ROSALIND    Nay, I prithee now with most petitionary vehemence,
    tell me who it is.

CELIA    O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful
    wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that,
    out of all hooping!

ROSALIND    Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am
    caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in
    my disposition? One inch of delay more is a
    South-sea of discovery; I prithee, tell me who is it
    quickly, and speak apace. I would thou couldst
    stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man
    out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-
    mouthed bottle, either too much at once, or none at
    all. I prithee, take the cork out of thy mouth that
    may drink thy tidings.

CELIA    So you may put a man in your belly.

ROSALIND    Is he of God's making? What manner of man? Is his
    head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard?

CELIA    Nay, he hath but a little beard.

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.

JAQUES    Rosalind is your love's name?

ORLANDO    Yes, just.

JAQUES    I do not like her name.

ORLANDO    There was no thought of pleasing you when she was
    christened.

JAQUES    What stature is she of?

ORLANDO    Just as high as my heart.

JAQUES    You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been
    acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conned them
    out of rings?

ORLANDO    Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from
    whence you have studied your questions.

JAQUES    You have a nimble wit: I think 'twas made of
    Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me? and
    we two will rail against our mistress the world and
    all our misery.

ORLANDO    I will chide no breather in the world but myself,
    against whom I know most faults.

JAQUES    The worst fault you have is to be in love.

ORLANDO    'Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue.
    I am weary of you.

JAQUES    By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found
    you.

ORLANDO    He is drowned in the brook: look but in, and you
    shall see him.

JAQUES    There I shall see mine own figure.

ORLANDO    Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.

JAQUES    I'll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good
    Signior Love.

ORLANDO    I am glad of your departure: adieu, good Monsieur
    Melancholy.

    [Exit JAQUES]

ROSALIND    [Aside to CELIA]  I will speak to him, like a saucy
    lackey and under that habit play the knave with him.
    Do you hear, forester?

ORLANDO    Very well: what would you?

ROSALIND    I pray you, what is't o'clock?

ORLANDO    You should ask me what time o' day: there's no clock
    in the forest.

ROSALIND    Then there is no true lover in the forest; else
    sighing every minute and groaning every hour would
    detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a clock.

ORLANDO    And why not the swift foot of Time? had not that
    been as proper?

ROSALIND    By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with
    divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles
    withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops
    withal and who he stands still withal.

ORLANDO    I prithee, who doth he trot withal?

ROSALIND    Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the
    contract of her marriage and the day it is
    solemnized: if the interim be but a se'nnight,
    Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of
    seven year.

ORLANDO    Who ambles Time withal?

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.

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]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT III



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 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]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT III



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,
    Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
    That was his mistress.

CELIA    Well, and what of him?

CORIN    If you will see a pageant truly play'd,
    Between the pale complexion of true love
    And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,
    Go hence a little and I shall conduct you,
    If you will mark it.

ROSALIND    O, come, let us remove:
    The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
    Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
    I'll prove a busy actor in their play.

    [Exeunt]




    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:
    '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:
    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
    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?
    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?
    You are a thousand times a properer man
    Than she a woman: 'tis such fools as you
    That makes the world full of ill-favour'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:
    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.

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,
    '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 neighbourly?

SILVIUS    I would have you.

PHEBE                      Why, that were covetousness.
    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
    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
    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
    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:
    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]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT IV



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 m 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.

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?

ROSALIND    Ay, and twenty such.

ORLANDO    What sayest thou?

ROSALIND    Are you not good?

ORLANDO    I hope so.

ROSALIND    Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?
    Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.
    Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?

ORLANDO    Pray thee, marry us.

CELIA    I cannot say the words.

ROSALIND    You must begin, 'Will you, Orlando--'

CELIA    Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?

ORLANDO    I will.

ROSALIND    Ay, but when?

ORLANDO    Why now; as fast as she can marry us.

ROSALIND    Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.'

ORLANDO    I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.

ROSALIND    I might ask you for your commission; but I do take
    thee, Orlando, for my husband: there's a girl goes
    before the priest; and certainly a woman's thought
    runs before her actions.

ORLANDO    So do all thoughts; they are winged.

ROSALIND    Now tell me how long you would have her after you
    have possessed her.

ORLANDO    For ever and a day.

ROSALIND    Say 'a day,' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando;
    men are April when they woo, December when they wed:
    maids are May when they are maids, but the sky
    changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous
    of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen,
    more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more
    new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires
    than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana
    in the fountain, and I will do that when you are
    disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and
    that when thou art inclined to sleep.

ORLANDO    But will my Rosalind do so?

ROSALIND    By my life, she will do as I do.

ORLANDO    O, but she is wise.

ROSALIND    Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the
    wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's
    wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and
    'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly
    with the smoke out at the chimney.

ORLANDO    A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say
    'Wit, whither wilt?'

ROSALIND    Nay, you might keep that cheque for it till you met
    your wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.

ORLANDO    And what wit could wit have to excuse that?

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]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT IV



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]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT IV



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]

    Art thou god to shepherd turn'd,
    That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?
    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. 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 sheep-cote 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 inquire for?

CELIA    It is no boast, being ask'd, 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 handkercher was stain'd.

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 oak, whose boughs were moss'd 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 approach'd
    The opening of his mouth; but suddenly,
    Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd 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 suck'd 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    Wast 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:--
    In 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 stripp'd 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 recover'd 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 swoons]

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.
    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]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT V



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.

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]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT V



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.

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.

PHEBE    If this be so, why blame you me to love you?

SILVIUS    If this be so, why blame you me to love you?

ORLANDO    If this be so, why blame you me to love you?

ROSALIND    Who do you speak to, 'Why blame you me to love you?'

ORLANDO    To her that is not here, nor doth not hear.

ROSALIND    Pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling
    of Irish wolves against the moon.

    [To SILVIUS]

    I will help you, if I can:

    [To PHEBE]

    I would love you, if I could. To-morrow meet me all together.

    [To PHEBE]

    I will marry you, if ever I marry woman, and I'll be
    married to-morrow:

    [To ORLANDO]

    I will satisfy you, if ever I satisfied man, and you
    shall be married to-morrow:

    [To SILVIUS]

    I will content you, if what pleases you contents
    you, and you shall be married to-morrow.

    [To ORLANDO]

    As you love Rosalind, meet:

    [To SILVIUS]

    as you love Phebe, meet: and as I love no woman,
    I'll meet. So fare you well: I have left you commands.

SILVIUS    I'll not fail, if I live.

PHEBE    Nor I.

ORLANDO    Nor I.

    [Exeunt]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT V



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 spring time, &c.

    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 spring time, &c.

    And therefore take the present time,
    With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino;
    For love is crowned with the prime
    In spring time, &c.

TOUCHSTONE    Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great
    matter in the ditty, yet the note was very
    untuneable.

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]




    AS YOU LIKE IT


ACT V



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.

    [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY]

JAQUES    There is, sure, another flood toward, and these
    couples are coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of
    very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools.

TOUCHSTONE    Salutation and greeting to you all!

JAQUES    Good my lord, bid him welcome: this is the
    motley-minded gentleman that I have so often met in
    the forest: he hath been a courtier, he swears.

TOUCHSTONE    If any man doubt that, let him put me to my
    purgation. I have trod a measure; I have flattered
    a lady; I have been politic with my friend, smooth
    with mine enemy; I have undone three tailors; I have
    had four quarrels, and like to have fought one.

JAQUES    And how was that ta'en up?

TOUCHSTONE    Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the
    seventh cause.

JAQUES    How seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow.

DUKE SENIOR    I like him very well.

TOUCHSTONE    God 'ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I
    press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country
    copulatives, to swear and to forswear: according as
    marriage binds and blood breaks: a poor virgin,
    sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor
    humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else
    will: rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a
    poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster.

DUKE SENIOR    By my faith, he is very swift and sententious.

TOUCHSTONE    According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet diseases.

JAQUES    But, for the seventh cause; how did you find the
    quarrel on the seventh cause?

TOUCHSTONE    Upon a lie seven times removed:--bear your body more
    seeming, Audrey:--as thus, sir. I did dislike the
    cut of a certain courtier's beard: he sent me word,
    if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the
    mind it was: this is called the Retort Courteous.
    If I sent him word again 'it was not well cut,' he
    would send me word, he cut it to please himself:
    this is called the Quip Modest. If again 'it was
    not well cut,' he disabled my judgment: this is
    called the Reply Churlish. If again 'it was not
    well cut,' he would answer, I spake not true: this
    is called the Reproof Valiant. If again 'it was not
    well cut,' he would say I lied: this is called the
    Counter-cheque Quarrelsome: and so to the Lie
    Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.

JAQUES    And how oft did you say his beard was not well cut?

TOUCHSTONE    I durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial,
    nor he durst not give me the Lie Direct; and so we
    measured swords and parted.

JAQUES    Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?

TOUCHSTONE    O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have
    books for good manners: I will name you the degrees.
    The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the
    Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the
    fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
    Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with
    Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All
    these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may
    avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven
    justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the
    parties were met themselves, one of them thought but
    of an If, as, 'If you said so, then I said so;' and
    they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the
    only peacemaker; much virtue in If.

JAQUES    Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? he's as good at
    any thing and yet a fool.

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!

DUKE SENIOR    O my dear niece, welcome thou art to me!
    Even daughter, welcome, in no less degree.

PHEBE    I will not eat my word, now thou art mine;
    Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.

    [Enter JAQUES DE BOYS]

JAQUES DE BOYS    Let me have audience for a word or two:
    I am the second son of old Sir Rowland,
    That bring these tidings to this fair assembly.
    Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day
    Men of great worth resorted to this forest,
    Address'd a mighty power; which were on foot,
    In his own conduct, purposely to take
    His brother here and put him to the sword:
    And to the skirts of this wild wood he came;
    Where meeting with an old religious man,
    After some question with him, was converted
    Both from his enterprise and from the world,
    His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,
    And all their lands restored to them again
    That were with him exiled. This to be true,
    I do engage my life.

DUKE SENIOR    Welcome, young man;
    Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding:
    To one his lands withheld, and to the other
    A land itself at large, a potent dukedom.
    First, in this forest, let us do those ends
    That here were well begun and well begot:
    And after, every of this happy number
    That have endured shrewd days and nights with us
    Shall share the good of our returned fortune,
    According to the measure of their states.
    Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity
    And fall into our rustic revelry.
    Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all,
    With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall.

JAQUES    Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly,
    The duke hath put on a religious life
    And thrown into neglect the pompous court?

JAQUES DE BOYS    He hath.

JAQUES    To him will I : out of these convertites
    There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.

    [To DUKE SENIOR]

    You to your former honour I bequeath;
    Your patience and your virtue well deserves it:

    [To ORLANDO]

    You to a love that your true faith doth merit:

    [To OLIVER]

    You to your land and love and great allies:

    [To SILVIUS]

    You to a long and well-deserved bed:

    [To TOUCHSTONE]

    And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage
    Is but for two months victuall'd. So, to your pleasures:
    I am for other than for dancing measures.

DUKE SENIOR    Stay, Jaques, stay.

JAQUES    To see no pastime I    what you would have
    I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave.

    [Exit]

DUKE SENIOR    Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites,
    As we do trust they'll end, in true delights.

    [A dance]




    AS YOU LIKE IT

    EPILOGUE


ROSALIND    It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue;
    but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord
    the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs
    no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no
    epilogue; yet to good wine they do use good bushes,
    and good plays prove the better by the help of good
    epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am
    neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with
    you in the behalf of a good play! I am not
    furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not
    become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin
    with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love
    you bear to men, to like as much of this play as
    please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love
    you bear to women--as I perceive by your simpering,
    none of you hates them--that between you and the
    women the play may please. If I were a woman I
    would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased
    me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I
    defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good
    beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my
    kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

    [Exeunt]