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SCENE V.

Enter Rofalind and Celia.

OW say you now, is it not past two o'clock?
I wonder much, Orlando is not here.

Cel. I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath ta'en his bow and arrows, and is gone forth to fleep: look, who comes here.

Enter Silvius.

Sil. 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 tenour; pardon me,
I am but as a guiltless messenger.

Rof. 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 phenix: 'odds 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.

Sil. No, I protest, I know not the contents;

Phebe did write it.

Rof.

Rof. Come, come, you're a fool, And turn'd into th' extremity of love. I faw her hand, she has a leathern hand, A free-ftone-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. Sil. Sure, it is hers.

Rof. Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel stile, A ftile for challengers; why she defies me, Like Turk to Christian; woman's gentle brain Could not drop forth such giant rude invention; Such Ethiop words, blacker in their effect Than in their countenance; will you hear the letter? Sil. So please you, for I never heard it yet;

Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty.

Rof. She Phebe's 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?

Sil. Call you this railing?
Rof. [Reads.] Why, thy Godhead laid apart,
Warr'st thou with a woman's heart?

Did you ever hear fuch railing?

Whiles the eye of man did woo me,
That could do no vengeance to me.

Meaning me, a beast!

If the fcorn of your bright eyne
Have power to raise such love in mine,
Alack, in me, what ftrange 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 feal 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.

Sil. Call you this chiding?
Cel. Alas, poor shepherd !

Rof. Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity: wilt thou love such a woman? what, to make thee an inftrument, 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 Ether. If you be a true lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes more company. [Exit Sil.

SCENE VI.

Enter Oliver.

Oli.

GOOD-morrow, fair ones:

pray you, if you

Where, in the purlieus of this forest, stands
A sheep-cote fenc'd about with olive-trees?

Cel. Weft of this place, down in the neighbour

bottom,

The rank of ofiers, 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.

Oli. 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: but the woman low,
And browner than her brother. Are not you
The owner of the house, I did enquire for?

Cel.

Cel. It is no boaft, being ask'd, to say, we are. Oli. Orlando doth commend him to you both, And to that youth, he calls his Rosalind, He fends this bloody napkin. Are you he? Rof. I am; what must we understand by this? Oli. Some of my Shame, if you will know of me What man I am, and how, and why, and where This handkerchief was stain'd.

Cel. I pray you, tell it.

3

Oli. 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 befel! he threw his eye aside, And mark what object did present itself. Under an oak, whose bouglis were mofs'd with age, And high top bald with dry antiquity; A wretched ragged man, o'er-grown with hair, Lay fsleeping on his back; about his neck A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself, Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd The opening of his mouth, but fuddenly Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself, And with indented glides did flip away Into a bush; under which bush's shade A Lioness, with udders all drawn dry, Lay couching head on ground, with cat-like watch When that the fleeping man should ftir; for 'tis The royal difpofition of that beaft To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead: This feen, Orlando did approach the man, And found it was his brother, his eldest brother.

Cel. O, I have heard him speak of that same brother, And he did render him the most unnatural That liv'd 'mongst men.

Oli. And well he might so do; For, well I know, he was unnatural.

Rof.

-eft.

Rof. But, to Orlando; did he leave him there,

Food to the fuck'd and hungry lioness
Oli. Twice did he turn his back, and purpos'd fo:

But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,
And nature stronger than his just occafion,

of Made him give battel to the lioness,
Who quickly fell before him; in which * hurtling
From miferable slumber I awak'd.

agt

Cel. Are you his brother ?

Rof. Was it you he rescu'd?

Cel. Was it you that did fo oft contrive to kill him?
Oli. 'Twas I; but 'tis not I; I do not shame

To tell you what I was, since my converfion

So fweetly tastes, being the thing I am.

Rof. But, for the bloody napkin?

Oli. By, and by.

When from the first to last, betwixt us two, Tears our recountments had most kindly bath'd, As how I came into that defart place;

In brief, he led me to the gentle Duke,

the Who gave me fresh array and entertainment, Committing me unto my brother's love; Who led me instantly unto his cave, There strip'd himself, and here upon his arm, The lioness had torn some flesh away, Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted, ch And cry'd, in fainting, upon Rofalind.

Brief, I recover'd him; bound up his wound; And, after some small space, being strong at heart, He fent me hither, stranger as I am, To tell this story, that you might excuse His broken promife; and to give this napkin, he Dy'd in his blood, unto the shepherd youth, That he in sport doth call his Rofalind.

Ro

Cel. Why, how now Ganimed, Sweet, Ganimed?
[Rof. faints.

Oli. Many will fwoon, when they do look on blood.
* hurtling. Skirmishing. Mr. Pope.

Cel.