Page images
PDF
EPUB

To tell this story, that you might excuse His broken promise, and to give this napkin, Dy'd in this blood, unto the shepherd youth That he in sport doth call his Rosalind. Cel. Why, how now, Ganymede? sweet Ganymede? [Rosalind faints.

Oli. Many will swoon when they do look on blood.

Cel. There is more in it :-Cousin-Ganymede! Oli. Look, he recovers.

Ros.

I would I were at home.

Cel. We'll lead

thither you

I

[ocr errors]

pray you, will you take him by the arm? Oli. Be of good cheer, youth :-You a man?You lack a man's heart.

Ros. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sir, a body would think this was well counterfeited: I pray you tell your brother how well I counterfeited.-Heigh bo!

Oli. This was not counterfeit; there is too great testimony in your complexion, that it was a passion of earnest.

Ros. Counterfeit, I assure you.

Oli. Well then, take a good heart, and counterfeit to be a man.

Ros. So I do: but, i'faith I should have been a woman by right.

Cel. Come, you look paler and paler; pray you, draw homewards :-Good sir, go with us.

Oli. That will I, for I must bear answer back How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.

Ros. I shall devise something: But, I pray you, commend my counterfeiting to him:-Will you go?

[Exeunt.

ACT Y.

SCENE I-The same."

Enter Touchstone and

Audrey.

Touch. We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey.

Aud. 'Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old gentleman's saying.

Touch. A most wicked sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Mar-text. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to you.

Aud. Ay, I know who 'tis, he hath no interest in me in the world: here comes the man you mean.

Enter William.

Touch. 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.

Will. Good even, Audrey.

Aud. God ye good even, William.
Will. And good even to you, sir.

Touch. Good even, gentle friend: Cover thy head, cover thy head; nay, pr'ythee, be covered. How old are you, friend?

Will. Five and twenty, sir.

Touch. A ripe age; Is thy name William?
Will. William, sir.

Touch. A fair name: Wast born i'the forest here?

Will. Ay, sir, I thank God.

Touch. Thank God;-a good answer : Art rich?

Will. 'Faith, sir, so, so.

Touch. So, so, is good, very good, very excellent good:--and yet it is not; it is but so so. wise?

Will. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.

Art thon

Touch. Why, thou say'st 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? Will. I do, sir.

Touch. Give me your hand: Art thou learned?
Will. No, sir.

Touch. 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.

Will. Which he, sir?

Touch. 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; 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'er-run thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways; therefore tremble, and depart.

Aud. Do, good William.

Will. God rest you merry, sir.”

Enter Corin.

[Exit.

Cor. Our master and mistress seek you; come, away, away.

Touch. Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey;-I attend, , I attend.

[Exeunt

SCENE II.-The same. Enter Orlando and Oliver.

Orl. 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 perséver to enjoy her?

Oli. 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.

Enter Rosalind.

Orl. You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow: thither will I invite the duke, and all his contented followers: Go you, and prepare Aliena; for, look you, here comes my Rosalind. Ros. God save you, brother.

Oli. And you, fair sister.

Ros. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf!

Orl. It is my arm.

Ros. I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion.

Orl. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady. Ros. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon, when he showed me your handkerchief?

Orl. Ay, and greater wonders than that.

Ros. O, I know where you are:-Nay, 'tis true: there was never any thing so sudden, but the fight of two rams, and Cæsar's thrasonical brag ofI 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.

Orl. 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 tomorrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall think my brother happy, in having what he wishes for.

Ros. Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?

I

Orl. I can live no longer by thinking.

Ros. I will weary you no longer then 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, 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 years old, conversed with a magician, most profound in this 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 to-morrow, human as she is, and without any danger.

Orl. Speakest thou in sober meanings?

Ros. By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I say I am a magician: Therefore, put you

« PreviousContinue »