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
Act 5
Scene 1
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
Scene 2
The forest.
Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER
ORLANDO Is’t possible that on so little acquaintance you