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
Scene 2
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.