As You Like It by William Shakespeare (portable ebook reader TXT) 📖
- Author: William Shakespeare
Book online «As You Like It by William Shakespeare (portable ebook reader TXT) 📖». Author William Shakespeare
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 BOIS. 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.]
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.
[The End.]
Imprint
Publication Date: 05-22-2008
All Rights Reserved
Comments (0)