The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (book suggestions TXT) 📖

slander of his wife.

ORLANDO. Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.

ROSALIND. And I am your Rosalind.

CELIA. It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a better leer than you.

ROSALIND. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour, and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind?

ORLANDO. I would kiss before I spoke.

ROSALIND. Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were gravell’d for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.

Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers lacking-God warn us!- matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.

ORLANDO. How if the kiss be denied?

ROSALIND. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.

ORLANDO. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?

ROSALIND. Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit.

ORLANDO. What, of my suit?

ROSALIND. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit.

Am not I your Rosalind?

ORLANDO. I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her.

ROSALIND. Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.

ORLANDO. Then, in mine own person, I die.

ROSALIND. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains dash’d out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love.

Leander, he would have liv’d many a fair year, though Hero had turn’d nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and, being taken with the cramp, was drown’d; and the foolish chroniclers of that age found it was-Hero of Sestos. But these are all lies: men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

ORLANDO. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I protest, her frown might kill me.

ROSALIND. By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition; and ask me what you will, I will grant it.

ORLANDO. Then love me, Rosalind.

ROSALIND. Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays, and all.

ORLANDO. And wilt thou have me?

ROSALIND. Ay, and twenty such.

ORLANDO. What sayest thou?

ROSALIND. Are you not good?

ORLANDO. I hope so.

ROSALIND. Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come, sister, you shall be the priest, and marry us. Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?

ORLANDO. Pray thee, marry us.

CELIA. I cannot say the words.

ROSALIND. You must begin ‘Will you, Orlando’-

CELIA. Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?

ORLANDO. I will.

ROSALIND. Ay, but when?

ORLANDO. Why, now; as fast as she can marry us.

ROSALIND. Then you must say ‘I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.’

ORLANDO. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.

ROSALIND. I might ask you for your commission; but-I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband. There’s a girl goes before the priest; and, certainly, a woman’s thought runs before her actions.

ORLANDO. So do all thoughts; they are wing’d.

ROSALIND. Now tell me how long you would have her, after you have possess’d her.

ORLANDO. For ever and a day.

ROSALIND. Say ‘a day’ without the ‘ever.’ No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are dispos’d to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou are inclin’d to sleep.

ORLANDO. But will my Rosalind do so?

ROSALIND. By my life, she will do as I do.

ORLANDO. O, but she is wise.

ROSALIND. Or else she could not have the wit to do this. The wiser, the waywarder. Make the doors upon a woman’s wit, and it will out at the casement; shut that, and ‘twill out at the key-hole; stop that, ‘twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.

ORLANDO. A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say ‘Wit, whither wilt?’ ROSALIND. Nay, you might keep that check for it, till you met your wife’s wit going to your neighbour’s bed.

ORLANDO. And what wit could wit have to excuse that?

ROSALIND. Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never take her without her answer, unless you take her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband’s occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool!

ORLANDO. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.

ROSALIND. Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours!

ORLANDO. I must attend the Duke at dinner; by two o’clock I will be with thee again.

ROSALIND. Ay, go your ways, go your ways. I knew what you would prove; my friends told me as much, and I thought no less. That flattering tongue of yours won me. ‘Tis but one cast away, and so, come death! Two o’clock is your hour?

ORLANDO. Ay, sweet Rosalind.

ROSALIND. By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot of your promise, or come one minute behind your hour, I will think you the most pathetical break-promise, and the most hollow lover, and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind, that may be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful. Therefore beware my censure, and keep your promise.

ORLANDO. With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind; so, adieu.

ROSALIND. Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try. Adieu. Exit ORLANDO

CELIA. You have simply misus’d our sex in your love-prate. We must have your doublet and hose pluck’d over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest.

ROSALIND. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.

CELIA. Or rather, bottomless; that as fast as you pour affection in, it runs out.

ROSALIND. No; that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of thought, conceiv’d of spleen, and born of madness; that blind rascally boy, that abuses every one’s eyes, because his own are out-let him be judge how deep I am in love. I’ll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. I’ll go find a shadow, and sigh till he come.

CELIA. And I’ll sleep. Exeunt

SCENE II.

The forest

 

Enter JAQUES and LORDS, in the habit of foresters JAQUES. Which is he that killed the deer?

LORD. Sir, it was I.

JAQUES. Let’s present him to the Duke, like a Roman conqueror; and it would do well to set the deer’s horns upon his head for a branch of victory. Have you no song, forester, for this purpose?

LORD. Yes, sir.

JAQUES. Sing it; ‘tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough.

 

SONG.

 

What shall he have that kill’d the deer?

His leather skin and horns to wear.

[The rest shall hear this burden:]

Then sing him home.

 

Take thou no scorn to wear the horn; It was a crest ere thou wast born.

Thy father’s father wore it;

And thy father bore it.

The horn, the horn, the lusty horn, Is not a thing to laugh to scorn. Exeunt

SCENE III.

The forest

 

Enter ROSALIND and CELIA

 

ROSALIND. How say you now? Is it not past two o’clock?

And here much Orlando!

CELIA. I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath ta’en his bow and arrows, and is gone forth-to sleep. Look, who comes here.

 

Enter SILVIUS

 

SILVIUS. My errand is to you, fair youth; My gentle Phebe did 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.

ROSALIND. 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 Phoenix. ‘Od’s 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.

SILVIUS. No, I protest, I know not the contents; Phebe did write it.

ROSALIND. Come, come, you are a fool,

And turn’d into the extremity of love.

I saw her hand; she has a leathern hand, A freestone-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.

SILVIUS. Sure, it is hers.

ROSALIND. Why, ‘tis a boisterous and a cruel style; A style for challengers. Why, she defies me, Like Turk to Christian. Women’s gentle brain Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention, Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?

SILVIUS. So please you, for I never heard it yet; Yet heard too much of Phebe’s cruelty.

ROSALIND. She Phebes 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?

SILVIUS. Call you this railing?

ROSALIND. ‘Why, thy godhead laid apart, Warr’st thou with a woman’s heart?’

 

Did you ever hear such railing?

 

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

 

Meaning me a beast.

 

‘If the scorn of your bright eyne Have power to raise such love in mine, Alack, in me what strange 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 the Little knows this love in me; And by him seal 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.’

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 endur’d! Well, go your way to her, for I see love hath made thee 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