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

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 sheepcote fenc’d 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 wreath’d 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 liv’d 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 purpos’d 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 awak’d.

CELIA. Are you his brother?

ROSALIND. Was’t you he rescu’d?

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 bath’d, 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, Dy’d 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

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ACT V. SCENE I.

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.

 

Enter WILLIAM

 

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.

WILLIAM. Good ev’n, Audrey.

AUDREY. God ye good ev’n, William.

WILLIAM. And good ev’n to you, sir.

TOUCHSTONE. Good ev’n, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy head; nay, prithee be cover’d. 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’ th’ 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 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?

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 pour’d out of 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; will o’er-run 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 II.

The forest

 

Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER

 

ORLANDO. 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 persever to enjoy her?

OLIVER. 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.

ORLANDO. You have my consent. Let your wedding be tomorrow.

Thither will I invite the Duke and all’s contented followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for, look you, here comes my Rosalind.

 

Enter ROSALIND

 

ROSALIND. God save you, brother.

OLIVER. And you, fair sister. Exit ROSALIND. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf!

ORLANDO. It is my arm.

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

ORLANDO. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.

ROSALIND. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon when he show’d me your handkercher?

ORLANDO. Ay, and greater wonders than that.

ROSALIND. O, I know where you are. Nay, ‘tis true. There was never any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams and Caesar’s thrasonical brag of ‘I came, saw, and overcame.’ For your brother and my sister no sooner met but they look’d; no sooner look’d but they lov’d; no sooner lov’d but they sigh’d; no sooner sigh’d but they ask’d one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy-and in these degrees have they made 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.

ORLANDO. They shall be married tomorrow; 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.

ROSALIND. Why, then, tomorrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?

ORLANDO. I can live no longer by thinking.

ROSALIND. I will weary you, then, no longer 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 I 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 year old, convers’d with