As You Like It
reasons and the other mad without any.
CELIA.
But is all this for your father?
ROSALIND.
No, some of it is for my child’s father. O, how full of briers is this
working-day world!
CELIA.
They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery. If we
walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats will catch them.
ROSALIND.
I could shake them off my coat; these burs are in my heart.
CELIA.
Hem them away.
ROSALIND.
I would try, if I could cry “hem” and have him.
CELIA.
Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.
ROSALIND.
O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself.
CELIA.
O, a good wish upon you! You will try in time, in despite of a fall.
But turning these jests out of service, let us talk in good earnest. Is
it possible on such a sudden you should fall into so strong a liking
with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?
ROSALIND.
The Duke my father loved his father dearly.
CELIA.
Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly? By this
kind of chase I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly;
yet I hate not Orlando.
ROSALIND.
No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.
CELIA.
Why should I not? Doth he not deserve well?
Enter Duke Frederick with Lords.
ROSALIND.
Let me love him for that, and do you love him because I do.—Look, here
comes the Duke.
CELIA.
With his eyes full of anger.
DUKE FREDERICK.
Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste,
And get you from our court.
ROSALIND.
Me, uncle?
DUKE FREDERICK.
You, cousin.
Within these ten days if that thou be’st found
So near our public court as twenty miles,
Thou diest for it.
ROSALIND.
I do beseech your Grace,
Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me.
If with myself I hold intelligence,
Or have acquaintance with mine own desires,
If that I do not dream, or be not frantic—
As I do trust I am not—then, dear uncle,
Never so much as in a thought unborn
Did I offend your Highness.
DUKE FREDERICK.
Thus do all traitors.
If their purgation did consist in words,
They are as innocent as grace itself.
Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.
ROSALIND.
Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor.
Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.
DUKE FREDERICK.
Thou art thy father’s daughter, there’s enough.
ROSALIND.
So was I when your highness took his dukedom;
So was I when your highness banished him.
Treason is not inherited, my lord,
Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
What’s that to me? My father was no traitor.
Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
To think my poverty is treacherous.
CELIA.
Dear sovereign, hear me speak.
DUKE FREDERICK.
Ay, Celia, we stayed her for your sake,
Else had she with her father ranged along.
CELIA.
I did not then entreat to have her stay;
It was your pleasure and your own remorse.
I was too young that time to value her,
But now I know her. If she be a traitor,
Why, so am I. We still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learned, played, ate together,
And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable.
DUKE FREDERICK.
She is too subtle for thee, and her smoothness,
Her very silence, and her patience
Speak to the people, and they pity her.
Thou art a fool. She robs thee of thy name,
And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
When she is gone. Then open not thy lips.
Firm and irrevocable is my doom
Which I have passed upon her. She is banished.
CELIA.
Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege.
I cannot live out of her company.
DUKE FREDERICK.
You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself.
If you outstay the time, upon mine honour
And in the greatness of my word, you die.
[_Exeunt Duke Frederick and Lords._]
CELIA.
O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go?
Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.
ROSALIND.
I have more cause.
CELIA.
Thou hast not, cousin.
Prithee be cheerful. Know’st thou not the Duke
Hath banished me, his daughter?
ROSALIND.
That he hath not.
CELIA.
No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love
Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one.
Shall we be sundered? Shall we part, sweet girl?
No, let my father seek another heir.
Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
Whither to go, and what to bear with us,
And do not seek to take your change upon you,
To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out.
For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
Say what thou canst, I’ll go along with thee.
ROSALIND.
Why, whither shall we go?
CELIA.
To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.
ROSALIND.
Alas, what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel forth so far?
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
CELIA.
I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire,
And with a kind of umber smirch my face.
The like do you; so shall we pass along
And never stir assailants.
ROSALIND.
Were it not better,
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtal-axe upon my thigh,
A boar-spear in my hand, and in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will,
We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside,
As many other mannish cowards have
That do outface it with their semblances.
CELIA.
What shall I call thee when thou art a man?
ROSALIND.
I’ll have no worse a name than Jove’s own page,
And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
But what will you be called?
CELIA.
Something that hath a reference to my state:
No longer Celia, but Aliena.
ROSALIND.
But, cousin, what if we assayed to steal
The clownish fool out of your father’s court?
Would he not be a comfort to our travel?
CELIA.
He’ll go along o’er the wide world with me.
Leave me alone to woo him. Let’s away,
And get our jewels and our wealth together,
Devise the fittest time and safest way
To hide us from pursuit that will be made
After my flight. Now go we in content
To liberty, and not to banishment.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT II
SCENE I. The Forest of Arden
Enter Duke Senior, Amiens and two or three Lords, dressed as foresters.
DUKE SENIOR.
Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say:
“This is no flattery. These are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.”
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
AMIENS.
I would not change it. Happy is your grace,
That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet and so sweet a style.
DUKE SENIOR.
Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should in their own confines with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored.
FIRST LORD.
Indeed, my lord,
The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,
And in that kind swears you do more usurp
Than doth your brother that hath banished you.
Today my lord of Amiens and myself
Did steal behind him as he lay along
Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood;
To the which place a poor sequestered stag,
That from the hunter’s aim had ta’en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase. And thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on th’ extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.
DUKE SENIOR.
But what said Jaques?
Did he not moralize this spectacle?
FIRST LORD.
O yes, into a thousand similes.
First, for his weeping into the needless stream:
“Poor deer,” quoth he “thou mak’st a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
To that which had too much.” Then, being there alone,
Left and abandoned of his velvet friends:
“’Tis right”; quoth he, “thus misery doth part
The flux of company.” Anon a careless herd,
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him
And never stays to greet him. “Ay,” quoth Jaques,
“Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens!
’Tis just the fashion. Wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?”
Thus most invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court,
Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what’s worse,
To fright the animals and to kill them up
In their assigned and native dwelling-place.
DUKE SENIOR.
And did you leave him in this contemplation?
SECOND LORD.
We did, my lord, weeping and commenting
Upon the sobbing deer.
DUKE SENIOR.
Show me the place.
I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
For then he’s full of matter.
FIRST LORD.
I’ll bring you to him straight.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. A Room in the Palace
Enter Duke Frederick with Lords.
DUKE FREDERICK.
Can it be possible that no man saw them?
It cannot be! Some villains of my court
Are of consent and sufferance in this.
FIRST LORD.
I cannot hear of any that did see her.
The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,
Saw her abed, and in the morning early
They found the bed untreasured of their mistress.
SECOND LORD.
My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft
Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.
Hesperia, the princess’ gentlewoman,
Confesses that she secretly o’erheard
Your daughter and her cousin much commend
The parts and graces of the wrestler
That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles;
And she believes wherever they are gone
That youth is surely in their company.
DUKE FREDERICK.
Send to his brother; fetch that gallant hither.
If he be absent, bring his brother to me.
I’ll make him find him. Do this suddenly!
And let not search and inquisition quail
To bring again these foolish runaways.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. Before Oliver’s House
Enter Orlando and Adam, meeting.
ORLANDO.
Who’s there?
ADAM.
What, my young master? O my gentle master,
O my sweet master, O you memory
Of old Sir Rowland! Why, what make you here?
Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you?
And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?
Why would you be so fond to overcome
The bonny prizer of the humorous Duke?
Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.
Know you not, master, to some kind of men
Their graces serve them but as enemies?
No more do yours. Your virtues, gentle master,
Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.
O, what a world is this, when what is comely
Envenoms him that bears it!
ORLANDO.
Why, what’s the matter?
ADAM.
O unhappy youth,
Come not within these doors! Within this roof
The enemy of all your graces lives.
Your brother—no, no brother, yet the son—
Yet not the son; I will not call him son—
Of him I was about to call his father,
Hath heard your praises, and this night he means
To burn the lodging where you use to lie,
And you within it. If he fail of that,
He will have other means to cut you off;
I overheard him and his practices.
This is no place; this house is but a butchery.
Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.
ORLANDO.
Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?
ADAM.
No matter whither, so you come not here.
ORLANDO.
What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food,
Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce
A thievish living on the common road?