As You Like It by William Shakespeare (best reads .txt) 📕

for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou are inclined 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 it will out at the keyhole; 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 plucked 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, conceived 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. Another part of 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.

1. What shall he have that kill'd the deer?
2. His leather skin and horns to wear.
1. Then sing him home:
[The rest shall bear this burden.]
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;
It was a crest ere thou wast born.
1. Thy father's father wore it;
2. And thy father bore it; All. The horn, the horn, the lusty horn,
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE III. Another part of 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:

[Giving a letter.]

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 tenor: 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 Ethiop 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 thee
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 endured!--Well, go your way to her, --for I see love hath made thee a 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 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 sheep-cote 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 handkerchief 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 cat-like 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 it you he rescued?

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,