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

you to conceive than I to speak of.

ORLANDO. I thank you, sir: and pray you tell me this; Which of the two was daughter of the duke That here was at the wrestling?

LE BEAU. Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners; But yet, indeed, the smaller is his daughter: The other is daughter to the banish'd duke, And here detain'd by her usurping uncle, To keep his daughter company; whose loves Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters. But I can tell you that of late this duke Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece, Grounded upon no other argument But that the people praise her for her virtues And pity her for her good father's sake; And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady Will suddenly break forth.--Sir, fare you well! Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.

ORLANDO. I rest much bounden to you: fare you well!

[Exit LE BEAU.]

Thus must I from the smoke into the smother; From tyrant duke unto a tyrant brother:-- But heavenly Rosalind!

[Exit.]


SCENE III. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter CELIA and ROSALIND.]

CELIA. Why, cousin; why, Rosalind;--Cupid have mercy!--Not a word?

ROSALIND. Not one to throw at a dog.

CELIA. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs, throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.

ROSALIND. Then there were two cousins laid up; when the one should be lamed with 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?

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.

[Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords.]

DUKE FREDERICK. Mistress, despatch 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 banish'd 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 stay'd her for your sake, Else had she with her father rang'd 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, learn'd, play'd, eat 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 pass'd upon her;--she is banish'd.

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 griev'd than I am.

ROSALIND. I have more cause.

CELIA. Thou hast not, cousin; Pr'ythee be cheerful: know'st thou not the duke Hath banish'd 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 sund'red? 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 charge 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 curtle-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 call'd?

CELIA. Something that hath a reference to my state: No longer Celia, but Aliena.

ROSALIND. But, cousin, what if we assay'd 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 other LORDS, in the dress of 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. I would not change it.

AMIENS. 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 gor'd.

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 banish'd you. To-day 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 sequester'd stag, That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord, The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans, That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat Almost to bursting; and the big round tears Cours'd one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase: and thus the hairy fool, Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, Stood on the 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 assign'd 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,