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

Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

II.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! &c.

DUKE SENIOR. If that you were the good Sir Rowland's son,-- As you have whisper'd faithfully you were, And as mine eye doth his effigies witness Most truly limn'd and living in your face,-- Be truly welcome hither: I am the duke That lov'd your father. The residue of your fortune, Go to my cave and tell me.--Good old man, Thou art right welcome as thy master is; Support him by the arm.--Give me your hand, And let me all your fortunes understand.

[Exeunt]


ACT III.

SCENE I. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter DUKE FREDERICK, OLIVER, Lords and Attendants.]

DUKE FREDERICK. Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be: But were I not the better part made mercy, I should not seek an absent argument Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it: Find out thy brother wheresoe'er he is: Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more To seek a living in our territory. Thy lands, and all things that thou dost call thine Worth seizure, do we seize into our hands, Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother's mouth Of what we think against thee.

OLIVER. O that your highness knew my heart in this! I never lov'd my brother in my life.

DUKE FREDERICK. More villain thou.--Well, push him out of doors, And let my officers of such a nature Make an extent upon his house and lands: Do this expediently, and turn him going.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE II. The Forest of Arden.

[Enter ORLANDO, with a paper.]

ORLANDO. Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love;
And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
Thy huntress' name, that my full life doth sway. O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books,
And in their barks my thoughts I'll character, That every eye which in this forest looks
Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where. Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree, The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.

[Exit.]

[Enter CORIN and TOUCHSTONE.]

CORIN. And how like you this shepherd's life, Master Touchstone?

TOUCHSTONE. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?

CORIN. No more but that I know the more one sickens, the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding, or comes of a very dull kindred.

TOUCHSTONE. Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd?

CORIN. No, truly.

TOUCHSTONE. Then thou art damned.

CORIN. Nay, I hope,--

TOUCHSTONE. Truly, thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.

CORIN. For not being at court? Your reason.

TOUCHSTONE. Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never saw'st good manners; if thou never saw'st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.

CORIN. Not a whit, Touchstone; those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not at the court, but you kiss your hands; that courtesy would be uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds.

TOUCHSTONE. Instance, briefly; come, instance.

CORIN. Why, we are still handling our ewes; and their fells, you know, are greasy.

TOUCHSTONE. Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? and is not the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow: a better instance, I say; come.

CORIN. Besides, our hands are hard.

TOUCHSTONE. Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again: a more sounder instance; come.

CORIN. And they are often tarred over with the surgery of our sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier's hands are perfumed with civet.

TOUCHSTONE. Most shallow man! thou worm's-meat in respect of a good piece of flesh indeed!--Learn of the wise, and perpend: civet is of a baser birth than tar,--the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd.

CORIN. You have too courtly a wit for me: I'll rest.

TOUCHSTONE. Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man! God make incision in thee! thou art raw.

CORIN. Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.

TOUCHSTONE. That is another simple sin in you: to bring the ewes and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a bell-wether; and to betray a she-lamb of a twelvemonth to crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou be'st not damned for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst 'scape.

CORIN. Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother.

[Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper.]

ROSALIND.
'From the east to western Ind,
No jewel is like Rosalind.
Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
Through all the world bears Rosalind.
All the pictures fairest lin'd
Are but black to Rosalind.
Let no face be kept in mind
But the fair of Rosalind.'

TOUCHSTONE. I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners, and suppers, and sleeping hours excepted. It is the right butter-women's rank to market.

ROSALIND. Out, fool!

TOUCHSTONE. For a taste:--
If a hart do lack a hind,
Let him seek out Rosalind.
If the cat will after kind,
So be sure will Rosalind.
Winter garments must be lin'd,
So must slender Rosalind.
They that reap must sheaf and bind,--
Then to cart with Rosalind.
Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
Such a nut is Rosalind.
He that sweetest rose will find
Must find love's prick, and Rosalind.

This is the very false gallop of verses: why do you infect yourself with them?

ROSALIND. Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.

TOUCHSTONE. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.

ROSALIND. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar. Then it will be the earliest fruit in the country: for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar.

TOUCHSTONE. You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge.

[Enter CELIA, reading a paper.]

ROSALIND. Peace! Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside.

CELIA.
'Why should this a desert be?
For it is unpeopled? No;
Tongues I'll hang on every tree
That shall civil sayings show:
Some, how brief the life of man
Runs his erring pilgrimage,
That the streching of a span
Buckles in his sum of age.
Some, of violated vows
'Twixt the souls of friend and friend;
But upon the fairest boughs,
Or at every sentence end,
Will I Rosalinda write,
Teaching all that read to know
The quintessence of every sprite
Heaven would in little show.
Therefore heaven nature charg'd
That one body should be fill'd
With all graces wide-enlarg'd:
Nature presently distill'd
Helen's cheek, but not her heart;
Cleopatra's majesty;
Atalanta's better part;
Sad Lucretia's modesty.
Thus Rosalind of many parts
By heavenly synod was devis'd,
Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,
To have the touches dearest priz'd.
Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
And I to live and die her slave.'

ROSALIND. O most gentle Jupiter!--What tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried 'Have patience, good people!'

CELIA. How now! back, friends; shepherd, go off a little:--go with him, sirrah.

TOUCHSTONE. Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.

[Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE.]

CELIA. Didst thou hear these verses?

ROSALIND. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.

CELIA. That's no matter; the feet might bear the verses.

ROSALIND. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.

CELIA. But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be hanged and carved upon these trees?

ROSALIND. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder before you came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree: I was never so berhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember.

CELIA. Trow you who hath done this?

ROSALIND. Is it a man?

CELIA. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck. Change you colour?

ROSALIND. I pray thee, who?

CELIA. O lord, lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and so encounter.