As You Like It (14 page)

CELIA
    You have
simply misused
our sex in your
love-prate
¹⁷⁵
:

we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head,

and show the world
what the bird hath done to her own nest
¹⁷⁷
.

ROSALIND
    O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst

know how many
fathom
¹⁷⁹
deep I am in love! But it cannot be

sounded
¹⁸⁰
: 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
¹⁸⁴
that was

begot
of
thought
, conceived of
spleen
¹⁸⁵
and born of madness,

that
blind
rascally boy that
abuses
¹⁸⁶
everyone’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
¹⁸⁹
and sigh till he come.

CELIA
    And I’ll sleep.

JAQUES
    Which is he that killed the deer?

FIRST 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
⁵
of victory. Have you no song, forester,

for this purpose?

SECOND LORD
    Yes, sir.

JAQUES
    Sing it: ’tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make

noise enough.

          
Music, song

LORDS
    What shall he have that killed the deer?

          His leather skin and horns to wear.

          Then sing him home,

          The rest shall
bear this burden
¹³
:

          Take thou no scorn to wear the horn,

          It was a crest ere thou wast born,

          Thy father’s father wore it,

          And thy father bore it.

          
The horn, the horn, the
lusty
¹⁸
horn,

          Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.

ROSALIND
    How say you now? Is it not past two o’clock? And

here much Orlando
²
!

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.

SILVIUS
    My errand is to you, fair youth.

My gentle Phoebe bid me give you this:

I know not the contents, but — as I guess

By the stern brow and
waspish
⁹
action

Which she did
use
¹⁰
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
¹⁴
. 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
¹⁷
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
²⁰
.

SILVIUS
    No, I
protest
²¹
, I know not the contents.

Phoebe did write it.

ROSALIND
    Come, come, you are a fool

And turned into the extremity of love.

I saw her hand. She has a
leathern
²⁵
hand,

A
freestone
-coloured
hand. I
verily
²⁶
did think

That her old gloves were on, but ’twas her hands.

She has a
huswife’s
²⁸
hand, but that’s no matter:

I say she never did invent this letter,

This is a man’s
invention
and his
hand
³⁰
.

SILVIUS
    Sure, it is hers.

ROSALIND
    Why, ’tis a
boisterous
³²
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
³⁵
invention,

Such
Ethiope
³⁶
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 Phoebe’s cruelty.

ROSALIND
    She
Phoebes
⁴⁰
me. Mark how the tyrant writes:

          ‘Art thou god to shepherd turned,

          That a maiden’s heart hath burned?’

Can a woman rail thus?

SILVIUS
         Call you this railing?

ROSALIND
    ‘Why, thy godhead laid
apart
⁴⁵
,

                 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
⁴⁹
to me.’

Meaning me a beast.

                 ‘If the scorn of your bright
eyne
⁵¹

                 Have power to raise such love in mine,

                 Alack, in me what strange effect

                 Would they work in mild
aspect
⁵⁴
!

                 Whiles you chid me, I did love.

                 How then might your
prayers
⁵⁶
move!

                 He that brings this love to thee

                 
Little knows this love in me;

                 And
by him seal up thy mind
⁵⁹
,

                 Whether that thy youth and
kind
⁶⁰

                 Will the faithful offer take

                 Of me and all that I can
make
⁶²
,

                 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
⁶⁸
and

play false
strains
⁶⁹
upon thee? Not to be endured! Well, go your

way to her, for I see love hath made thee a tame
snake
⁷⁰
, 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.

OLIVER
    Good morrow, fair ones: pray you, if you know,

Where in the
purlieus
⁷⁶
of this forest stands

A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees?

CELIA
    West of this place, down in the
neighbour bottom
⁷⁸
.

The
rank of osiers
⁷⁹
by the murmuring stream

Left
⁸⁰
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
⁸⁶
himself

Like a
ripe
sister. The woman
low
⁸⁷

And browner than her brother.’ Are not you

The owner of the house I did inquire for?

CELIA
    It is no boast, being asked, to say we are.

OLIVER
    Orlando doth
commend him
⁹¹
to you both,

And to that youth he calls his Rosalind

He sends this bloody
napkin
⁹³
. 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
⁹⁷
was stained.

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
¹⁰²
,

Lo, what befell! He threw his eye aside,

And mark what object did present itself:

Und’r an old oak, whose boughs were mossed with age

And high top
bald
¹⁰⁶
with dry antiquity,

A wretched ragged man, o’ergrown with hair,

Lay sleeping on his back; about his neck

A green and
gilded
¹⁰⁹
snake had wreathed itself,

Who with her head nimble in threats approached

The opening of his mouth. But suddenly,

Seeing Orlando, it
unlinked
¹¹²
itself,

And with
indented
¹¹³
glides did slip away

Into a bush, under which bush’s shade

A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,

Lay
couching
¹¹⁶
, head on ground, with catlike watch

When that
¹¹⁷
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
¹²³
the most unnatural

That lived amongst men.

OLIVER
    And well he might so do,

For well I know he was unnatural.

ROSALIND
    But
to
¹²⁷
Orlando: did he leave him there,

Food to the sucked and hungry lioness?

OLIVER
    Twice did he turn his back and purposed so,

But
kindness
¹³⁰
, nobler ever than revenge,

And nature, stronger than his
just occasion
¹³¹
,

Made him give battle to the lioness,

Who quickly fell before him, in which
hurtling
¹³³

From miserable slumber I awaked.

CELIA
    Are you his brother?

ROSALIND
    Was’t 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, since my conversion

So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.

ROSALIND
    But,
for
¹⁴¹
the bloody napkin?

OLIVER
    By and by.

When from the first to last betwixt us two,

Tears our
recountments
had most
kindly
¹⁴⁴
bathed,

As how I came into that desert place:

In brief, he led me to the gentle duke,

Who gave me fresh
array
and
entertainment
¹⁴⁷
,

Committing me unto my brother’s love,

Who led me instantly unto his cave,

There stripped 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
recovered
¹⁵⁴
him, bound up his wound,

And after some small
space
¹⁵⁵
, 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,

Dyed in this blood, unto the shepherd youth