Authors: William Shakespeare
Exit
[
Orlando
]
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.
Exeunt
running scene 10
Enter Jaques and Lords
[
as
]
foresters
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.
Exeunt
running scene 11
Enter Rosalind and Celia
ROSALIND
How say you now? Is it not past two o’clock? And
CELIA
I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he
hath ta’en his bow and arrows and is gone forth to sleep.
With a letter
Enter Silvius
Look, who comes here.
To Rosalind
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.
Reads letter
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:
Read
‘Art thou god to shepherd turned,
That a maiden’s heart hath burned?’
Can a woman rail thus?
SILVIUS
Call you this railing?
Read
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;
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.
Exit Silvius
Enter Oliver
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
Shows bloody handkerchief
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