As You Like It

As You Like It

ACT IV SCENE III	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	5
	sleep. Look, who comes here.
	Enter SILVIUS
SILVIUS	My errand is to you, fair youth;
	My gentle Phebe bid me give you this:
	I know not the contents; but, as I guess
	By the stern brow and waspish action	10
	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:	15
	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,	20
	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.	25
	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;	30
	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	35
	Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention
	Such Ethiope 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.	40
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?	45
ROSALIND	Reads
	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.	50
	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!	55
	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;	60
	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.	65
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	70
	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,	75
	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 fenced about with olive trees?
CELIA	West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom:	80
	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,	85
	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	90
	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?	95
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 was stain'd.
CELIA	I pray you, tell it.	100
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,	105
	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	110
	A green and gilded snake had wreathed 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	115
	Into a bush: under which bush's shade
	A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,
	Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch,
	When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis
	The royal disposition of that beast	120
	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	125
	That lived 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?	130
OLIVER	Twice did he turn his back and purposed 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	135
	From miserable slumber I awaked.
CELIA	Are you his brother?
ROSALIND	Wast 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	140
	To tell you what I was, since my conversion
	So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.
ROSALIND	But, for the bloody napkin?
OLIVER	By and by.
	When from the first to last betwixt us two	145
	Tears our recountments had most kindly 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,
	Committing me unto my brother's love;	150
	Who led me instantly unto his cave,
	There stripp'd 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.	155
	Brief, I recover'd him, bound up his wound;
	And, after some small space, 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	160
	Dyed in his blood unto the shepherd youth
	That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.
	ROSALIND swoons
CELIA	Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede!
OLIVER	Many will swoon when they do look on blood.
CELIA	There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede!	165
OLIVER	Look, he recovers.
ROSALIND	I would I were at home.
CELIA	We'll lead you thither.
	I pray you, will you take him by the arm?
OLIVER	Be of good cheer, youth: you a man! you lack a	170
	man's heart.
ROSALIND	I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would
	think this was well counterfeited! I pray you, tell
	your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!
OLIVER	This was not counterfeit: there is too great	175
	testimony in your complexion that it was a passion
	of earnest.
ROSALIND	Counterfeit, I assure you.
OLIVER	Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man.
ROSALIND	So I do: but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by right.	180
CELIA	Come, you look paler and paler: pray you, draw
	homewards. Good sir, go with us.
OLIVER	That will I, for I must bear answer back
	How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.
ROSALIND	I shall devise something: but, I pray you, commend	185
	my counterfeiting to him. Will you go?
	Exeunt