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As You Like It: Act 4 Scene 3

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

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

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:

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,

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.

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;

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

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.

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?

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.

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!

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;

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.

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

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,

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:

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,

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

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?

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.

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,

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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;

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.

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

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!

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

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

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.

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

my counterfeiting to him. Will you go?

[Exeunt]