As you like it

ACT IV

SCENE I. The forest.

Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES

JAQUES

I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted

with thee.

ROSALIND

They say you are a melancholy fellow.

JAQUES

I am so, I do love it better than laughing.

ROSALIND

Those that are in extremity of either are abominable

fellows and betray themselves to every modern

censure worse than drunkards.

JAQUES

Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.

ROSALIND

Why then, 'tis good to be a post.

JAQUES

I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is

emulation, nor the musician's, which is fantastical,

nor the courtier's, which is proud, nor the

soldier's, which is ambitious, nor the lawyer's,

which is politic, nor the lady's, which is nice, nor

the lover's, which is all these: but it is a

melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples,

extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry's

contemplation of my travels, in which my often

rumination wraps me m a most humorous sadness.

ROSALIND

A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to

be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see

other men's, then, to have seen much and to have

nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

JAQUES

Yes, I have gained my experience.

ROSALIND

And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have

a fool to make me merry than experience to make me

sad, and to travel for it too!

Enter ORLANDO

ORLANDO

Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!

JAQUES

Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse.

Exit

ROSALIND

Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and

wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your

own country, be out of love with your nativity and

almost chide God for making you that countenance you

are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a

gondola. Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been

all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such

another trick, never come in my sight more.

ORLANDO

My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.

ROSALIND

Break an hour's promise in love! He that will

divide a minute into a thousand parts and break but

a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the

affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid

hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant

him heart-whole.

ORLANDO

Pardon me, dear Rosalind.

ROSALIND

Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I

had as lief be wooed of a snail.

ORLANDO

Of a snail?

ROSALIND

Ay, of a snail, for though he comes slowly, he

carries his house on his head, a better jointure,

I think, than you make a woman: besides he brings

his destiny with him.

ORLANDO

What's that?

ROSALIND

Why, horns, which such as you are fain to be

beholding to your wives for: but he comes armed in

his fortune and prevents the slander of his wife.

ORLANDO

Virtue is no horn-maker, and my Rosalind is virtuous.

ROSALIND

And I am your Rosalind.

CELIA

It pleases him to call you so, but he hath a

Rosalind of a better leer than you.

ROSALIND

Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday

humour and like enough to consent. What would you

say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind?

ORLANDO

I would kiss before I spoke.

ROSALIND

Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were

gravelled for lack of matter, you might take

occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are

out, they will spit, and for lovers lacking--God

warn us!--matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.

ORLANDO

How if the kiss be denied?

ROSALIND

Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.

ORLANDO

Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?

ROSALIND

Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or

I should think my honesty ranker than my wit.

ORLANDO

What, of my suit?

ROSALIND

Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit.

Am not I your Rosalind?

ORLANDO

I take some joy to say you are, because I would be

talking of her.

ROSALIND

Well in her person I say I will not have you.

ORLANDO

Then in mine own person I die.

ROSALIND

No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is

almost six thousand years old, and in all this time

there was not any man died in his own person,

videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains

dashed out with a Grecian club, yet he did what he

could to die before, and he is one of the patterns

of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair

year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been

for a hot midsummer night, for, good youth, he went

but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being

taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish

coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.'

But these are all lies: men have died from time to

time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

ORLANDO

I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind,

for, I protest, her frown might kill me.

ROSALIND

By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now

I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on

disposition, and ask me what you will. I will grant

it.

ORLANDO

Then love me, Rosalind.

ROSALIND

Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all.

ORLANDO

And wilt thou have me?

ROSALIND

Ay, and twenty such.

ORLANDO

What sayest thou?

ROSALIND

Are you not good?

ORLANDO

I hope so.

ROSALIND

Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?

Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.

Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?

ORLANDO

Pray thee, marry us.

CELIA

I cannot say the words.

ROSALIND

You must begin, 'Will you, Orlando--'

CELIA

Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?

ORLANDO

I will.

ROSALIND

Ay, but when?

ORLANDO

Why now, as fast as she can marry us.

ROSALIND

Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.'

ORLANDO

I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.

ROSALIND

I might ask you for your commission, but I do take

thee, Orlando, for my husband: there's a girl goes

before the priest, and certainly a woman's thought

runs before her actions.

ORLANDO

So do all thoughts, they are winged.

ROSALIND

Now tell me how long you would have her after you

have possessed her.

ORLANDO

For ever and a day.

ROSALIND

Say 'a day,' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando,

men are April when they woo, December when they wed:

maids are May when they are maids, but the sky

changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous

of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen,

more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more

new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires

than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana

in the fountain, and I will do that when you are

disposed to be merry, I will laugh like a hyen, and

that when thou art inclined to sleep.

ORLANDO

But will my Rosalind do so?

ROSALIND

By my life, she will do as I do.

ORLANDO

O, but she is wise.

ROSALIND

Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the

wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's

wit and it will out at the casement, shut that and

'twill out at the key-hole, stop that, 'twill fly

with the smoke out at the chimney.

ORLANDO

A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say

'Wit, whither wilt?'

ROSALIND

Nay, you might keep that cheque for it till you met

your wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.

ORLANDO

And what wit could wit have to excuse that?

ROSALIND

Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall

never take her without her answer, unless you take

her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot

make her fault her husband's occasion, let her

never nurse her child herself, for she will breed

it like a fool!

ORLANDO

For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.

ROSALIND

Alas! dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.

ORLANDO

I must attend the duke at dinner: by two o'clock I

will be with thee again.

ROSALIND

Ay, go your ways, go your ways, I knew what you

would prove: my friends told me as much, and I

thought no less: that flattering tongue of yours

won me: 'tis but one cast away, and so, come,

death! Two o'clock is your hour?

ORLANDO

Ay, sweet Rosalind.

ROSALIND

By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend

me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous,

if you break one jot of your promise or come one

minute behind your hour, I will think you the most

pathetical break-promise and the most hollow lover

and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind that

may be chosen out of the gross band of the

unfaithful: therefore beware my censure and keep

your promise.

ORLANDO

With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my

Rosalind: so adieu.

ROSALIND

Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such

offenders, and let Time try: adieu.

Exit ORLANDO

CELIA

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

we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your

head, and show the world what the bird hath done to

her own nest.

ROSALIND

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

didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But

it cannot be sounded: 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 that was begot

of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness,

that blind rascally boy that abuses every one'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 and

sigh till he come.

CELIA

And I'll sleep.

Exeunt

SCENE II. The forest.

Enter JAQUES, Lords, and Foresters

JAQUES

Which is he that killed the deer?

A 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 of victory. Have

you no song, forester, for this purpose?

Forester

Yes, sir.

JAQUES

Sing it: 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it

make noise enough.

SONG.

Forester

What shall he have that kill'd the deer?

His leather skin and horns to wear.

Then sing him home,

The rest shall bear this burden

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 horn

Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.

Exeunt

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