As You Like It (15 page)

That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.

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
¹⁷⁰
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
¹⁷⁴
.

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?

TOUCHSTONE
    We shall find a time, Audrey. Patience, gentle

Audrey.

AUDREY
    Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the
old
³

gentleman’s
saying.

TOUCHSTONE
    A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile

Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays

claim to you.

AUDREY
    Ay, I know who ’tis: he hath no
interest in
⁸
me in the

world. Here comes the man you mean.

TOUCHSTONE
    It is meat and drink to me to see a
clown
¹⁰
. By my

troth, we that have good wits have much to answer for. We

shall be
flouting
: we cannot
hold
¹²
.

WILLIAM
    Good ev’n, Audrey.

AUDREY
    
God ye
¹⁴
good ev’n, William.

WILLIAM
    And good ev’n to you, sir.

TOUCHSTONE
    Good ev’n, gentle friend.
Cover thy head
¹⁶
, cover

thy head. Nay, prithee be covered. How old are you, friend?

WILLIAM
    Five and twenty, sir.

TOUCHSTONE
    A ripe age. Is thy name William?

WILLIAM
    William, sir.

TOUCHSTONE
    A fair name. Wast born i’th’forest here?

WILLIAM
    Ay, sir, I thank God.

TOUCHSTONE
    ‘Thank
God’. A good
²³
answer. Art rich?

WILLIAM
    Faith, sir, so-so.

TOUCHSTONE
    ‘So-so’ is good, very good, very excellent good.

And yet it is not, it is but so-so. Art thou wise?

WILLIAM
    Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.

TOUCHSTONE
    Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a

saying: ‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man

knows himself to be a fool.’ The heathen philosopher, when

he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he

put it into his mouth, meaning thereby that grapes were

made to eat and lips to open. You do love this maid?

WILLIAM
    I do, sir.

TOUCHSTONE
    Give me your hand. Art thou
learnèd
³⁵
?

WILLIAM
    No, sir.

TOUCHSTONE
    Then learn this of me: to have is to have, for it is a

figure
³⁸
in rhetoric that drink, being poured out of a cup into a

glass, by filling the one doth empty the other. For all your

writers do consent that
ipse
⁴⁰
is he. Now, you are not
ipse
, for I

am he.

WILLIAM
    Which he, sir?

TOUCHSTONE
    He, sir, that must marry this woman: therefore,

you clown, abandon — which is in the
vulgar
⁴⁴
‘leave’ — the

society — which in the
boorish
⁴⁵
is ‘company’ — of this

female — which in the
common
⁴⁶
is ‘woman’, which together

is: abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou

perishest. Or, to thy better understanding, diest; or,
to wit
⁴⁸
, I

kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy

liberty into bondage. I will deal in poison with thee, or in

bastinado
, or in steel; I will
bandy
with thee
in faction
⁵¹
; I will

o’errun thee with policy
⁵²
. I will kill thee a hundred and fifty

ways: therefore tremble and depart.

AUDREY
    Do, good William.

WILLIAM
    God
rest
⁵⁵
you merry, sir.

CORIN
    Our master and mistress seeks you. Come, away,

away!

TOUCHSTONE
    
Trip
, Audrey, trip, Audrey.— I
attend
⁵⁸
, I attend.

ORLANDO
    Is’t possible that on so little acquaintance

you should like her? That but seeing, you should love her?

And loving, woo? And wooing, she should grant? And will

you
persever
⁴
to enjoy her?

OLIVER
    Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the

poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing,

nor her sudden consenting. But say with me, I love Aliena.

Say with her that she loves me; consent with both that we

may enjoy each other. It shall be to your good, for my father’s

house and all the revenue that was old Sir Rowland’s will I

estate
¹¹
upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.

ORLANDO
    You have my consent. Let your wedding be

tomorrow: thither will I invite the duke and
all’s
contented
¹³

followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for look you, here

comes my Rosalind.

ROSALIND
    God save you,
brother
¹⁶
.

OLIVER
    And you, fair
‘sister’
¹⁷
.

ROSALIND
    O my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee

wear thy heart in a
scarf
¹⁹
!

ORLANDO
    It is my arm.

ROSALIND
    I thought thy heart had been wounded with the

claws of a lion.

ORLANDO
    Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.

ROSALIND
    Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to

swoon when he showed me your handkerchief?

ORLANDO
    Ay, and greater wonders than that.

ROSALIND
    O, I know
where you are
²⁷
: nay, ’tis true. There was

never anything so sudden but the fight of two rams and

Caesar’s
thrasonical
²⁹
brag of ‘I came, saw, and overcame.’ For

your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked, no

sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they

sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the

reason, no sooner knew the reason but they sought the

remedy: and in these
degrees
have they made a
pair
³⁴
of stairs

to marriage, which they will climb
incontinent
³⁵
, or else be

incontinent before marriage; they are in the very
wrath
³⁶
of

love and they will together: clubs cannot part them.

ORLANDO
    They shall be married tomorrow, and I will
bid
³⁸
the

duke to the nuptial. But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into

happiness through another man’s eyes! By so much the

more shall I tomorrow be at the height of heart-heaviness,

by how much I shall think my brother happy in having what

he wishes for.

ROSALIND
    Why then, tomorrow I cannot
serve your turn
⁴⁴
for

Rosalind?

ORLANDO
    I can live no longer by thinking.

ROSALIND
    I will weary you then no longer with idle talking.

Know of me then, for now I speak to some purpose, that I

know you are a gentleman of good
conceit
⁴⁹
: I speak not this

that you should bear a good opinion of my knowledge,

insomuch
I say I know you are.
Neither do I labour for a
⁵¹

greater esteem than may in some little measure draw a belief

from you, to do yourself good and not to grace me. Believe

then, if you please, that I can do strange things: I have, since

I was three year old, conversed with a magician, most

profound in his art and yet
not damnable
⁵⁶
. If you do love

Rosalind so near the heart as your
gesture cries it out
⁵⁷
, when

your brother marries Aliena, shall you marry her. I know

into what
straits
⁵⁹
of fortune she is driven, and it is not

impossible to me, if it appear not
inconvenient
⁶⁰
to you, to set

her before your eyes tomorrow,
human as she is
⁶¹
, and

without any danger.

ORLANDO
    Speak’st thou in
sober
⁶³
meanings?

ROSALIND
    By my life, I do, which I
tender
⁶⁴
dearly, though I say I

am a magician: therefore, put you in your best
array
⁶⁵
, bid

your friends, for if you will be married tomorrow, you shall,

and to Rosalind, if you will.

Look, here comes a lover of mine and a lover of hers.

PHOEBE
    Youth, you have done me much
ungentleness
⁶⁹
,

To show the letter that I writ to you.

ROSALIND
    I care not if I have. It is my
study
⁷¹

To seem
despiteful
⁷²
and ungentle to you.

You are there followed by a faithful shepherd.

Look upon him, love him: he worships you.

PHOEBE
    Good shepherd, tell this youth what ’tis to love.

SILVIUS
    It is to be all made of sighs and tears,

And so am I for Phoebe.

PHOEBE
    And I for Ganymede.

ORLANDO
    And I for Rosalind.

ROSALIND
    And I for no woman.

SILVIUS
    It is to be all made of faith and
service
⁸¹
,

And so am I for Phoebe.

PHOEBE
    And I for Ganymede.

ORLANDO
    And I for Rosalind.

ROSALIND
    And I for no woman.

SILVIUS
    It is to be all made of fantasy,

All made of passion and all made of wishes,

All adoration, duty, and
observance
⁸⁸
,

All humbleness, all patience and impatience,

All purity, all trial, all observance,

And so am I for Phoebe.

PHOEBE
    And so am I for Ganymede.

ORLANDO
    And so am I for Rosalind.

ROSALIND
    And so am I for no woman.

To Rosalind

PHOEBE
    If this be so, why blame you me to love you?