Complete Plays, The (329 page)

Rosalind

But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not?

Celia

Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.

Rosalind

Do you think so?

Celia

Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer, but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet or a worm-eaten nut.

Rosalind

Not true in love?

Celia

Yes, when he is in; but I think he is not in.

Rosalind

You have heard him swear downright he was.

Celia

‘Was’ is not ‘is:’ besides, the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmer of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest on the duke your father.

Rosalind

I met the duke yesterday and had much question with him: he asked me of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as he; so he laughed and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando?

Celia

O, that’s a brave man! he writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; as a puisny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose: but all’s brave that youth mounts and folly guides. Who comes here?

Enter Corin

Corin

Mistress and master, you have oft inquired
After the shepherd that complain’d of love,
Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
That was his mistress.

Celia

Well, and what of him?

Corin

If you will see a pageant truly play’d,
Between the pale complexion of true love
And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,
Go hence a little and I shall conduct you,
If you will mark it.

Rosalind

O, come, let us remove:
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
I’ll prove a busy actor in their play.

Exeunt

S
CENE
V. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
FOREST
.

Enter Silvius and Phebe

Silvius

Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe;
Say that you love me not, but say not so
In bitterness. The common executioner,
Whose heart the accustom’d sight of death makes hard,
Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
But first begs pardon: will you sterner be
Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?

Enter Rosalind, Celia, and Corin, behind

Phebe

I would not be thy executioner:
I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.
Thou tell’st me there is murder in mine eye:
’Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,
That eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
Should be call’d tyrants, butchers, murderers!
Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee:
Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down;
Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers!
Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee:
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush,
The cicatrice and capable impressure
Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not,
Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes
That can do hurt.

Silvius

 
O dear Phebe,
If ever,— as that ever may be near,—
You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
Then shall you know the wounds invisible
That love’s keen arrows make.

Phebe

But till that time
Come not thou near me: and when that time comes,
Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;
As till that time I shall not pity thee.

Rosalind

And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother,
That you insult, exult, and all at once,
Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty,—
As, by my faith, I see no more in you
Than without candle may go dark to bed —
Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
I see no more in you than in the ordinary
Of nature’s sale-work. ‘Od’s my little life,
I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it:
’Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,
That can entame my spirits to your worship.
You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
Like foggy south puffing with wind and rain?
You are a thousand times a properer man
Than she a woman: ’tis such fools as you
That makes the world full of ill-favour’d children:
’Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;
And out of you she sees herself more proper
Than any of her lineaments can show her.
But, mistress, know yourself: down on your knees,
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love:
For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
Sell when you can: you are not for all markets:
Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer:
Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
So take her to thee, shepherd: fare you well.

Phebe

Sweet youth, I pray you, chide a year together:
I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.

Rosalind

He’s fallen in love with your foulness and she’ll fall in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee with frowning looks, I’ll sauce her with bitter words. Why look you so upon me?

Phebe

For no ill will I bear you.

Rosalind

I pray you, do not fall in love with me,
For I am falser than vows made in wine:
Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,
’Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.
Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.
Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,
And be not proud: though all the world could see,
None could be so abused in sight as he.
Come, to our flock.

Exeunt Rosalind, Celia and Corin

Phebe

Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,
‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’

Silvius

Sweet Phebe,—

Phebe

 
Ha, what say’st thou, Silvius?

Silvius

Sweet Phebe, pity me.

Phebe

Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.

Silvius

Wherever sorrow is, relief would be:
If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
By giving love your sorrow and my grief
Were both extermined.

Phebe

Thou hast my love: is not that neighbourly?

Silvius

I would have you.

Phebe

 
Why, that were covetousness.
Silvius, the time was that I hated thee,
And yet it is not that I bear thee love;
But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,
I will endure, and I’ll employ thee too:
But do not look for further recompense
Than thine own gladness that thou art employ’d.

Silvius

So holy and so perfect is my love,
And I in such a poverty of grace,
That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
To glean the broken ears after the man
That the main harvest reaps: loose now and then
A scatter’d smile, and that I’ll live upon.

Phebe

Know’st now the youth that spoke to me erewhile?

Silvius

Not very well, but I have met him oft;
And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds
That the old carlot once was master of.

Phebe

Think not I love him, though I ask for him:
’Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well;
But what care I for words? yet words do well
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
It is a pretty youth: not very pretty:
But, sure, he’s proud, and yet his pride becomes him:
He’ll make a proper man: the best thing in him
Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
Did make offence his eye did heal it up.
He is not very tall; yet for his years he’s tall:
His leg is but so so; and yet ’tis well:
There was a pretty redness in his lip,
A little riper and more lusty red
Than that mix’d in his cheek; ’twas just the difference
Between the constant red and mingled damask.
There be some women, Silvius, had they mark’d him
In parcels as I did, would have gone near
To fall in love with him; but, for my part,
I love him not nor hate him not; and yet
I have more cause to hate him than to love him:
For what had he to do to chide at me?
He said mine eyes were black and my hair black:
And, now I am remember’d, scorn’d at me:
I marvel why I answer’d not again:
But that’s all one; omittance is no quittance.
I’ll write to him a very taunting letter,
And thou shalt bear it: wilt thou, Silvius?

Silvius

Phebe, with all my heart.

Phebe

I’ll write it straight;
The matter’s in my head and in my heart:
I will be bitter with him and passing short.
Go with me, Silvius.

Exeunt

A
CT
IV

S
CENE
I. T
HE
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