William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (308 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare

BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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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 beholden to your wives for. But he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents the slander of his wife.
ORLANDO Virtue is no hornmaker, 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 warr’nt 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, videlicet, 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 chroniclers 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? no
ROSALIND Ay, and twenty such.
ORLANDO What sayst thou?
ROSALIND Are you not good?
ORLANDO I hope so.
ROSALIND Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? (
To Celia
) Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.—Give me your hand, Orlando.—What do you say, sister?
ORLANDO (to Celia) 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 newfangled 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 hyena, 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 check 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 everyone’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
4.2
Enter Jaques and Lords dressed as foresters
JAQUES Which is he that killed the deer? FIRST LORD Sir, it was I.
 
JAQUES (
to the others
) 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?
SECOND LORD Yes, sir.
JAQUES Sing it. ’Tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough.
LORDS (
sing
)
What shall he have that killed 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
4.3
Enter Rosalind as Ganymede and Celia as Aliena
 
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.
⌈
Enter Silvius
⌉
 
Look who comes here.
SILVIUS (
to Rosalind
)
My errand is to you, fair youth.
My gentle Phoebe did bid me give you this.
He offers Rosalind a letter, which she takes and reads
 
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.
Phoebe did write it.
ROSALIND Come, come, you are a fool,
And turned into the extremity of love.
I saw her hand. She has a leathern hand,
A free-stone coloured hand. I verily did think
That her old gloves were on; but ’twas her hands.
She has a housewife’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 Ethiop 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 Phoebe’s cruelty.
ROSALIND
She Phoebes me. Mark how the tyrant writes:
(reads) ‘Art thou god to shepherd turned,
That a maiden’s heart hath burned?’
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. (To Silvius) 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 sheepcote fenced about with olive trees?

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