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Another Part of the Forest. | |
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Enter ROSALIND and CELIA. | |
| Ros. How say you now? Is it not past two o’clock? And here much Orlando! | |
| Cel. I warrant you, with pure love and a troubled brain, he hath ta’en his bow and arrows, and is gone forth to sleep. Look, who comes here. | |
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Enter SILVIUS. | 5 |
| Sil. My errand is to you, fair youth. | |
| My gentle Phebe did bid me give you this: [Giving a letter. | |
| 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, | 10 |
| It bears an angry tenour: pardon me; | |
| I am but as a guiltless messenger. | |
| Ros. 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; | 15 |
| She calls me proud, and that she could not love me | |
| Were man as rare as phœnix. ’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. | 20 |
| Sil. No, I protest, I know not the contents: | |
| Phebe did write it. | |
| Ros. Come, come, you are a fool, | |
| And turn’d into the extremity of love. | |
| I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand, | 25 |
| A freestone-colour’d 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. | 30 |
| Sil. Sure, it is hers. | |
| Ros. Why, ’tis a boisterous and a cruel style, | |
| A style for challengers; why, she defies me, | |
| Like Turk to Christian: woman’s gentle brain | |
| Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention, | 35 |
| Such Ethiop words, blacker in their effect | |
| Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter? | |
| Sil. So please you, for I never heard it yet; | |
| Yet heard too much of Phebe’s cruelty. | |
Ros. She Phebes me. Mark how the tyrant writes. [Reads.] | Art thou god to shepherd turn’d, |
| That a maiden’s heart hath burn’d? |
| 40 |
| Can a woman rail thus? | |
| Sil. Call you this railing? | |
Ros. [reads.] | Why, thy godhead laid apart, |
| Warr’st thou with a woman’s heart? |
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Did you ever hear such railing? | Whiles the eye of man did woo me, |
| That could do no vengeance to me. |
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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. |
| 45 |
| Sil. Call you this chiding? | |
| Cel. Alas, poor shepherd! | |
| Ros. 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. | |
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Enter OLIVER. | |
| Oli. Good morrow, fair ones. Pray you if you know, | 50 |
| Where in the purlieus of this forest stands | |
| A sheepcote fenc’d about with olive-trees? | |
| Cel. 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. | 55 |
| But at this hour the house doth keep itself; | |
| There’s none within. | |
| Oli. 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, | 60 |
| Of female favour, and bestows himself | |
| Like a ripe sister: but the woman low, | |
| And browner than her brother.’ Are not you | |
| The owner of the house I did inquire for? | |
| Cel. It is no boast, being ask’d, to say, we are. | 65 |
| Oli. Orlando doth commend him to you both, | |
| And to that youth he calls his Rosalind | |
| He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he? | |
| Ros. I am: what must we understand by this? | |
| Oli. Some of my shame; if you will know of me | 70 |
| What man I am, and how, and why, and where | |
| This handkercher was stain’d. | |
| Cel. I pray you, tell it. | |
| Oli. When last the young Orlando parted from you | |
| He left a promise to return again | 75 |
| 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, | 80 |
| 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 wreath’d itself, | |
| Who with her head nimble in threats approach’d | 85 |
| 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, | 90 |
| 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, | 95 |
| And found it was his brother, his elder brother. | |
| Cel. O! I have heard him speak of that same brother; | |
| And he did render him the most unnatural | |
| That liv’d ’mongst men. | |
| Oli. And well he might so do, | 100 |
| For well I know he was unnatural. | |
| Ros. But, to Orlando: did he leave him there, | |
| Food to the suck’d and hungry lioness? | |
| Oli. Twice did he turn his back and purpos’d so; | |
| But kindness, nobler ever than revenge, | 105 |
| 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 awak’d. | |
| Cel. Are you his brother? | 110 |
| Ros. Was it you he rescu’d? | |
| Cel. Was ’t you that did so oft contrive to kill him? | |
| Oli. ’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. | 115 |
| Ros. But, for the bloody napkin? | |
| Oli. By and by. | |
| When from the first to last, betwixt us two, | |
| Tears our recountments had most kindly bath’d, | |
| As how I came into that desert place:— | 120 |
| 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 | 125 |
| 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, | 130 |
| He sent me hither, stranger as I am, | |
| To tell this story, that you might excuse | |
| His broken promise; and to give this napkin, | |
| Dy’d in his blood, unto the shepherd youth | |
| That he in sport doth call his Rosalind. | 135 |
| Cel. [ROSALIND swoons.] Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede! | |
| Oli. Many will swoon when they do look on blood. | |
| Cel. There is more in it. Cousin! Ganymede! | |
| Oli. Look, he recovers. | |
| Ros. I would I were at home. | 140 |
| Cel. We’ll lead you thither. | |
| I pray you, will you take him by the arm? | |
| Oli. Be of good cheer, youth. You a man! | |
| You lack a man’s heart. | |
| Ros. 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! | 145 |
| Oli. This was not counterfeit: there is too great testimony in your complexion that it was a passion of earnest. | |
| Ros. Counterfeit, I assure you. | |
| Oli. Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man. | |
| Ros. So I do; but, i’ faith, I should have been a woman by right. | |
| Cel. Come; you look paler and paler: pray you, draw homewards. Good sir, go with us. | 150 |
| Oli. That will I, for I must bear answer back | |
| How you excuse my brother, Rosalind. | |
| Ros. I shall devise something. But, I pray you, commend my counterfeiting to him. Will you go? [Exeunt. | |
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