TPTT As You Like It: ACT IV
Introduction
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
SCENE I. The forest.
SCENE II. The forest.
SCENE III. The forest.
ACT V
About the Play
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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
5     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
10    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:
15    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,
20    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.
25    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;
30    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
35    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
40    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
      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,
50    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
55    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:
60    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,
65    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
70    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
75    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
80    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
85    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
90    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
95    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
100   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,
105   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,
110   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,
115   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
120   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;
125   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,
130   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,
135   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
140   '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.
145   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,
150   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
155   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
160   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
165   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
170   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
175   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
180   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
185   I shall devise something: but, I pray you, commend
      my counterfeiting to him. Will you go?
Exeunt
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