Complete Plays, The (323 page)

Oliver

Can you tell if Rosalind, the duke’s daughter, be banished with her father?

Charles

O, no; for the duke’s daughter, her cousin, so loves her, being ever from their cradles bred together, that she would have followed her exile, or have died to stay behind her. She is at the court, and no less beloved of her uncle than his own daughter; and never two ladies loved as they do.

Oliver

Where will the old duke live?

Charles

They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.

Oliver

What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new duke?

Charles

Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand that your younger brother Orlando hath a disposition to come in disguised against me to try a fall. To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit; and he that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well. Your brother is but young and tender; and, for your love, I would be loath to foil him, as I must, for my own honour, if he come in: therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint you withal, that either you might stay him from his intendment or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is a thing of his own search and altogether against my will.

Oliver

Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my brother’s purpose herein and have by underhand means laboured to dissuade him from it, but he is resolute. I’ll tell thee, Charles: it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full of ambition, an envious emulator of every man’s good parts, a secret and villanous contriver against me his natural brother: therefore use thy discretion; I had as lief thou didst break his neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to’t; for if thou dost him any slight disgrace or if he do not mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap thee by some treacherous device and never leave thee till he hath ta’en thy life by some indirect means or other; for, I assure thee, and almost with tears I speak it, there is not one so young and so villanous this day living. I speak but brotherly of him; but should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I must blush and weep and thou must look pale and wonder.

Charles

I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come to-morrow, I’ll give him his payment: if ever he go alone again, I’ll never wrestle for prize more: and so God keep your worship!

Oliver

Farewell, good Charles.

Exit Charles

Now will I stir this gamester: I hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he. Yet he’s gentle, never schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am altogether misprised: but it shall not be so long; this wrestler shall clear all: nothing remains but that I kindle the boy thither; which now I’ll go about.

Exit

S
CENE
II. L
AWN
BEFORE
THE
D
UKE
’
S
PALACE
.

Enter Celia and Rosalind

Celia

I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.

Rosalind

Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.

Celia

Herein I see thou lovest me not with the full weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine: so wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously tempered as mine is to thee.

Rosalind

Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to rejoice in yours.

Celia

You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to have: and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt be his heir, for what he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee again in affection; by mine honour, I will; and when I break that oath, let me turn monster: therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.

Rosalind

From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let me see; what think you of falling in love?

Celia

Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal: but love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport neither than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst in honour come off again.

Rosalind

What shall be our sport, then?

Celia

Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.

Rosalind

I would we could do so, for her benefits are mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women.

Celia

’Tis true; for those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest, and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly.

Rosalind

Nay, now thou goest from Fortune’s office to Nature’s: Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature.

Enter Touchstone

Celia

No? when Nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by Fortune fall into the fire? Though Nature hath given us wit to flout at Fortune, hath not Fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument?

Rosalind

Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when Fortune makes Nature’s natural the cutter-off of Nature’s wit.

Celia

Peradventure this is not Fortune’s work neither, but Nature’s; who perceiveth our natural wits too dull to reason of such goddesses and hath sent this natural for our whetstone; for always the dulness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How now, wit! whither wander you?

Touchstone

Mistress, you must come away to your father.

Celia

Were you made the messenger?

Touchstone

No, by mine honour, but I was bid to come for you.

Rosalind

Where learned you that oath, fool?

Touchstone

Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they were good pancakes and swore by his honour the mustard was naught: now I’ll stand to it, the pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn.

Celia

How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge?

Rosalind

Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.

Touchstone

Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.

Celia

By our beards, if we had them, thou art.

Touchstone

By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.

Celia

Prithee, who is’t that thou meanest?

Touchstone

One that old Frederick, your father, loves.

Celia

My father’s love is enough to honour him: enough! speak no more of him; you’ll be whipped for taxation one of these days.

Touchstone

The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.

Celia

By my troth, thou sayest true; for since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show. Here comes Monsieur Le Beau.

Rosalind

With his mouth full of news.

Celia

Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.

Rosalind

Then shall we be news-crammed.

Celia

All the better; we shall be the more marketable.

Enter Le Beau

Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: what’s the news?

Le Beau

Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.

Celia

Sport! of what colour?

Le Beau

What colour, madam! how shall I answer you?

Rosalind

As wit and fortune will.

Touchstone

Or as the Destinies decree.

Celia

Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.

Touchstone

Nay, if I keep not my rank,—

Rosalind

Thou losest thy old smell.

Le Beau

You amaze me, ladies: I would have told you of good wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.

Rosalind

You tell us the manner of the wrestling.

Le Beau

I will tell you the beginning; and, if it please your ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.

Celia

Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried.

Le Beau

There comes an old man and his three sons,—

Celia

I could match this beginning with an old tale.

Le Beau

Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence.

Rosalind

With bills on their necks, ‘Be it known unto all men by these presents.’

Le Beau

The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the duke’s wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him and broke three of his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him: so he served the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man, their father, making such pitiful dole over them that all the beholders take his part with weeping.

Rosalind

Alas!

Touchstone

But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have lost?

Le Beau

Why, this that I speak of.

Touchstone

Thus men may grow wiser every day: it is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.

Celia

Or I, I promise thee.

Rosalind

But is there any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking? Shall we see this wrestling, cousin?

Le Beau

You must, if you stay here; for here is the place appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it.

Celia

Yonder, sure, they are coming: let us now stay and see it.

Flourish. Enter Duke Frederick, Lords, Orlando, Charles, and Attendants

Duke Frederick

Come on: since the youth will not be entreated, his own peril on his forwardness.

Rosalind

Is yonder the man?

Le Beau

Even he, madam.

Celia

Alas, he is too young! yet he looks successfully.

Duke Frederick

How now, daughter and cousin! are you crept hither to see the wrestling?

Rosalind

Ay, my liege, so please you give us leave.

Duke Frederick

You will take little delight in it, I can tell you; there is such odds in the man. In pity of the challenger’s youth I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated. Speak to him, ladies; see if you can move him.

Celia

Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau.

Duke Frederick

Do so: I’ll not be by.

Le Beau

Monsieur the challenger, the princesses call for you.

Orlando

I attend them with all respect and duty.

Rosalind

Young man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler?

Orlando

No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I come but in, as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth.

Celia

Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years. You have seen cruel proof of this man’s strength: if you saw yourself with your eyes or knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to embrace your own safety and give over this attempt.

Rosalind

Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore be misprised: we will make it our suit to the duke that the wrestling might not go forward.

Orlando

I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts; wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny so fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one dead that was willing to be so: I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me, the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when I have made it empty.

Rosalind

The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.

Celia

And mine, to eke out hers.

Rosalind

Fare you well: pray heaven I be deceived in you!

Celia

Your heart’s desires be with you!

Charles

Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth?

Orlando

Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working.

Duke Frederick

You shall try but one fall.