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A Room in the Palace. | |
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Enter CELIA and ROSALIND. | |
| Cel. Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! Not a word? | |
| Ros. Not one to throw at a dog. | |
| Cel. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs; throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons. | 5 |
| Ros. Then there were two cousins laid up; when the one should be lamed with reasons and the other mad without any. | |
| Cel. But is all this for your father? | |
| Ros. No, some of it is for my child’s father: O, how full of briers is this working-day world! | |
| Cel. They are but burrs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery: if we walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats will catch them. | |
| Ros. I could shake them off my coat: these burrs are in my heart. | 10 |
| Cel. Hem them away. | |
| Ros. I would try, if I could cry ‘hem,’ and have him. | |
| Cel. Come, come; wrestle with thy affections. | |
| Ros. O! they take the part of a better wrestler than myself! | |
| Cel. O, a good wish upon you! you will try in time, in despite of a fall. But, turning these jests out of service, let us talk in good earnest: is it possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son? | 15 |
| Ros. The duke my father dearly. | |
| Cel. Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate not Orlando. | |
| Ros. No, faith, hate him not, for my sake. | |
| Cel. Why should I not? doth he not deserve well? | |
| Ros. Let me love him for that; and do you love him, because I do. Look, here comes the duke. | 20 |
| Cel. With his eyes full of anger. | |
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Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords. | |
| Duke F. Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste, | |
| And get you from our court. | |
| Ros. Me, uncle? | 25 |
| Duke F. You, cousin: | |
| Within these ten days if that thou be’st found | |
| So near our public court as twenty miles, | |
| Thou diest for it. | |
| Ros. I do beseech your Grace, | 30 |
| Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me. | |
| If with myself I hold intelligence, | |
| Or have acquaintance with mine own desires, | |
| If that I do not dream or be not frantic,— | |
| As I do trust I am not,—then, dear uncle, | 35 |
| Never so much as in a thought unborn | |
| Did I offend your highness. | |
| Duke F. Thus do all traitors: | |
| If their purgation did consist in words, | |
| They are as innocent as grace itself: | 40 |
| Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not. | |
| Ros. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor: | |
| Tell me whereon the likelihood depends. | |
| Duke F. Thou art thy father’s daughter; there’s enough. | |
| Ros. So was I when your highness took his dukedom; | 45 |
| So was I when your highness banish’d him. | |
| Treason is not inherited, my lord; | |
| Or, if we did derive it from our friends, | |
| What’s that to me? my father was no traitor: | |
| Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much | 50 |
| To think my poverty is treacherous. | |
| Cel. Dear sovereign, hear me speak. | |
| Duke F. Ay, Celia; we stay’d her for your sake; | |
| Else had she with her father rang’d along. | |
| Cel. I did not then entreat to have her stay: | 55 |
| It was your pleasure and your own remorse. | |
| I was too young that time to value her; | |
| But now I know her: if she be a traitor, | |
| Why so am I; we still have slept together, | |
| Rose at an instant, learn’d, play’d, eat together; | 60 |
| And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans, | |
| Still we went coupled and inseparable. | |
| Duke F. She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness, | |
| Her very silence and her patience, | |
| Speak to the people, and they pity her. | 65 |
| Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name; | |
| And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous | |
| When she is gone. Then open not thy lips: | |
| Firm and irrevocable is my doom | |
| Which I have pass’d upon her; she is banish’d. | 70 |
| Cel. Pronounce that sentence then, on me, my liege: | |
| I cannot live out of her company. | |
| Duke F You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself: | |
| If you outstay the time, upon mine honour, | |
| And in the greatness of my word, you die. [Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK and Lords. | 75 |
| Cel. O my poor Rosalind! whither wilt thou go? | |
| Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine. | |
| I charge thee, be not thou more griev’d than I am. | |
| Ros. I have more cause. | |
| Cel. Thou hast not, cousin; | 80 |
| Prithee, be cheerful; know’st thou not, the duke | |
| Hath banish’d me, his daughter? | |
| Ros. That he hath not. | |
| Cel. No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love | |
| Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one: | 85 |
| Shall we be sunder’d? shall we part, sweet girl? | |
| No: let my father seek another heir. | |
| Therefore devise with me how we may fly, | |
| Whither to go, and what to bear with us: | |
| And do not seek to take your change upon you, | 90 |
| To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out; | |
| For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale, | |
| Say what thou canst, I’ll go along with thee. | |
| Ros. Why, whither shall we go? | |
| Cel. To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden. | 95 |
| Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us, | |
| Maids as we are, to travel forth so far! | |
| Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. | |
| Cel. I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire, | |
| And with a kind of umber smirch my face; | 100 |
| The like do you: so shall we pass along | |
| And never stir assailants. | |
| Ros. Were it not better, | |
| Because that I am more than common tall, | |
| That I did suit me all points like a man? | 105 |
| A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh, | |
| A boar-spear in my hand; and,—in my heart | |
| Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will,— | |
| We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside, | |
| As many other mannish cowards have | 110 |
| That do outface it with their semblances. | |
| Cel. What shall I call thee when thou art a man? | |
| Ros. I’ll have no worse a name than Jove’s own page, | |
| And therefore look you call me Ganymede. | |
| But what will you be call’d? | 115 |
| Cel. Something that hath a reference to my state: | |
| No longer Celia, but Aliena. | |
| Ros. But, cousin, what if we assay’d to steal | |
| The clownish fool out of your father’s court? | |
| Would he not be a comfort to our travel? | 120 |
| Cel. He’ll go along o’er the wide world with me; | |
| Leave me alone to woo him. Let’s away, | |
| And get our jewels and our wealth together, | |
| Devise the fittest time and safest way | |
| To hide us from pursuit that will be made | 125 |
| After my flight. Now go we in content | |
| To liberty and not to banishment. [Exeunt. | |
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