ACT 1
Scene 1
...to avoid it.
Enter Oliver.
...up.Adam steps aside.
Now, sir, what make you here?
...to make anything.
What mar you then, sir?
...yours, with idleness.
Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught
awhile.
...to such penury?
Know you where you are, sir?
...in your orchard.
Know you before whom, sir?
...to his reverence.
threatening Orlando
What, boy!
ORLANDO, holding off Oliver by the throat
...young in this.
Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?
...be at accord.
to Orlando
Let me go, I say.
...buy my fortunes.
Orlando releases Oliver.
And what wilt thou do—beg when that is
spent? Well, sir, get you in. I will not long be
troubled with you. You shall have some part of your
will. I pray you leave me.
...for my good.
to Adam
Get you with him, you old dog.
...such a word.
Is it even so? Begin you to grow upon me? I
will physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand
crowns neither.—Holla, Dennis!
...Calls your Worship?
Was not Charles, the Duke’s wrestler, here to
speak with me?
...access to you.
Call him in. ’Twill be a good
way, and tomorrow the wrestling is.
...to your Worship.
Good Monsieur Charles, what’s the new news
at the new court?
...leave to wander.
Can you tell if Rosalind, the Duke’s daughter,
be banished with her father?
...as they do.
Where will the old duke live?
...the golden world.
What, you wrestle tomorrow before the new
duke?
...against my will.
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 labored 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 villainous 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 practice 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 villainous 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.
...keep your Worship.
Farewell, good 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
misprized. 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.
He exits.
ACT 3
Scene 1
...your fortunes understand.
Enter Duke Frederick, Lords, and Oliver.
...think against thee.
O, that your Highness knew my heart in this:
I never loved my brother in my life.
...turn him going.
They exit.
ACT 4
Scene 3
...comes more company.
Enter 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?
...There’s none within.
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 favor, and bestows himself
Like a ripe sister; the woman low
And browner than her brother.” Are not you
The owner of the house I did inquire for?
...say we are.
Orlando doth commend him to you both,
And to that youth he calls his Rosalind
He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?
He shows a stained handkerchief.
...understand by this?
Some of my shame, if you will know of me
What man I am, and how, and why, and where
This handkercher was stained.
...you tell it.
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,
Lo, what befell. He threw his eye aside—
And mark what object did present itself:
Under an old oak, whose boughs were mossed with age
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 wreathed itself,
Who with her head, nimble in threats, approached
The opening of his mouth. But suddenly,
Seeing Orlando, it unlinked itself
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
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.
...lived amongst men.
And well he might so do,
For well I know he was unnatural.
...and hungry lioness?
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,
Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling,
From miserable slumber I awaked.
...to kill him?
’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.
...the bloody napkin?
By and by.
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,
Committing me unto my brother’s love;
Who led me instantly unto his cave,
There stripped himself, and here upon his arm
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 recovered 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
His broken promise, and to give this napkin
Dyed in his blood unto the shepherd youth
That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.
...Ganymede, sweet Ganymede?
Many will swoon when they do look on blood.
...in it.—Cousin Ganymede.
Look, he recovers.
...by the arm?
helping Rosalind to rise
Be of good cheer,
youth. You a man? You lack a man’s heart.
...I counterfeited. Heigh-ho.
This was not counterfeit. There is too great
testimony in your complexion that it was a passion
of earnest.
...I assure you.
Well then, take a good heart, and counterfeit to
be a man.
...go with us.
That will I, for I must bear answer back
How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.
...Will you go?
They exit.
ACT 5
Scene 2
...attend, I attend.
Enter Orlando, with his arm in a sling, and Oliver.
...to enjoy her?
Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the
poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden
wooing, nor her sudden consenting, but say with
me “I love Aliena”; say with her that she loves me;
consent with both that we may enjoy each other. It
shall be to your good, for my father’s house and all
the revenue that was old Sir Rowland’s will I estate
upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.
...save you, brother.
And you, fair sister.He exits.
Scene 4
...your voices.—Come, Audrey.
Enter Duke Senior, Amiens, Jaques, Orlando, Oliver, and Celia as Aliena.
...in true delights.
All but Rosalind exit.