As You Like It by William Shakespeare
Act 2 - Scene 3
Before OLIVER’S house
(stage directions) : Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting
Orlando : Who's there?
Adam : What, my young master? O my gentle master!
[p]O my sweet master! O you
memory
[p]Of old Sir Rowland! Why, what make you here?
[p]Why are you
virtuous? Why do people love you?
[p]And wherefore are you gentle,
strong, and valiant?
[p]Why would you be so fond to overcome
[p]The
bonny prizer of the humorous Duke?
[p]Your praise is come too swiftly
home before you.
[p]Know you not, master, to some kind of men
[p]Their
graces serve them but as enemies?
[p]No more do yours. Your virtues,
gentle master,
[p]Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.
[p]O, what
a world is this, when what is comely
[p]Envenoms him that bears it!
Orlando : Why, what's the matter?
Adam : O unhappy youth!
[p]Come not within these doors; within this
roof
[p]The enemy of all your graces lives.
[p]Your brother- no, no
brother; yet the son-
[p]Yet not the son; I will not call him
son
[p]Of him I was about to call his father-
[p]Hath heard your
praises; and this night he means
[p]To burn the lodging where you use
to lie,
[p]And you within it. If he fail of that,
[p]He will have
other means to cut you off;
[p]I overheard him and his
practices.
[p]This is no place; this house is but a butchery;
[p]Abhor
it, fear it, do not enter it.
Orlando : Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?
Adam : No matter whither, so you come not here.
Orlando : What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food,
[p]Or with a base and
boist'rous sword enforce
[p]A thievish living on the common
road?
[p]This I must do, or know not what to do;
[p]Yet this I will
not do, do how I can.
[p]I rather will subject me to the malice
[p]Of
a diverted blood and bloody brother.
Adam : But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,
[p]The thrifty hire I sav'd
under your father,
[p]Which I did store to be my foster-nurse,
[p]When
service should in my old limbs lie lame,
[p]And unregarded age in
corners thrown.
[p]Take that, and He that doth the ravens
feed,
[p]Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
[p]Be comfort to my
age! Here is the gold;
[p]All this I give you. Let me be your
servant;
[p]Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
[p]For in my
youth I never did apply
[p]Hot and rebellious liquors in my
blood,
[p]Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
[p]The means of
weakness and debility;
[p]Therefore my age is as a lusty
winter,
[p]Frosty, but kindly. Let me go with you;
[p]I'll do the
service of a younger man
[p]In all your business and necessities.
Orlando : O good old man, how well in thee appears
[p]The constant service of
the antique world,
[p]When service sweat for duty, not for
meed!
[p]Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
[p]Where none
will sweat but for promotion,
[p]And having that do choke their
service up
[p]Even with the having; it is not so with thee.
[p]But,
poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree
[p]That cannot so much as a
blossom yield
[p]In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry.
[p]But come
thy ways, we'll go along together,
[p]And ere we have thy youthful
wages spent
[p]We'll light upon some settled low content.
Adam : Master, go on; and I will follow thee
[p]To the last gasp, with truth
and loyalty.
[p]From seventeen years till now almost
four-score
[p]Here lived I, but now live here no more.
[p]At seventeen
years many their fortunes seek,
[p]But at fourscore it is too late a
week;
[p]Yet fortune cannot recompense me better
[p]Than to die well
and not my master's debtor. Exeunt
Previous: Act 2 - Scene 2
Next: Act 2 - Scene 4
