As You Like It by William Shakespeare
Act 4 - Scene 3
The forest
(stage directions) : Enter ROSALIND and CELIA
Rosalind : How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock?
[p]And here much
Orlando!
Celia : I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath
[p]ta'en his
bow and arrows, and is gone forth- to sleep. Look, who
[p]comes here.
(stage directions) : Enter SILVIUS
Silvius : My errand is to you, fair youth;
[p]My gentle Phebe did bid me give
you this.
[p]I know not the contents; but, as I guess
[p]By the stern
brow and waspish action
[p]Which she did use as she was writing of
it,
[p]It bears an angry tenour. Pardon me,
[p]I am but as a guiltless
messenger.
Rosalind : Patience herself would startle at this letter,
[p]And play the
swaggerer. Bear this, bear all.
[p]She says I am not fair, that I lack
manners;
[p]She calls me proud, and that she could not love
me,
[p]Were man as rare as Phoenix. 'Od's my will!
[p]Her love is not
the hare that I do hunt;
[p]Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd,
well,
[p]This is a letter of your own device.
Silvius : No, I protest, I know not the contents;
[p]Phebe did write it.
Rosalind : Come, come, you are a fool,
[p]And turn'd into the extremity of
love.
[p]I saw her hand; she has a leathern hand,
[p]A
freestone-colour'd hand; I verily did think
[p]That her old gloves
were on, but 'twas her hands;
[p]She has a huswife's hand- but that's
no matter.
[p]I say she never did invent this letter:
[p]This is a
man's invention, and his hand.
Silvius : Sure, it is hers.
Rosalind : Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style;
[p]A style for challengers.
Why, she defies me,
[p]Like Turk to Christian. Women's gentle
brain
[p]Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention,
[p]Such
Ethiope words, blacker in their effect
[p]Than in their countenance.
Will you hear the letter?
Silvius : So please you, for I never heard it yet;
[p]Yet heard too much of
Phebe's cruelty.
Rosalind : She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes.
[Reads]
[p] 'Art thou god to shepherd
turn'd,
[p] That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?'
[p]Can a woman
rail thus?
Silvius : Call you this railing?
Rosalind : 'Why, thy godhead laid apart,
[p] Warr'st thou with a woman's
heart?'
[p]Did you ever hear such railing?
[p] 'Whiles the eye
of man did woo me,
[p] That could do no vengeance to
me.'
[p]Meaning me a beast.
[p] 'If the scorn of your bright
eyne
[p] Have power to raise such love in mine,
[p]
Alack, in me what strange effect
[p] Would they work in mild
aspect!
[p] Whiles you chid me, I did love;
[p] How then
might your prayers move!
[p] He that brings this love to
the
[p] Little knows this love in me;
[p] And by him
seal up thy mind,
[p] Whether that thy youth and kind
[p]
Will the faithful offer take
[p] Of me and all that I can
make;
[p] Or else by him my love deny,
[p] 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
[p]such a
woman? What, to make thee an instrument, and play false
[p]strains
upon thee! Not to be endur'd! Well, go your way to her,
[p]for I see
love hath made thee tame snake, and say this to her-
[p]that if she
love me, I charge her to love thee; if she will not,
[p]I will never
have her unless thou entreat for her. If you be a
[p]true lover,
hence, and not a word; for here comes more company.
(stage directions) : Exit SILVIUS
(stage directions) : [Enter OLIVER]
Oliver : Good morrow, fair ones; pray you, if you know,
[p]Where in the
purlieus of this forest stands
[p]A sheep-cote fenc'd about with olive
trees?
Celia : West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom.
[p]The rank of
osiers by the murmuring stream
[p]Left on your right hand brings you
to the place.
[p]But at this hour the house doth keep
itself;
[p]There's none within.
Oliver : If that an eye may profit by a tongue,
[p]Then should I know you by
description-
[p]Such garments, and such years: 'The boy is fair,
[p]Of
female favour, and bestows himself
[p]Like a ripe sister; the woman
low,
[p]And browner than her brother.' Are not you
[p]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;
[p]And to that youth he calls
his Rosalind
[p]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
[p]What man I am, and how,
and why, and where,
[p]This handkercher was stain'd.
Celia : I pray you, tell it.
Oliver : When last the young Orlando parted from you,
[p]He left a promise to
return again
[p]Within an hour; and, pacing through the
forest,
[p]Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
[p]Lo, what
befell! He threw his eye aside,
[p]And mark what object did present
itself.
[p]Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age,
[p]And
high top bald with dry antiquity,
[p]A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown
with hair,
[p]Lay sleeping on his back. About his neck
[p]A green and
gilded snake had wreath'd itself,
[p]Who with her head nimble in
threats approach'd
[p]The opening of his mouth; but
suddenly,
[p]Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself,
[p]And with indented
glides did slip away
[p]Into a bush; under which bush's shade
[p]A
lioness, with udders all drawn dry,
[p]Lay couching, head on ground,
with catlike watch,
[p]When that the sleeping man should stir; for
'tis
[p]The royal disposition of that beast
[p]To prey on nothing that
doth seem as dead.
[p]This seen, Orlando did approach the man,
[p]And
found it was his brother, his elder brother.
Celia : O, I have heard him speak of that same brother;
[p]And he did render
him the most unnatural
[p]That liv'd amongst men.
Oliver : And well he might so do,
[p]For well I know he was unnatural.
Rosalind : But, to Orlando: did he leave him there,
[p]Food to the suck'd and
hungry lioness?
Oliver : Twice did he turn his back, and purpos'd so;
[p]But kindness, nobler
ever than revenge,
[p]And nature, stronger than his just
occasion,
[p]Made him give battle to the lioness,
[p]Who quickly fell
before him; in which hurtling
[p]From miserable slumber I awak'd.
Celia : Are you his brother?
Rosalind : Was't you he rescu'd?
Celia : Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him?
Oliver : 'Twas I; but 'tis not I. I do not shame
[p]To tell you what I was,
since my conversion
[p]So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.
Rosalind : But for the bloody napkin?
Oliver : By and by.
[p]When from the first to last, betwixt us two,
[p]Tears
our recountments had most kindly bath'd,
[p]As how I came into that
desert place-
[p]In brief, he led me to the gentle Duke,
[p]Who gave
me fresh array and entertainment,
[p]Committing me unto my brother's
love;
[p]Who led me instantly unto his cave,
[p]There stripp'd
himself, and here upon his arm
[p]The lioness had torn some flesh
away,
[p]Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted,
[p]And
cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind.
[p]Brief, I recover'd him, bound up
his wound,
[p]And, after some small space, being strong at
heart,
[p]He sent me hither, stranger as I am,
[p]To tell this story,
that you might excuse
[p]His broken promise, and to give this
napkin,
[p]Dy'd in his blood, unto the shepherd youth
[p]That he in
sport doth call his Rosalind.
(stage directions) : [ROSALIND swoons]
Celia : Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede!
Oliver : Many will swoon when they do look on blood.
Celia : There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede!
Oliver : Look, he recovers.
Rosalind : I would I were at home.
Celia : We'll lead you thither.
[p]I pray you, will you take him by the arm?
Oliver : Be of good cheer, youth. You a man!
[p]You lack a man's heart.
Rosalind : I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would think
[p]this was well
counterfeited. I pray you tell your brother how
[p]well I
counterfeited. Heigh-ho!
Oliver : This was not counterfeit; there is too great testimony in
[p]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 : So I do; but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by
[p]right.
Celia : Come, you look paler and paler; pray you draw homewards.
[p]Good sir,
go with us.
Oliver : That will I, for I must bear answer back
[p]How you excuse my brother,
Rosalind.
Rosalind : I shall devise something; but, I pray you, commend
my
[p]counterfeiting to him. Will you go? Exeunt
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Next: Act 5 - Scene 1
