And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans

Still we went coupled and inseparable.

DUKE FREDERICK

She is too subtle for thee, and her smoothness,

Her very silence, and her patience

Speak to the people, and they pity her.

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 passed upon her. She is banished.

CELIA

Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege.

I cannot live out of her company.

DUKE FREDERICK

You are a foot.—You, niece, provide yourself.

If you outstay the time, upon mine honour

And in the greatness of my word, you die.

Exit Duke Frederick, with Lords

CELIA

O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go?

Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.

I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.

ROSALIND

I have more cause.

CELIA Thou hast not, cousin.

Prithee, be cheerful. Know’st thou not the Duke

Hath banished me, his daughter?

ROSALIND That he hath not.

CELIA

No, hath not? Rosalind, lack’st thou then the love

Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one?

Shall we be sundered? 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,

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.

ROSALIND Why, whither shall we go?

CELIA

To seek my uncle in the forest of Ardenne.

ROSALIND

Alas, what danger will it be to us,

Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

CELIA

I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire,

And with a kind of umber smirch my face.

The like do you, so shall we pass along

And never stir assailants.

ROSALIND Were it not better,

Because that I am more than common tall,

That I did suit me all points like a man,

A gallant curtal-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,

That do outface it with their semblances.

CELIA

What shall I call thee when thou art a man?

ROSALIND

I’ll have no worse a name than Jove’s own page,

And therefore look you call me Ganymede.

But what will you be called?

CELIA

Something that hath a reference to my state.

No longer Celia, but Aliena.

ROSALIND

But cousin, what if we essayed to steal

The clownish fool out of your father’s court.

Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

CELIA

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

After my flight. Now go we in content,

To liberty, and not to banishment.

Exeunt

2.1 Enter Duke Senior, Amiens, and two or three Lords dressed as foresters

DUKE SENIOR

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet

Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods

More free from peril than the envious court?

Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,

The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang

And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,

Which when it bites and blows upon my body

Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say

‘This is no flattery. These are counsellors

That feelingly persuade me what I am.’

Sweet are the uses of adversity

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

AMIENS

I would not change it. Happy is your grace

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune

Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

DUKE SENIOR

Come, shall we go and kill us venison?

And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,

Being native burghers of this desert city,

Should in their own confines with forked heads

Have their round haunches gored.

FIRST LORD

Indeed, my lord,

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,

And in that kind swears you do more usurp

Than doth your brother that hath banished you.

Today my lord of Amiens and myself

Did steal behind him as he lay along

Under an oak, whose antic root peeps out

Upon the brook that brawls along this wood,

To the which place a poor sequestered stag

That from the hunter’s aim had ta‘en a hurt

Did come to languish. And indeed, my lord,