JAQUES Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.

TOUCHSTONE

Come, sweet Audrey.

We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.

Farewell, good Master Oliver. Not

O, sweet Oliver,

O, brave Oliver,

Leave me not behind thee

but

Wind away,

Begone, I say,

I will not to wedding with thee.

SIR OLIVER MARTEXT (aside) ‘Tis no matter. Ne’er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling. Exeunt

3.4 Enter Rosalind as Ganymede and Celia as Aliena

ROSALIND Never talk to me. I will weep.

CELIA Do, I prithee, but yet have the grace to consider that tears do not become a man.

ROSALIND But have I not cause to weep?

CELIA As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.

ROSALIND His very hair is of the dissembling colour.

CELIA Something browner than Judas’s. Marry, his kisses are Judas’s own children.

ROSALIND I’faith, his hair is of a good colour.

CELIA An excellent colour. Your chestnut was ever the only colour.

ROSALIND And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.

CELIA He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana. A nun of winter’s sisterhood kisses not more religiously. The very ice of chastity is in them.

ROSALIND But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not?

CELIA Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.

ROSALIND Do you think so?

CELIA Yes. I think he is not a pick-purse, nor a horse-stealer; but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet, or a worm-eaten nut.

ROSALIND Not true in love?

CELIA Yes, when he is in. But I think he is not in.

ROSALIND You have heard him swear downright he was.

CELIA ‘Was’ is not ‘is’. Besides, the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster. They are both the confirmer of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest on the Duke your father.

ROSALIND I met the Duke yesterday, and had much question with him. He asked me of what parentage I was. I told him, of as good as he, so he laughed and let me go. But what talk we of fathers when there is such a man as Orlando?

CELIA O that’s a brave man. He writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover, as a puny tilter that spurs his horse but on one side breaks his staff, like a noble goose. But all’s brave that youth mounts, and folly guides. Who comes here?

Enter Corin

CORIN

Mistress and master, you have oft enquired

After the shepherd that complained of love

Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,

Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess

That was his mistress.

CELIA Well, and what of him?

CORIN

If you will see a pageant truly played

Between the pale complexion of true love

And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,

Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you,

If you will mark it.

ROSALIND (to Celia) O come, let us remove.

The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.

(To Corin) Bring us to this sight, and you shall say

I’ll prove a busy actor in their play.

Exeunt

3.5 Enter Silvius and Phoebe

SILVIUS

Sweet Phoebe, do not scorn me, do not, Phoebe.

Say that you love me not, but say not so

In bitterness. The common executioner,

Whose heart th’accustomed sight of death makes

hard,

Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck

But first begs pardon. Will you sterner be

Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?

Enter Rosalind as Ganymede, Celia as Aliena, and Corin, and stand aside

PHOEBE (to Silvius)

I would not be thy executioner.

I fly thee for I would not injure thee.

Thou tell‘st me there is murder in mine eye.

’Tis pretty, sure, and very probable

That eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things,

Who shut their coward gates on atomies,

Should be called tyrants, butchers, murderers.

Now I do frown on thee with all my heart,

And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.

Now counterfeit to swoon, why now fall down;

Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,

Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.

Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee.

Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains

Some scar of it. Lean upon a rush,

The cicatrice and capable impressure

Thy palm some moment keeps. But now mine eyes,

Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;

Nor I am sure there is no force in eyes

That can do hurt.

SILVIUS O dear Phoebe,

If ever—as that ever may be near—

You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,

Then shall you know the wounds invisible

That love’s keen arrows make.

PHOEBE But till that time

Come not thou near me. And when that time comes,

Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not,

As till that time I shall not pity thee.

ROSALIND (coming forward)

And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother,

That you insult, exult, and all at once,

Over the wretched? What though you have no

beauty—

As, by my faith, I see no more in you

Than without candle may go dark to bed—

Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?

Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?

I see no more in you than in the ordinary

Of nature’s sale-work.—‘Od’s my little life,

I think she means to tangle my eyes, too.

No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it.

’Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,

Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,