As You Like It

1 Enter Orlando and Adam.
2 ORLANDO.
3 As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but
4 poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayst, charged my brother, on his
5 blessing, to breed me well; and there begins my sadness. My brother
6 Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit.
7 For my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more
8 properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that keeping, for
9 a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox?
10 His horses are bred better, for, besides that they are fair with their
11 feeding, they are taught their manage and to that end riders dearly
12 hired; but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth, for the
13 which his animals on his dunghills are as much bound to him as I.
14 Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the something
15 that nature gave me his countenance seems to take from me. He lets me
16 feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a brother, and as much as in
17 him lies, mines my gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that
18 grieves me, and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me,
19 begins to mutiny against this servitude. I will no longer endure it,
20 though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it.
21 Enter Oliver.
22 ADAM.
23 Yonder comes my master, your brother.
24 ORLANDO.
25 Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up.
26 [_Adam retires._]
27 OLIVER.
28 Now, sir, what make you here?
29 ORLANDO.
30 Nothing. I am not taught to make anything.
31 OLIVER.
32 What mar you then, sir?
33 ORLANDO.
34 Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor
35 unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.
36 OLIVER.
37 Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile.
38 ORLANDO.
39 Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion
40 have I spent that I should come to such penury?
41 OLIVER.
42 Know you where you are, sir?
43 ORLANDO.
44 O, sir, very well: here in your orchard.
45 OLIVER.
46 Know you before whom, sir?
47 ORLANDO.
48 Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are my eldest
49 brother, and in the gentle condition of blood you should so know me.
50 The courtesy of nations allows you my better in that you are the
51 first-born, but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there
52 twenty brothers betwixt us. I have as much of my father in me as you,
53 albeit I confess your coming before me is nearer to his reverence.
54 OLIVER.
55 What, boy!
56 ORLANDO.
57 Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.
58 OLIVER.
59 Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?
60 ORLANDO.
61 I am no villain. I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys; he was
62 my father, and he is thrice a villain that says such a father begot
63 villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy
64 throat till this other had pulled out thy tongue for saying so. Thou
65 has railed on thyself.
66 ADAM.
67 [_Coming forward_.] Sweet masters, be patient. For your father’s
68 remembrance, be at accord.
69 OLIVER.
70 Let me go, I say.
71 ORLANDO.
72 I will not till I please. You shall hear me. My father charged you in
73 his will to give me good education. You have trained me like a peasant,
74 obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like qualities. The spirit
75 of my father grows strong in me, and I will no longer endure it.
76 Therefore allow me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or give me
77 the poor allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go
78 buy my fortunes.
79 OLIVER.
80 And what wilt thou do? Beg when that is spent? Well, sir, get you in. I
81 will not long be troubled with you. You shall have some part of your
82 will. I pray you leave me.
83 ORLANDO.
84 I no further offend you than becomes me for my good.
85 OLIVER.
86 Get you with him, you old dog.
87 ADAM.
88 Is “old dog” my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in your
89 service. God be with my old master. He would not have spoke such a
90 word.
91 [_Exeunt Orlando and Adam._]
92 OLIVER.
93 Is it even so? Begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness,
94 and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla, Dennis!
95 Enter Dennis.
96 DENNIS
97 Calls your worship?
98 OLIVER.
99 Was not Charles, the Duke’s wrestler, here to speak with me?
100 DENNIS
101 So please you, he is here at the door and importunes access to you.
102 OLIVER.
103 Call him in.
104 [_Exit Dennis._]
105 ’Twill be a good way, and tomorrow the wrestling is.
106 Enter Charles.
107 CHARLES.
108 Good morrow to your worship.
109 OLIVER.
110 Good Monsieur Charles. What’s the new news at the new court?
111 CHARLES.
112 There’s no news at the court, sir, but the old news. That is, the old
113 Duke is banished by his younger brother the new Duke, and three or four
114 loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose
115 lands and revenues enrich the new Duke; therefore he gives them good
116 leave to wander.
117 OLIVER.
118 Can you tell if Rosalind, the Duke’s daughter, be banished with her
119 father?
120 CHARLES.
121 O, no; for the Duke’s daughter, her cousin, so loves her, being ever
122 from their cradles bred together, that she would have followed her
123 exile or have died to stay behind her. She is at the court and no less
124 beloved of her uncle than his own daughter, and never two ladies loved
125 as they do.
126 OLIVER.
127 Where will the old Duke live?
128 CHARLES.
129 They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many merry men
130 with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England. They
131 say many young gentlemen flock to him every day and fleet the time
132 carelessly, as they did in the golden world.
133 OLIVER.
134 What, you wrestle tomorrow before the new Duke?
135 CHARLES.
136 Marry, do I, sir, and I came to acquaint you with a matter. I am given,
137 sir, secretly to understand that your younger brother Orlando hath a
138 disposition to come in disguised against me to try a fall. Tomorrow,
139 sir, I wrestle for my credit, and he that escapes me without some
140 broken limb shall acquit him well. Your brother is but young and
141 tender, and for your love I would be loath to foil him, as I must for
142 my own honour if he come in. Therefore, out of my love to you, I came
143 hither to acquaint you withal, that either you might stay him from his
144 intendment, or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that
145 it is a thing of his own search and altogether against my will.
146 OLIVER.
147 Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt find I will
148 most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my brother’s purpose
149 herein, and have by underhand means laboured to dissuade him from it;
150 but he is resolute. I’ll tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest
151 young fellow of France, full of ambition, an envious emulator of every
152 man’s good parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me his
153 natural brother. Therefore use thy discretion. I had as lief thou didst
154 break his neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to’t; for if thou
155 dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace himself on
156 thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap thee by some
157 treacherous device, and never leave thee till he hath ta’en thy life by
158 some indirect means or other. For I assure thee (and almost with tears
159 I speak it) there is not one so young and so villainous this day
160 living. I speak but brotherly of him, but should I anatomize him to
161 thee as he is, I must blush and weep, and thou must look pale and
162 wonder.
163 CHARLES.
164 I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come tomorrow I’ll give
165 him his payment. If ever he go alone again I’ll never wrestle for prize
166 more. And so, God keep your worship.
167 [_Exit._]
168 OLIVER.
169 Farewell, good Charles. Now will I stir this gamester. I hope I shall
170 see an end of him; for my soul—yet I know not why—hates nothing more
171 than he. Yet he’s gentle, never schooled and yet learned, full of noble
172 device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much in the
173 heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him,
174 that I am altogether misprized. But it shall not be so long; this
175 wrestler shall clear all. Nothing remains but that I kindle the boy
176 thither, which now I’ll go about.
177 [_Exit._]