As You Like It

1 Enter Celia and Rosalind.
2 CELIA.
3 Why, cousin, why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! Not a word?
4 ROSALIND.
5 Not one to throw at a dog.
6 CELIA.
7 No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs. Throw some of
8 them at me. Come, lame me with reasons.
9 ROSALIND.
10 Then there were two cousins laid up, when the one should be lamed with
11 reasons and the other mad without any.
12 CELIA.
13 But is all this for your father?
14 ROSALIND.
15 No, some of it is for my child’s father. O, how full of briers is this
16 working-day world!
17 CELIA.
18 They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery. If we
19 walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats will catch them.
20 ROSALIND.
21 I could shake them off my coat; these burs are in my heart.
22 CELIA.
23 Hem them away.
24 ROSALIND.
25 I would try, if I could cry “hem” and have him.
26 CELIA.
27 Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.
28 ROSALIND.
29 O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself.
30 CELIA.
31 O, a good wish upon you! You will try in time, in despite of a fall.
32 But turning these jests out of service, let us talk in good earnest. Is
33 it possible on such a sudden you should fall into so strong a liking
34 with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?
35 ROSALIND.
36 The Duke my father loved his father dearly.
37 CELIA.
38 Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly? By this
39 kind of chase I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly;
40 yet I hate not Orlando.
41 ROSALIND.
42 No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.
43 CELIA.
44 Why should I not? Doth he not deserve well?
45 Enter Duke Frederick with Lords.
46 ROSALIND.
47 Let me love him for that, and do you love him because I do.—Look, here
48 comes the Duke.
49 CELIA.
50 With his eyes full of anger.
51 DUKE FREDERICK.
52 Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste,
53 And get you from our court.
54 ROSALIND.
55 Me, uncle?
56 DUKE FREDERICK.
57 You, cousin.
58 Within these ten days if that thou be’st found
59 So near our public court as twenty miles,
60 Thou diest for it.
61 ROSALIND.
62 I do beseech your Grace,
63 Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me.
64 If with myself I hold intelligence,
65 Or have acquaintance with mine own desires,
66 If that I do not dream, or be not frantic—
67 As I do trust I am not—then, dear uncle,
68 Never so much as in a thought unborn
69 Did I offend your Highness.
70 DUKE FREDERICK.
71 Thus do all traitors.
72 If their purgation did consist in words,
73 They are as innocent as grace itself.
74 Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.
75 ROSALIND.
76 Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor.
77 Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.
78 DUKE FREDERICK.
79 Thou art thy father’s daughter, there’s enough.
80 ROSALIND.
81 So was I when your highness took his dukedom;
82 So was I when your highness banished him.
83 Treason is not inherited, my lord,
84 Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
85 What’s that to me? My father was no traitor.
86 Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
87 To think my poverty is treacherous.
88 CELIA.
89 Dear sovereign, hear me speak.
90 DUKE FREDERICK.
91 Ay, Celia, we stayed her for your sake,
92 Else had she with her father ranged along.
93 CELIA.
94 I did not then entreat to have her stay;
95 It was your pleasure and your own remorse.
96 I was too young that time to value her,
97 But now I know her. If she be a traitor,
98 Why, so am I. We still have slept together,
99 Rose at an instant, learned, played, ate together,
100 And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans,
101 Still we went coupled and inseparable.
102 DUKE FREDERICK.
103 She is too subtle for thee, and her smoothness,
104 Her very silence, and her patience
105 Speak to the people, and they pity her.
106 Thou art a fool. She robs thee of thy name,
107 And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
108 When she is gone. Then open not thy lips.
109 Firm and irrevocable is my doom
110 Which I have passed upon her. She is banished.
111 CELIA.
112 Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege.
113 I cannot live out of her company.
114 DUKE FREDERICK.
115 You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself.
116 If you outstay the time, upon mine honour
117 And in the greatness of my word, you die.
118 [_Exeunt Duke Frederick and Lords._]
119 CELIA.
120 O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go?
121 Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
122 I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.
123 ROSALIND.
124 I have more cause.
125 CELIA.
126 Thou hast not, cousin.
127 Prithee be cheerful. Know’st thou not the Duke
128 Hath banished me, his daughter?
129 ROSALIND.
130 That he hath not.
131 CELIA.
132 No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love
133 Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one.
134 Shall we be sundered? Shall we part, sweet girl?
135 No, let my father seek another heir.
136 Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
137 Whither to go, and what to bear with us,
138 And do not seek to take your change upon you,
139 To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out.
140 For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
141 Say what thou canst, I’ll go along with thee.
142 ROSALIND.
143 Why, whither shall we go?
144 CELIA.
145 To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.
146 ROSALIND.
147 Alas, what danger will it be to us,
148 Maids as we are, to travel forth so far?
149 Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
150 CELIA.
151 I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire,
152 And with a kind of umber smirch my face.
153 The like do you; so shall we pass along
154 And never stir assailants.
155 ROSALIND.
156 Were it not better,
157 Because that I am more than common tall,
158 That I did suit me all points like a man?
159 A gallant curtal-axe upon my thigh,
160 A boar-spear in my hand, and in my heart
161 Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will,
162 We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside,
163 As many other mannish cowards have
164 That do outface it with their semblances.
165 CELIA.
166 What shall I call thee when thou art a man?
167 ROSALIND.
168 I’ll have no worse a name than Jove’s own page,
169 And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
170 But what will you be called?
171 CELIA.
172 Something that hath a reference to my state:
173 No longer Celia, but Aliena.
174 ROSALIND.
175 But, cousin, what if we assayed to steal
176 The clownish fool out of your father’s court?
177 Would he not be a comfort to our travel?
178 CELIA.
179 He’ll go along o’er the wide world with me.
180 Leave me alone to woo him. Let’s away,
181 And get our jewels and our wealth together,
182 Devise the fittest time and safest way
183 To hide us from pursuit that will be made
184 After my flight. Now go we in content
185 To liberty, and not to banishment.
186 [_Exeunt._]