As You Like It

1 Enter Silvius and Phoebe.
2 SILVIUS.
3 Sweet Phoebe, do not scorn me, do not, Phoebe.
4 Say that you love me not, but say not so
5 In bitterness. The common executioner,
6 Whose heart th’ accustomed sight of death makes hard,
7 Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
8 But first begs pardon. Will you sterner be
9 Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?
10 Enter Rosalind, Celia and Corin, at a distance.
11 PHOEBE.
12 I would not be thy executioner;
13 I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.
14 Thou tell’st me there is murder in mine eye.
15 ’Tis pretty, sure, and very probable
16 That eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things,
17 Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
18 Should be called tyrants, butchers, murderers.
19 Now I do frown on thee with all my heart,
20 And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.
21 Now counterfeit to swoon; why, now fall down;
22 Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
23 Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.
24 Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee.
25 Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
26 Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,
27 The cicatrice and capable impressure
28 Thy palm some moment keeps. But now mine eyes,
29 Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;
30 Nor I am sure there is not force in eyes
31 That can do hurt.
32 SILVIUS.
33 O dear Phoebe,
34 If ever—as that ever may be near—
35 You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
36 Then shall you know the wounds invisible
37 That love’s keen arrows make.
38 PHOEBE.
39 But till that time
40 Come not thou near me. And when that time comes,
41 Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not,
42 As till that time I shall not pity thee.
43 ROSALIND.
44 [_Advancing_.] And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother,
45 That you insult, exult, and all at once,
46 Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty—
47 As, by my faith, I see no more in you
48 Than without candle may go dark to bed—
49 Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
50 Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
51 I see no more in you than in the ordinary
52 Of nature’s sale-work. ’Od’s my little life,
53 I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
54 No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it.
55 ’Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
56 Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,
57 That can entame my spirits to your worship.
58 You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
59 Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?
60 You are a thousand times a properer man
61 Than she a woman. ’Tis such fools as you
62 That makes the world full of ill-favoured children.
63 ’Tis not her glass but you that flatters her,
64 And out of you she sees herself more proper
65 Than any of her lineaments can show her.
66 But, mistress, know yourself; down on your knees,
67 And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love.
68 For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
69 Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.
70 Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;
71 Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
72 So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.
73 PHOEBE.
74 Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together!
75 I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.
76 ROSALIND.
77 He’s fall’n in love with your foulness, and she’ll fall in love with my
78 anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee with frowning looks,
79 I’ll sauce her with bitter words. Why look you so upon me?
80 PHOEBE.
81 For no ill will I bear you.
82 ROSALIND.
83 I pray you do not fall in love with me,
84 For I am falser than vows made in wine.
85 Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,
86 ’Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.
87 Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.
88 Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,
89 And be not proud. Though all the world could see,
90 None could be so abused in sight as he.
91 Come, to our flock.
92 [_Exeunt Rosalind, Celia and Corin._]
93 PHOEBE.
94 Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might:
95 “Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”
96 SILVIUS.
97 Sweet Phoebe—
98 PHOEBE.
99 Ha, what sayst thou, Silvius?
100 SILVIUS.
101 Sweet Phoebe, pity me.
102 PHOEBE.
103 Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.
104 SILVIUS.
105 Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.
106 If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
107 By giving love your sorrow and my grief
108 Were both extermined.
109 PHOEBE.
110 Thou hast my love. Is not that neighbourly?
111 SILVIUS.
112 I would have you.
113 PHOEBE.
114 Why, that were covetousness.
115 Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;
116 And yet it is not that I bear thee love;
117 But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
118 Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,
119 I will endure, and I’ll employ thee too.
120 But do not look for further recompense
121 Than thine own gladness that thou art employed.
122 SILVIUS.
123 So holy and so perfect is my love,
124 And I in such a poverty of grace,
125 That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
126 To glean the broken ears after the man
127 That the main harvest reaps. Loose now and then
128 A scattered smile, and that I’ll live upon.
129 PHOEBE.
130 Know’st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?
131 SILVIUS.
132 Not very well, but I have met him oft,
133 And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds
134 That the old carlot once was master of.
135 PHOEBE.
136 Think not I love him, though I ask for him.
137 ’Tis but a peevish boy—yet he talks well.
138 But what care I for words? Yet words do well
139 When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
140 It is a pretty youth—not very pretty—
141 But sure he’s proud, and yet his pride becomes him.
142 He’ll make a proper man. The best thing in him
143 Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
144 Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
145 He is not very tall, yet for his years he’s tall;
146 His leg is but so-so, and yet ’tis well.
147 There was a pretty redness in his lip,
148 A little riper and more lusty red
149 Than that mixed in his cheek. ’Twas just the difference
150 Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.
151 There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him
152 In parcels as I did, would have gone near
153 To fall in love with him; but for my part
154 I love him not nor hate him not; and yet
155 I have more cause to hate him than to love him.
156 For what had he to do to chide at me?
157 He said mine eyes were black and my hair black,
158 And now I am remembered, scorned at me.
159 I marvel why I answered not again.
160 But that’s all one: omittance is no quittance.
161 I’ll write to him a very taunting letter,
162 And thou shalt bear it. Wilt thou, Silvius?
163 SILVIUS.
164 Phoebe, with all my heart.
165 PHOEBE.
166 I’ll write it straight,
167 The matter’s in my head and in my heart.
168 I will be bitter with him and passing short.
169 Go with me, Silvius.
170 [_Exeunt._]