poor allottery my father left me by testament: with that I will go buy my fortunes.

Oli. And what wilt thou do? beg, when that is spent? Well, sir, get you in: I will not long be troubled with you; you shall have some part of your will. I pray you, leave me.

Orl. I will no further offend you, than becomes me for my good.

Oli. Get you with him, you old dog. Adam. Is old dog my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in your service.-God be with my old master! he would not have spoke such a word.

[Exeunt ORLANDO and ADAM. Oli. Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Hola, Dennis!

Enter DENNIS.

Den. Calls your worship?

Oli. Was not Charles, the duke's wrestler, here to speak with me?

Den. So please you, he is here at the door, and importunes access to you.

Oli. Call him in. [Exit DENNIS.]-"Twill be a good way; and to-morrow the wrestling is. Enter CHARLES.

Cha. Good morrow to your worship.

tion, an envious emulator of every man's good parts, a secret and villanous contriver against me his natural brother: therefore, use thy discretion. I had as lief thou didst break his neck as his finger: and thou wert best look to't; for if thou dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap thee by some treacherous device, and never leave thee till he hath ta'en thy life by some indirect means or other; for, I assure thee (and almost with tears I speak it) there is not one so young and so villanous this day living. I speak but brotherly of him; but should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I must blush and weep, and thou must look pale and wonder.

Cha. I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come to-morrow, I'll give him his payment: if ever he go alone again, I'll never wrestle for prize more. And so, God keep your worship! [Exit.

Oli. Farewell good Charles.-Now will I stir this gamester. I hope, I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he : yet he's gentle; never schooled, and yet learned; full of noble device; of all sorts enchantingly beloved, and, indeed, so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am altogether misprised. But it shall not be so long; this

Cha. There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news; that is, the old duke is banished by his younger brother the new duke, and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new duke; therefore, he gives them good leave to wander.

Oli. Can you tell, if Rosalind, the old duke's daughter, be banished with her father?

Cha. O! no; for the new duke's daughter, her cousin, so loves her, being ever from their cradles bred together, that she would have followed her exile, or have died to stay behind her. She is at the court, and no less beloved of her uncle than his own daughter; and never two ladies loved as they do.

Oli. Where will the old duke live?

Cha. They say, he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England. They say, many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.

Oli. What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new duke?

Cha. Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand, that your younger brother, Orlando, hath a disposition to come in disguised against me, to try a fall. Tomorrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit, and he that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well. Your brother is but young, and tender; and, for your love, I would be loath to foil him, as I must for my own honour if he come in: therefore, out of my love to you I came hither to acquaint you withal, that either you might stay him from his intendment, or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is a thing of his own search, and altogether against my will.

Oli. Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which, thou shalt find, I will most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my brother's purpose herein, and have, by underhand means, laboured to dissuade him from it; but he is resolute. I'll tell thee, Charles: it is the stubbornest young fellow of France; full of ambi

dle the boy thither, which now I'll go about. [Exit. SCENE II.-A Lawn before the DUKE's Palace.

Enter ROSALIND and CELIA.

Cel. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry. Ros. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of, and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.

Cel. Herein, I see, thou lovest me not with the full weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine: so would'st thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously tempered, as mine is to thee.

Ros. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to rejoice in yours.

Cel. You know, my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to have; and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt be his heir: for what he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee again in affection: by mine honour, I will; and when I break that oath let me turn monster. Therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.

Ros. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let me see; what think you of falling in love?

Cel. Marry, I pr'ythee, do, to make sport withal: but love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport neither, than with safety of a pure blush thou may'st in honour come off again.

Ros. What shall be our sport then?

Cel. Let us sit, and mock the good housewife, Fortune, from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.

Ros. I would, we could do so; for her benefits are mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women.

Cel. 'Tis true, for those that she makes fair, she scarce makes honest; and those that she makes honest, she makes very ill-favoured.

Ros. Nay, now thou goest from fortune's office to

nature's fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of nature.

Enter TOUCHSTONE.

Cel. No: when nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by fortune fall into the fire?-Though nature hath given us wit to flout at fortune, hath not fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument?

Ros. Indeed, there is fortune too hard for nature, when fortune makes nature's natural the cutter off of nature's wit.

Cel. Peradventure, this is not fortune's work neither, but nature's; who, perceiving our natural wits too dull to reason of such goddesses, hath sent this natural for our whetstone: for always the dulness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.-How now, wit? whither wander you?

Touch. Mistress, you must come away to your father. Cel. Were you made the messenger?

Touch. No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you.

Ros. Where learned you that oath, fool?

Touch. Of a certain knight, that swore by his honour they were good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught: now, I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught, and the mustard was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn.

Cel. How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge?

Ros. Ay, marry: now unmuzzle your wisdom. Touch. Stand you both forth now; stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.

Cel. By our beards, if we had them, thou art. Touch. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no more was this knight, swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancakes, or that mustard.

Cel. Pr'ythee, who is't that thou mean'st?

Touch. One that old Frederick, your father, loves. Ros. My father's love is enough to honour him enough. Speak no more of him: you'll be whipped for taxation, one of these days.

Touch. The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely, what wise men do foolishly.

Cel. By my troth, thou say'st true; for since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show. Here comes

monsieur Le Beau.

Enter LE BEAU.

Ros. With his mouth full of news.

Cel. Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their

young.

Ros. Then shall we be news-cramm'd.

Cel. All the better; we shall be the more marketable. Bon jour, monsieur Le Beau: what's the news? Le Beau. Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.

Cel. Spot? Of what colour?

Le Beau. I will tell you the beginning; and, if it please your ladyships, you may see the end, for the best is yet to do: and here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.

Cel. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried. Le Beau. There comes an old man, and his three sons,

Cel. I could match this beginning with an old tale. Le Beau. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence;

Ros. With bills on their necks,-" Be it known unto all men by these presents,"

Le Beau. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the duke's wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him: so he served the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie, the poor old man, their father, making such pitiful dole over them, that all the beholders take his part with weeping. Ros. Alas!

Touch. But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have lost?

Le Beau. Why, this that I speak of.

Touch. Thus men may grow wiser every day! it is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.

Cel. Or I, I promise thee.

Ros. But is there any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking?-Shall we see this wrestling, cousin?

Le Beau. You must, if you stay here; for here is the place appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it.

Cel. Yonder, sure, they are coming: let us now stay and see it. Flourish. Enter Duke FREDERICK, Lords, Orlando, CHARLES, and Attendants.

Duke F. Come on: since the youth will not be entreated, his own peril on his forwardness. Ros. Is yonder the man?

Le Beau. Even he, madam.

Cel. Alas! he is too young: yet he looks successfully. Duke F. How now, daughter, and cousin! are you crept hither to see the wrestling?

Ros. Ay, my liege, so please you give us leave.

Duke F. You will take little delight in it, I can tell you, there is such odds in the men. In pity of the challenger's youth I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated: speak to him, ladies; see if you can move him.

Cel. Call him hither, good monsieur Le Beau. Duke F. Do so I'll not be by. [DUKE goes apart. Le Beau. Monsieur the challenger, the princess calls for you.

Orl. I attend them with all respect and duty. Ros. Young man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler?

Orl. No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I come but in, as others do, to try with him the strength

Ros. As wit and fortune will.

Touch. Or as the destinies decree.

Cel. Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.
Touch. Nay, if I keep not my rank,-

Ros. Thou losest thy old smell.

Le Beau. You amaze me, ladies: I would have told you of good wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.

Ros. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.

Cel. Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years. You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength: if you saw yourself with our eyes, or knew yourself with our judgment, the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to embrace your own safety, and give over this attempt.

Ros. Do, young sir: your reputation shall not therefore be misprised. We will make it our suit to the duke, that the wrestling might not go forward.

Orl. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts, wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny so fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes, and gentle wishes, go with me to my trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one dead that is willing to be so. I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when I have made it empty.

Ros. The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.

Cel. And mine, to eke out hers.

Ros. Fare you well. Pray heaven, I be deceived in you!

Cel. Your heart's desires be with you.

Cha. Come; where is this young gallant, that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth?

Orl. Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working.

Duke F. You shall try but one fall.

Cha. No, I warrant your grace, you shall not entreat him to a second, that have so mightily persuaded him from a first.

Orl. You mean to mock me after: you should not have mocked me before; but come your ways.

Ros. Now, Hercules be thy speed, young man! Cel. I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg. [CHARLES and ORLANDO wrestle. Ros. O, excellent young man !

Cel. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should down. [CHARLES is thrown. Shout.

Duke F. No more, no more. Orl. Yes, I beseech your grace: I am not yet well breathed.

Duke F. How dost thou, Charles?

Le Beau. He cannot speak, my lord. Duke F. Bear him away. [CHARLES is borne out. What is thy name, young man?

Orl. Orlando, my liege: the youngest son of sir Rowland de Bois.

Duke F. I would, thou hadst been son to some man else.

The world esteem'd thy father honourable,
But I did find him still mine enemy:
Thou shouldst have better pleas'd me with this deed,
Hadst thou descended from another house.
But fare thee well; thou art a gallant youth.
I would thou hadst told me of another father.

[Exeunt Duke FRED. Train, and LE BEAU.
Cel. Were I my father, coz, would I do this?
Orl. I am more proud to be sir Rowland's son,
His youngest son, and would not change that calling,
To be adopted heir to Frederick.

Ros. My father lov'd sir Rowland as his soul,
And all the world was of my father's mind.
Had I before known this young man his son,
I should have given him tears unto entreaties,
Ere he should thus have ventur'd.
Cel.
Let us go thank him, and encourage him:
My father's rough and envious disposition
Sticks me at heart.—Sir, you have well deserv'd:
If you do keep your promises in love

Gentle cousin,

But justly, as you have exceeded all promise, Your mistress shall be happy.

Ros.

Wear this for me, one out of suits with fortune,

That could give more, but that her hand lacks means.—
Shall we go, coz?
Cel.
Ay.-Fare you well, fair gentleman.
Orl. Can I not say, I thank you? My better parts
Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up
Is but a quintaine, a mere lifeless block.

Ros. He calls us back. My pride fell with my fortunes;
I'll ask him what he would.Did you call, sir?—
Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown
More than your enemies.
Will you go, coz?
Ros. Have with you.-Fare you well.

Cel.

[Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA. Orl. What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?

I cannot speak to her, yet she urg'd conference.
Re-enter LE BEAU.

O, poor Orlando! thou art overthrown.
Or Charles, or something weaker, masters thee.-
Le Beau. Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you
To leave this place. Albeit you have deserv'd
High commendation, true applause, and love,
Yet such is now the duke's condition,
That he misconstrues all that you have done.
The duke is humorous: what he is, indeed,
More suits you to conceive, than me to speak of.
Orl. I thank you, sir; and, pray you, tell me this:
Which of the two was daughter of the duke,
That here was at the wrestling?

Le Beau. Neither his daughter, if we judge by

manners;

But yet, indeed, the shorter is his daughter:
The other is daughter to the banish'd duke,
And here detain'd by her usurping uncle,
To keep his daughter company; whose loves
Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters.
But I can tell you, that of late this duke
Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece,
Grounded upon no other argument,

But that the people praise her for her virtues,
And pity her for her good father's sake;
And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady
Will suddenly break forth.-Sir, fare you well:
Hereafter, in a better world than this,

I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.
Orl. I rest much bounden to you: fare you
well.
[Exit LE BEAU.

Thus must I from the smoke into the smother;
From tyrant duke, unto a tyrant brother.-
But heavenly Rosalind!

[Exit.

SCENE III.-A Room in the Palace. Enter CELIA and ROSALIND. Cel. Why, cousin; why, Rosalind.-Cupid, have mercy!-Not a word?

Ros. Not one to throw at a dog.

Cel. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs; throw some of them at me: come, lame me with reasons.

Ros. Then there were two cousins laid up, when the one should be lamed with reasons, and the other mad without any.

Cel. But is all this for your father?

Ros. No, some of it for my father's child. O, how full of briars is this working-day world!

Cel. They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery: if we walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats will catch them.

Ros. I could shake them off my coat: these burs are in my heart.

SCENE I.-The Forest of Arden.

Enter DUKE, Senior, AMIENS, and other Lords, like

Foresters.

Duke S. Now, my co-mates, and brothers in 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, or 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 every thing. Ami. 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 S. 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 gor'd.

1 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 banish'd you.
To-day, my lord of Amiens and myself
Did steal behind him, as he lay along
Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood;
To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish: and, indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase: and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

Duke S.

But what said Jaques? Did he not moralize this spectacle?

1 Lord. O! yes, into a thousand similes.

First, for his weeping in the needless stream;

'Poor deer," quoth he, "thou mak'st a testament

As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

To that which hath too much." Then, being there alone,
Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends;
"Tis right," quoth he; "thus misery doth part
The flux of company." Anon, a careless herd,
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,

And never stays to greet him: "Ay," quoth Jaques,

Show me the place.

I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
For then he's full of matter.

2 Lord. I'll bring you to him straight.

SCENE II.A Room in the Palace.

[Exeunt.

Enter Duke FREDERICK, Lords, and Attendants. Duke F. Can it be possible that no man saw them? It cannot be some villains of my court

Are of consent and sufferance in this.

1 Lord. I cannot hear of any that did see her.
The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,
Saw her a-bed; and in the morning early
They found the bed untreasur'd of their mistress.

2 Lord. My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft
Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.
Hesperia, the princess' gentlewoman,
Confesses that she secretly o'er-heard
Your daughter and her cousin much commend
The parts and graces of the wrestler,
That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles;
And she believes, wherever they are gone,
That youth is surely in their company.

Duke F. Send to his brother: fetch that gallant hither;

If he be absent, bring his brother to me,
I'll make him find him. Do this suddenly,
And let not search and inquisition quail
To bring again these foolish runaways.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-Before OLIVER'S House. Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting. Orl. Who's there?

Adam. What, my young master?-O, my gentle master!

O, my sweet master! O, you memory

Of old sir Rowland! why, what make you here?
Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you?
And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?
Why would you be so fond to overcome
The bony priser of the humorous duke?
Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.
Know you not, master, to some kind of men
Their graces serve them but as enemies?

No more do yours: your virtues, gentle master,
Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.

O, what a world is this, when what is comely
Envenoms him that bears it!

Orl. Why, what's the matter?
Adam.

O, unhappy youth!
Come not within these doors: beneath this roof
The enemy of all your graces lives.

Your brother (no, no brother; yet the son-
Yet not the son-I will not call him son-

Of him I was about to call his father,)—

Hath heard your praises, and this night he means
To burn the lodging where you use to lie,
And you within it: if he fail of that,

He will have other means to cut you off:

I overheard him, and his practices.

This is no place; this house is but a butchery:
Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.