Ros. No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.

Cel. Why should I not? doth he not deserve well? 3 Ros. Let me love him for that; and do you love him because I do. Look, here comes the Duke.

Cel. With his eyes full of anger.

Enter Duke FREDERICK, with Lords.

Duke F. Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste, And get you from our Court.

Ros.

Duke F.

Me, uncle?

You, cousin :

Within these ten days if that thou be'st found
So near our public Court as twenty miles,
Thou diest for it.

Ros.

I do beseech your Grace,
Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me:
If with myself I hold intelligence,

Or have acquaintance with mine own desires ;
If that I do not dream, or be not frantic,
As I do trust I am not, then, dear uncle,
Never so much as in a thought unborn
Did I offend your Highness.

Duke F.

Thus do all traitors:

If their purgation 4 did consist in words,
They are as innocent as grace itself:

Let it suffice thee, that I trust thee not.

Ros. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor :

3 Celia here speaks ironically, her meaning apparently being, “It was because your father deserved well that my father hated him; and ought I not, by your reasoning, to hate Orlando for the same cause?"

4 Purgation is proof of innocence; clearing themselves of the matter charged.

Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.

Duke F. Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough. Ros. So was I when your Highness took his dukedom;

So was I when your Highness banish'd him :

Treason is not inherited, my lord;

Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
What's that to me? my father was no traitor :
Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
To think my poverty is treacherous.

Cel. Dear sovereign, hear me speak.
Duke F. Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for
your sake,
Else had she with her father ranged along.
Cel. I did not then entreat to have her stay;
It was your pleasure and your own remorse : 5
I was too young that time to value her;

But now I know her if she be a traitor,

:

Why, so am I; we still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together;
And, wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,

Still we went coupled and inseparable.

Duke F. She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,

Her very silence, and her patience,

Speak to the people, and they pity her.

Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name;

And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
When she is gone. Then open not thy lips :

Firm and irrevocable is my doom

Which I have pass'd upon her: she is banish'd.

Cel. Pronounce that sentence, then, on me, my liege :

I cannot live out of her company.

5 Remorse, as usual, for pity or compassion.

You, niece, provide yourself:

Duke F. You are a fool.
If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,
And in the greatness of my word, you die.

[Exeunt Duke FREDERICK and Lords.
Cel. O my poor Rosalind! whither wilt thou go?
Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.
Ros. I have more cause.

Cel.

Thou hast not, cousin. Pr'ythee, be cheerful: know'st thou not, the Duke

Hath banished me, his daughter?

Ros.

Cel. No? hath not?

That he hath not.

Rosalind lacks, then, the love
Which teacheth me that thou and I are one :
Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl?
No; let my father seek another heir.
Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
Whither to go, and what to bear with us:
And do not seek to take the charge upon you,
To bear your griefs yourself, and leave me out;
For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.
Ros. Why, whither shall we go?

Cel. To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.
Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

Cel. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,
And with a kind of umber6 smirch my face;
The like do you so shall we pass along,

6 Umber was a dusky, yellow-coloured earth, from Umbria in Italy.

And never stir assailants.

Ros.

Were't not better,

Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtle-axe7 upon my thigh,

A boar-spear in my hand; and in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will8.
We'll have a swashing9 and a martial outside;
As many other mannish cowards have

That do outface it with their semblances.

Cel. What shall I call thee when thou art a man? Ros. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page; And therefore look you call me Ganymede.

But what will you be call'd?

Cel. Something that hath a reference to my state;

No longer Celia, but Aliena.

Ros. But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal The clownish Fool out of your father's Court?

Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

Cel. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me; Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away,

And get our jewels and our wealth together;

Devise the fittest time and safest way

To hide us from pursuit that will be made
After my flight. Now go we in content,

To liberty, and not to banishment.

[Exeunt.

7 This was one of the old words for a cutlass, or short, crooked sword. It was variously spelt, courtlas, courtlax, curtlax.

8 That is, "Whatever hidden woman's fear lies in my heart.”

9 Swashing is dashing, swaggering. So in Fuller's Worthies of England: "A ruffian is the same with a swaggerer, so called, because endeavouring to make that side swag or weigh down, whereon he engageth. The same also with swash-buckler, from swashing or making a noise on bucklers."

ACT II.

SCENE I.-The Forest of Arden.

Enter DUKE Senior, AMIENS, and other Lords, in the dress of
Foresters.

Duke S. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
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.1
The seasons' difference, and the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the Winter's wind,
Which when it 2 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 : 3

1 The curse, or penalty, denounced upon Adam was, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." This is what the Duke and his co-mates do not feel: "they fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world." The Duke then goes on, consistently, to say what they do feel.

2 The using of both the relative and the personal pronouns, in relative clauses, as which and it in this passage, was not uncommon with the best writers. See The Merchant, page 100, note 23.

3 The real toadstone, as known to the ancients, was apparently so called from its resemblance to the toad or frog in colour. Pliny says, (trans. Holland,) "The same Coptos sendeth other stones unto us besides, to wit, those which be called Batrachite; the one like in colour to a frog, a second unto