Cel. I warrant you, with pure love, and troubled brain, he hath ta'en his bow and arrows, and is gone forth to sleep. Look, who comes here. Enter SILVIUS. Sil. My errand is to you, fair youth.My gentle Phebe did bid me give you this. [Giving a letter. I know not the contents; but as I guess, I am but as a guiltless messenger. Ros. Patience herself would startle at this letter, Why writes she so to me?-Well, shepherd, well, Sil. No, I protest, I know not the contents; Ros. Come, come, you are a fool, And turned into the extremity of love. I saw her hand; she has a leathern hand, A freestone-colored hand; I verily did think That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands; I She has a housewife's hand; but that's no matter. say, she never did invent this letter; This is a man's invention, and his hand. Sil. Sure, it is hers. Ros. Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style, A style for challengers. Why, she defies me, Like Turk to Christian: woman's gentle brain Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention, Such Ethiop words, blacker in their effect Than in their countenance.-Will you hear the letter! Sil. So please you, for I never heard it yet; Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty. Ros. She Phebes me. Mark how the tyrant writes. Art thou god to shepherd turned, Can a woman rail thus ? Sil. Call you this railing? Ros. Why, thy godhead laid apart, Did you ever hear such railing? Whiles the eye of man did woo me, Meaning me, a beast. 1 If the scorn of your bright eyne I did love; How then might your prayers move? And by him seal up thy mind; [Reads. Ros. Do you pity him? No, he deserves no no pity. Wilt thou love such a woman ?-What, to make thee an instrument, and play false strains upon thee! Not to be endured!-Well, go your way to her, (for I see, love hath made thee a tame snake,) and say this to her;-That if she love me, I charge her to love thee; if she will not, I will never have her, unless thou entreat for her. If you be a true lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes more company. 1 Eyne for eyes. 2 Kind, for nature, or natural affections. [Exit SILVIUS. 3 A poor snake was a term of reproach equivalent to a wretch or poor creature. Hence, also, a sneaking or creeping fellow. Enter OLIVer. Oli. Good-morrow, fair ones. know Pray you, if you Where, in the purlieus of this forest, stands A sheep-cote, fenced about with olive-trees? Cel. West of this place, down in the neighbor bot tom, The rank of osiers, by the murmuring stream, Left on your right hand, brings you to the place; Oli. If that an eye may profit by a tongue, Cel. It is no boast, being asked, to say we are. Ros. I am. 2 What must we understand by this? Oli. Some of my shame; if you will know of me What man I am, and how, and why, and where This handkerchief was stained. Cel. I pray you, tell it. Oli. When last the young Orlando parted from you, He left a promise to return again Within an hour; and, pacing through the forest, 1 i. e. acts or behaves like, &c. 2 A napkin and handkerchief were the same thing in Shakspeare's time, as we gather from the dictionaries of Baret and Hutton in their explanations of the word Casitium and Sudarium. Napkin, for handkerchief, is still in use in the north. Under an oak,1 whose boughs were mossed with age, A wretched, ragged man, o'ergrown with hair, A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch, When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis The royal disposition of that beast, To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead. This seen, Orlando did approach the man, And found it was his brother, his elder brother. Cel. O, I have heard him speak of that same brother, And he did render 2 him the most unnatural That lived 'mongst men. Oli. And well he might so do, For well I know he was unnatural. Ros. But, to Orlando.-Did he leave him there, Food to the sucked and hungry lioness? Oli. Twice did he turn his back, and purposed so: But kindness, nobler ever than revenge, And nature, stronger than his just occasion, Made him give battle to the lioness, Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling From miserable slumber I awaked. Cel. Are you his brother? Ros. Was it you he rescued ? Cel. Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him? Oli. 'Twas I; but 'tis not I. I do not shame To tell you what I was, since my conversion. Ros. But, for the bloody napkin ?— 1 The ancient editions read, "Under an old oak," which hurts the measare without improving the sense. The correction was made by Steevens. ? i e. represent or render this account of him. Oli. By and by. When from the first to last, betwixt us two, There stripped himself, and here upon his arm The lioness had torn some flesh away, Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted, And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind. Brief, I recovered him; bound up his wound ; And, after some small space, being strong at heart, To tell this story, that you might excuse His broken promise, and to give this napkin, I Cel. Why, how now, Ganymede? Sweet Gany mede ? [ROSALIND faints. Oli. Many will swoon when they do look on blood. Cel. There is more in it.-Cousin-Ganymede! Oli. Look, he recovers. Ros. I would I were at home. Cel. We'll lead you thither. pray you, will you take him by the arm? Oli. Be of good cheer, youth.-You a man! You lack a man's heart. Ros. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sir, a body would think this was well counterfeited; I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited.-Heigh ho! Oli. This was not counterfeit; there is too great testimony in your complexion, that it was a passion of earnest. Ros. Counterfeit, I assure you. Oli. Well, then, take a good heart, and counterfeit to be a man. Ros. So I do; but, i'faith, I should have been a woman by right. |