I know not the contents: but, as I guess, I am but as a guiltless messenger. Ros. [Reading.] Patience herself would startle at this letter, And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all: Why writes she so to me ?-Well, shepherd, well, Sylv. No, I protest, I know not the contents; 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? Sylv. So please you, for I never heard it yet; Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty. Ros. She Phebe's me: Mark how the tyrant writes. [Reads.] Art thou god to shepherd turn'd, That a maiden's heart hath burn'd? Can a woman rail thus ? Sylv. Call you this railing? Ros. [Reads.] Why, thy godhead laid apart, Whiles the eye of man did woo me, Meaning me a beast. If the scorn of your bright eyne Whiles chid me, How then might your prayers move? Sylv. Call you this chiding? Ros. Do you pity him? no, he deserves 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. Enter OLIVER. [Exit SYLVIUS. Oliv. Good-morrow, fair ones: Pray you, if you know Where, in the purlieus of this forest, stands Cel. West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom, The rank of osiers, by the murmuring stream, Oliv. If that an eye may profit by a tongue, Cel. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say we are. Oliv. Orlando doth commend him to you both; And to that youth, he calls his Rosalind, He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he? Ros. I am: What must we understand by this? Olv. Some of my shame; if you will know of me What man I am, and how, and why, and where This handkerchief was stain'd. Cel. I pray you, tell it. Oliv. When last the young Orlando parted from you, He left a promise to return again Within an hour; and, pacing through the forest, A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair, And, with indented glides, did slip away Into a bush: under which bush's shade A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, Lay couching, head on ground, with cat-like watch, To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead: And he did render him the most unnatural That liv'd mong'st men. Oliv. 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 suck'd and hungry lioness? Oliv. Twice did he turn his back, and purpos'd so: But kindness, nobler ever than revenge, And nature, stronger ever than his just occasion, Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling Cel. Are you his brother? Ros. Was it you he rescu'd? Cel. Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him? To tell you what I was, since my conversion Ros. But, for the bloody napkin ? Oliv. By and by. When, from the first to last, betwixt us two, In brief, he led me to the gentle Duke, The lioness had torn some flesh away, Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted, Brief, I recover'd him; bound up his wound; To tell this story, that you might excuse Cel. Why, how now, Ganymede? sweet Ganymede? Ros. I would I were at home! Cel. We'll lead you thither: I pray you will take him by the arm! Oliv. 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.-Heigho! Oliv. This was not counterfeit; there is too great testimony in your complexion, that it was a passion of earnest. Ros. Counterfeit, I assure you. Oliv. 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. Cel. Come, you look paler and paler; pray you, draw homewards :-Good sir, go with us. Oliv. That will I; for I must bear answer back, How you excuse my brother, Rosalind. Ros. I shall devise something: But, I pray you, commend my counterfeiting to him.-Will you go? [Exeunt. |