268 Here is a letter; read it at your leisure; Gra. Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold? Ner. Ay; but the clerk that never means to do it, Unless he live until he be a man. Bass. Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow: When I am absent, then, lie with my wife. 285 Ant. Sweet lady, you have given me life and living; For here I read for certain that my ships SCENE. First, OLIVER'S Orchard near his House; afterwards, in the Usurper's Court, and in the Forest of Arden. ACT I. Orl. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear SCENE I.-An Orchard near OLIVER's House, how he will shake me up. Enter ORLANDO and ADAM. Orl. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayest, charged my brother on his blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses are bred better; for, besides that they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage, and to that end riders dearly hired: but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth, for the which his animals on his dunghills are as much bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave me, his countenance seems to take from me: he lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it. 27 Adam. Yonder comes my master, your brother. Oli. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain? 59 Orl. I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys; he was my father, and he is thrice a villain that says such a father begot villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy throat till this other had pulled out thy tongue for saying so: thou hast railed on thyself. 66 Adam. [Coming forward.] Sweet masters, be patient: for your father's remembrance, be at accord. Oli. Let me go, I say. 70 Orl. I will not, till I please: you shall hear me. My father charged you in his will to give me good education: you have trained me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in me, and I will no longer endure it; therefore allow me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or give me the poor allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes. 80 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. 84 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. Holla, Dennis! 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. To-morrow, 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. 144 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 ambition, 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. 167 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 wrestler shall clear all: nothing remains but that I kindle the boy thither, which now I'll go about. 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 wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously tempered as mine is to thee. 15 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. 25 Ros. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let me see; what think you of falling in love? 28 Cel. Marry, I prithee, 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 mayst in honour come off again. 33 Cel. Prithee, who is 't that thou meanest? Touch. One that old Frederick, your father, loves. Cel. 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. 92 Touch. The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly. Cel. By my troth, thou sayest 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. 98 Ros. With his mouth full of news. Cel. Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young. Ros. Then we shall be news-cramm'd. Cel. All the better; we shall be more marketable. Enter LE BEAU. 104 Cel. Well said: that was laid on with a trowel. Le Beau. You amaze me, ladies: I would have told you of good wrestling, which you have lost the sight of. 118 Ros. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling. 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. 123 Cel. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried. Le Beau. There comes an old man and his three sons, 127 Cel. Alas! he is too young: yet he looks successfully. 165 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. 169 Duke F. You will take little delight in it, I can tell you, there is such odds in the man: 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. 176 [DUKE goes apart. Le Beau. Monsieur the challenger, the princes call for you. Orl. I attend them with all respect and duty. Cel. I could match this beginning with an the wrestler? 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.' 133 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! 141 181 Orl. No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I come but in, as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth. 184 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 your eyes or knew yourself with your 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. 192 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 196 Touch. But what is the sport, monsieur, that forward. the ladies have lost? 144 Orl. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts, wherein I confess me much Touch. Thus men may grow wiser every day: guilty, to deny so fair and excellent ladies any Le Beau. Why, this that I speak of. |