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.

Celia. I did not then entreat to have her stay,
It was your pleasure, and your own remorse;
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.

Celia. No? hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love Which teacheth thee that thou and I am 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 your change 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.
Rosalind. Why, whither shall we go?

Celia.

To seek my uncle. Rosalind. Alas, what danger will it be to us, Maids as we are, to travel forth so far?

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

29

Celia. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,

And with a kind of umber smirch my face;

The like do you; so shall we pass along,
And never stir assailants.

Rosalind.

Were it not better,

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

A boar-spear in my hand; and (in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will),
We'll have a swashing and a martial outside;
As many other mannish cowards have,

That do outface it with their semblances.

Celia. What shall I call thee, when thou art a man? Rosalind. 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?

Celia. Something that hath a reference to my state : No longer Celia, but Aliena.

Rosalind. 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?

Celia. 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.

ACT II. SCENE IV.

Rosalind. I could find in my heart to disgrace my

man's apparel, and to cry like a woman: but I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat: therefore, courage, good Aliena.

ACT III. SCENE II.

Orlando. Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love: And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above, Thy huntress' name, that my full life doth sway. O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books, And in their barks my thoughts I'll character; That every eye, which in this forest looks, Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where. Run, run, Orlando; carve, on every tree, The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.

Rosalind. From the east to western Ind,

No jewel is like Rosalind.

Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
Through all the world bears Rosalind.
All the pictures, fairest lin❜d,

Are but black to Rosalind.
Let no face be kept in mind,

But the fair of Rosalind.

Rosalind. I have been told so of many: but, indeed, an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an in-land man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God, I am not

a woman, to be touch'd with so many giddy offences as he hath generally tax'd their whole sex withal.

Orlando. Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of woman?

Rosalind. There were none principal; they were all like one another, as half-pence are; every one fault seeming monstrous, till his fellow fault came to match it.

Orlando. I pr'ythee, recount some of them.

Rosalind. No; I will not cast away physick, but on those that are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that abuses our young plants with carving Rosalind on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind : if I could meet that fancymonger, I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.

Orlando. I am he that is so love-shaked; I pray you, tell me your remedy.

Rosalind. There is none of my uncle's marks upon you he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes, I am sure, you are not prisoner.

Orlando. What were his marks?

Rosalind. A lean cheek, which you have not: a blue eye, and sunken, which you have not: an unquestionable spirit, which you have not: a beard neglected, which you have not; but I pardon you for that; for, simply, your having in beard is a younger brother's revenue :— -Then your hose should be ungarter'd, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbutton'd, your shoe untied, and everything about you demonstrating a careless desolation. But you are no such man; you are rather point-device in your accoutrements; as loving yourself, than seeming the lover of any other.

Orlando. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.

Rosalind. Me believe it? you may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do, than to confess she does; that is one of the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired?

Orlando. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he.

Rosalind. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?

Orlando. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.

Rosalind. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip, as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured, is, that the lunacy is so ordinary, that the whippers are in love too Yet I profess curing it by counsel.

SCENE V.

Silvius. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe:

Say, that you love me not; but say not so

In bitterness. The common executioner,

Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard,
Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck,
But first begs pardon; Will you sterner be
Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?

Silvius. So holy, and so perfect is my love, And I in such a poverty of grace,