The forest.
[Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, JAQUES,
ORLANDO, OLIVER, and CELIA]
DUKE SENIOR Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy
Can do all this that he hath promised?
ORLANDO I sometimes do believe,
and sometimes do not;
As those that fear they hope, and know they fear.
[Enter ROSALIND, SILVIUS, and PHEBE]
ROSALIND Patience once more,
whiles our compact is urged:
You say, if I bring in your Rosalind,
You will bestow her on Orlando here?
DUKE SENIOR That would I,
had I kingdoms to give with her.
ROSALIND And you say, you will have her,
when I bring her?
ORLANDO That would I,
were I of all kingdoms king.
ROSALIND You say, you’ll marry me, if I be willing?
PHEBE That will I, should I die the hour after.
ROSALIND But if you do refuse to marry me,
You’ll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?
PHEBE So is the bargain.
ROSALIND You say, that you’ll have Phebe,
if she will?
SILVIUS Though to have her and death
were both one thing.
ROSALIND I have promised to make all this matter even.
Keep you your word, O duke, to give your daughter;
You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter:
Keep your word, Phebe, that you’ll marry me,
Or else refusing me, to wed this shepherd:
Keep your word, Silvius, that you’ll marry her.
If she refuse me: and from hence I go,
To make these doubts all even.
[Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA]
DUKE SENIOR I do remember in this shepherd boy
Some lively touches of my daughter’s favour.
ORLANDO My lord, the first time that I ever saw him
Methought he was a brother to your daughter:
But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born,
And hath been tutor’d in the rudiments
Of many desperate studies by his uncle,
Whom he reports to be a great magician,
Obscured in the circle of this forest.
[Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY]
JAQUES There is, sure, another flood toward, and
these couples are coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of
very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools.
TOUCHSTONE Salutation and greeting to you all!
JAQUES Good my lord, bid him welcome: this is the
motley-minded gentleman that I have so often met in
the forest: he hath been a courtier, he swears.
TOUCHSTONE If any man doubt that, let him put
me to my purgation. I have trod a measure; I have
flattered a lady; I have been politic with my friend,
smooth with mine enemy; I have undone three tailors;
I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought one.
JAQUES And how was that ta’en up?
TOUCHSTONE Faith, we met, and found the quarrel
was upon the seventh cause.
JAQUES How seventh cause?
Good my lord, like this fellow.
DUKE SENIOR I like him very well.
TOUCHSTONE God ‘ild you, sir; I desire you of the like.
I press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country
copulatives, to swear and to forswear: according as
marriage binds and blood breaks: a poor virgin,
sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor
humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else
will: rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a
poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster.
DUKE SENIOR By my faith,
he is very swift and sententious.
TOUCHSTONE According to the fool’s bolt,
sir, and such dulcet diseases.
[Enter HYMEN, ROSALIND, and CELIA]
[Still Music]
HYMEN Then is there mirth in heaven,
When earthly things made even
Atone together.
Good duke, receive thy daughter
Hymen from heaven brought her,
Yea, brought her hither,
That thou mightst join her hand with his
Whose heart within his bosom is.
ROSALIND [To DUKE SENIOR] To you I give myself,
for I am yours.
[To ORLANDO]
To you I give myself, for I am yours.
DUKE SENIOR If there be truth in sight,
you are my daughter.
ORLANDO If there be truth in sight,
you are my Rosalind.
PHEBE If sight and shape be true,
Why then, my love adieu!
ROSALIND I’ll have no father, if you be not he:
I’ll have no husband, if you be not he:
Nor ne’er wed woman, if you be not she.
HYMEN Peace, ho! I bar confusion:
‘Tis I must make conclusion
Of these most strange events:
Here’s eight that must take hands
To join in Hymen’s bands,
If truth holds true contents.
Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing,
Feed yourselves with questioning;
That reason wonder may diminish,
How thus we met, and these things finish.
SONG.
Wedding is great Juno’s crown:
O blessed bond of board and bed!
‘Tis Hymen peoples every town;
High wedlock then be honoured:
Honour, high honour and renown,
To Hymen, god of every town!
DUKE SENIOR O my dear niece,
welcome thou art to me!
Even daughter, welcome, in no less degree.
PHEBE I will not eat my word, now thou art mine;
Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.
[Enter JAQUES DE BOYS]
JAQUES DE BOYS Let me have audience
for a word or two:
I am the second son of old Sir Rowland,
That bring these tidings to this fair assembly.
Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day
Men of great worth resorted to this forest,
Address’d a mighty power; which were on foot,
In his own conduct, purposely to take
His brother here and put him to the sword:
And to the skirts of this wild wood he came;
Where meeting with an old religious man,
After some question with him, was converted
Both from his enterprise and from the world,
His crown bequeathing to his banish’d brother,
And all their lands restored to them again
That were with him exiled. This to be true,
I do engage my life.
DUKE SENIOR Welcome, young man;
Thou offer’st fairly to thy brothers’ wedding:
To one his lands withheld, and to the other
A land itself at large, a potent dukedom.
First, in this forest, let us do those ends
That here were well begun and well begot:
And after, every of this happy number
That have endured shrewd days and nights with us
Shall share the good of our returned fortune,
According to the measure of their states.
Meantime, forget this new-fall’n dignity
And fall into our rustic revelry.
JAQUES Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly,
The duke hath put on a religious life
And thrown into neglect the pompous court?
JAQUES DE BOYS He hath.
JAQUES To him will I : out of these convertites
There is much matter to be heard and learn’d.
[To DUKE SENIOR]
You to your former honour I bequeath;
Your patience and your virtue well deserves it:
[To ORLANDO]
You to a love that your true faith doth merit:
[To OLIVER]
You to your land and love and great allies:
[To SILVIUS]
You to a long and well-deserved bed:
[To TOUCHSTONE]
And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage
Is but for two months victuall’d. So, to your pleasures:
I am for other than for dancing measures.
DUKE SENIOR Stay, Jaques, stay.
JAQUES To see no pastime I what you would have
I’ll stay to know at your abandon’d cave.
[Exit]
DUKE SENIOR Proceed, proceed:
we will begin these rites,
As we do trust they’ll end, in true delights.
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