AS YOU LIKE IT. Sidney Lee

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.

       ADAM

       Yonder comes my master, your brother.

       ORLANDO

       Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up.

       [ADAM retires]

       [Enter OLIVER.]

       OLIVER

       Now, sir! what make you here?

       ORLANDO

       Nothing: I am not taught to make anything.

       OLIVER What mar you then, sir?

       ORLANDO

       Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.

       OLIVER

       Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile.

       ORLANDO

       Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion have I spent that I should come to such penury?

       OLIVER

       Know you where you are, sir?

       ORLANDO

       O, sir, very well: here in your orchard.

       OLIVER

       Know you before whom, sir?

       ORLANDO

       Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are my eldest brother: and in the gentle condition of blood, you should so know me. The courtesy of nations allows you my better in that you are the first-born; but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us: I have as much of my father in me as you, albeit; I confess, your coming before me is nearer to his reverence.

       OLIVER

       What, boy!

       ORLANDO

       Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.

       OLIVER

       Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?

       ORLANDO

       I am no villain: I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Bois: 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 has railed on thyself.

       ADAM

       [Coming forward] Sweet masters, be patient; for your father’s remembrance, be at accord.

       OLIVER

       Let me go, I say.

       ORLANDO

       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 gentlemanlike 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.

       OLIVER

       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.

       ORLANDO

       I no further offend you than becomes me for my good.

       OLIVER

       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.]

       OLIVER

       Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla, Dennis!

       [Enter DENNIS.]

       DENNIS

       Calls your worship?

       OLIVER

       Was not Charles, the duke’s wrestler, here to speak with me?

       DENNIS

       So please you, he is here at the door and importunes access to you.

       OLIVER

       Call him in.

       [Exit DENNIS.]

       —‘Twill be a good way; and tomorrow the wrestling is.

       [Enter CHARLES.]

       CHARLES

       Good morrow to your worship.

       OLIVER

       Good Monsieur Charles!—what’s the new news at the new court?

       CHARLES

       There’s no news at the court, sir, but the old news; that is, the old duke is banished by his younger brother the new duke; and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new duke; therefore he gives them good leave to wander.

       OLIVER

       Can you tell if Rosalind, the duke’s daughter, be banished with her father?

       CHARLES

       O, no; for the duke’s daughter, her cousin, so loves her,—being ever from their cradles bred together,—that she would have followed her exile, or have died to stay behind her. She is at the court, and no less beloved of her uncle than his own daughter; and never two ladies loved as they do.

       OLIVER

       Where will the old duke live?

       CHARLES

       They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.

       OLIVER

       What, you wrestle tomorrow before the new duke?

       CHARLES

       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 disguis’d against me to try a fall. Tomorrow, 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 thing of his own search, and altogether against my will.

       OLIVER

       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;