AS YOU LIKE IT. Sidney Lee

AUDREY

       Ay, I know who ‘tis: he hath no interest in me in the world: here comes the man you mean.

       [Enter WILLIAM.]

       TOUCHSTONE

       It is meat and drink to me to see a clown: By my troth, we that have good wits have much to answer for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold.

       WILLIAM

       Good even, Audrey.

       AUDREY

       God ye good even, William.

       WILLIAM

       And good even to you, sir.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy head; nay, pr’ythee, be covered. How old are you, friend?

       WILLIAM

       Five and twenty, sir.

       TOUCHSTONE

       A ripe age. Is thy name William?

       WILLIAM

       William, sir.

       TOUCHSTONE

       A fair name. Wast born i’ the forest here?

       WILLIAM

       Ay, sir, I thank God.

       TOUCHSTONE

       “Thank God;”—a good answer. Art rich?

       WILLIAM

       Faith, sir, so-so.

       TOUCHSTONE

       “So-so” is good, very good, very excellent good:—and yet it is not; it is but so-so. Art thou wise?

       WILLIAM

       Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Why, thou say’st well. I do now remember a saying; “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth; meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do love this maid?

       WILLIAM

       I do, sir.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Give me your hand. Art thou learnèd?

       WILLIAM

       No, sir.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Then learn this of me:—to have is to have; for it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out of cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other; for all your writers do consent that ipse is he; now, you are not ipse, for I am he.

       WILLIAM

       Which he, sir?

       TOUCHSTONE

       He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you clown, abandon,—which is in the vulgar, leave,—the society,—which in the boorish is company,—of this female,—which in the common is woman,—which together is abandon the society of this female; or, clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest; or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage: I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction; will o’er-run thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways; therefore tremble and depart.

       AUDREY

       Do, good William.

       WILLIAM

       God rest you merry, sir.

       [Exit.]

       [Enter CORIN.]

       CORIN

       Our master and mistress seek you; come away, away!

       TOUCHSTONE

       Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey;—I attend, I attend.

       [Exeunt.]

      SCENE II. Another part of the Forest

       [Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER.]

       ORLANDO

       Is’t possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her? that but seeing you should love her? and loving woo? and, wooing, she should grant? and will you persever to enjoy her?

       OLIVER

       Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden consenting; but say with me, I love Aliena; say, with her, that she loves me; consent with both, that we may enjoy each other: it shall be to your good; for my father’s house, and all the revenue that was old Sir Rowland’s will I estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.

       ORLANDO

       You have my consent. Let your wedding be tomorrow: thither will I invite the duke and all’s contented followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for, look you, here comes my Rosalind.

       [Enter ROSALIND.]

       ROSALIND

       God save you, brother.

       OLIVER

       And you, fair sister.

       [Exit.]

       ROSALIND

       O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf!

       ORLANDO

       It is my arm.

       ROSALIND

       I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion.

       ORLANDO

       Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.

       ROSALIND

       Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon when he show’d me your handkercher?

       ORLANDO

       Ay, and greater wonders than that.

       ROSALIND

       O, I know where you are:—nay, ‘tis true: there was never anything so sudden but the fight of two rams and Caesar’s thrasonical brag of “I came, saw, and overcame:” for your brother and my sister no sooner met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but they loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed; no sooner sighed, but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason, but they sought the remedy: and in these degrees have they made pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage: they are in the very wrath of love, and they will together: clubs cannot part them.

       ORLANDO

       They shall be married tomorrow; and I will bid the duke to the nuptial. But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes! By so much the more shall I tomorrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall think my brother happy in having what he wishes for.

       ROSALIND

       Why, then, tomorrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?

       ORLANDO

       I can live no longer by thinking.

       ROSALIND

       I will weary you, then, no longer with idle talking. Know of me then,—for now I speak to some purpose,—that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I speak not this that you should bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know you are; neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in some little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good, and not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things: I have, since I was three year old, conversed with a magician, most profound in his art and yet not damnable. If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries it out, when your brother marries Aliena, shall you marry her:— I know into what straits of