AS YOU LIKE IT. Sidney Lee

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

       [To DUKE SENIOR.] I’ll have no father, if you be not he;—

       [To ORLANDO.] I’ll have no husband, if you be not he;—

       [To PHEBE.] 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.

       [To ORLANDO and ROSALIND.] You and you no cross shall part:

       [To OLIVER and CELIA.] You and you are heart in heart;

       [To PHEBE.] You to his love must accord,

       Or have a woman to your lord:—

       [To TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY.] You and you are sure together,

       As the winter to foul weather.

       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 honourèd;

       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

       [To SILVIUS.] I will not eat my word, now thou art mine;

       Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.

       [Enter JAQUES DE BOIS.]

       JAQUES DE BOIS

       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 exil’d. This to be true

       I do engage my life.

       DUKE SENIOR

       Welcome, young man:

       Thou offer’st fairly to thy brother’s 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 endur’d shrewd days and nights with us,

       Shall share the good of our returnèd fortune,

       According to the measure of their states.

       Meantime, forget this new-fall’n dignity,

       And fall into our rustic revelry:—

       Play, music!—and you brides and bridegrooms all,

       With measure heap’d in joy, to the measures fall.

       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 BOIS

       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-deservèd 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.

       [A dance.]

EPILOGUE

       Table of Contents

       ROSALIND

       It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ‘tis true that a good play needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in, then,