William Shakespeare - Ultimate Collection: Complete Plays & Poetry in One Volume. William Shakespeare

Good mother, fetch my bail.—Stay, royal sir;

       [Exit WIDOW.]

       The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for,

       And he shall surety me. But for this lord

       Who hath abus’d me as he knows himself,

       Though yet he never harm’d me, here I quit him:

       He knows himself my bed he hath defil’d;

       And at that time he got his wife with child.

       Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick;

       So there’s my riddle:—One that’s dead is quick;

       And now behold the meaning.

       [Re-enter Widow with HELENA.]

       KING.

       Is there no exorcist

       Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?

       Is’t real that I see?

       HELENA.

       No, my good lord;

       ‘Tis but the shadow of a wife you see—

       The name, and not the thing.

       BERTRAM.

       Both, both; O, pardon!

       HELENA.

       O, my good lord, when I was like this maid;

       I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring,

       And, look you, here’s your letter. This it says,

       ‘When from my finger you can get this ring,

       And are by me with child, &c.’— This is done:

       Will you be mine now you are doubly won?

       BERTRAM.

       If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,

       I’ll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.

       HELENA.

       If it appear not plain, and prove untrue,

       Deadly divorce step between me and you!—

       O my dear mother, do I see you living?

       LAFEU. Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon:— Good Tom Drum [to PAROLLES], lend me a handkercher: so, I thank thee; wait on me home, I’ll make sport with thee: let thy courtesies alone, they are scurvy ones.

       KING.

       Let us from point to point this story know,

       To make the even truth in pleasure flow:—

       If thou beest yet a fresh uncropped flower,

       [To DIANA.]

       Choose thou thy husband, and I’ll pay thy dower;

       For I can guess that, by thy honest aid,

       Thou kept’st a wife herself, thyself a maid.

       Of that and all the progress, more and less,

       Resolvedly more leisure shall express:

       All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,

       The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.

       [Flourish.]

       The king’s a beggar, now the play is done;

       All is well-ended if this suit be won,

       That you express content; which we will pay

       With strife to please you, day exceeding day:

       Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;

       Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.

       [Exeunt.]

       THE END

      AS YOU LIKE IT

       Table of Contents

      By William Shakespeare

       Persons Represented

       DUKE, living in exile

       FREDERICK, Brother to the Duke, and Usurper of his Dominions

       AMIENS, Lord attending on the Duke in his Banishment

       JAQUES, Lord attending on the Duke in his Banishment

       LE BEAU, a Courtier attending upon Frederick

       CHARLES, his Wrestler

       OLIVER, Son of Sir Rowland de Bois

       JAQUES, Son of Sir Rowland de Bois

       ORLANDO, Son of Sir Rowland de Bois

       ADAM, Servant to Oliver

       DENNIS, Servant to Oliver

       TOUCHSTONE, a Clown

       SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a Vicar

       CORIN, Shepherd

       SILVIUS, Shepherd

       WILLIAM, a Country Fellow, in love with Audrey

       A person representing HYMEN

       ROSALIND, Daughter to the banished Duke

       CELIA, Daughter to Frederick

       PHEBE, a Shepherdess

       AUDREY, a Country Wench

       Lords belonging to the two Dukes; Pages, Foresters, and other Attendants.

       The SCENE lies first near OLIVER’S house;

       afterwards partly in the Usurper’s court

       and partly in the Forest of Arden.

       ACT I

      SCENE I. An Orchard near OLIVER’S house

       [Enter ORLANDO and ADAM.]

       ORLANDO

       As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion,—bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou say’st, charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well: and there 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