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

dear uncle,

       Never so much as in a thought unborn

       Did I offend your highness.

       DUKE FREDERICK

       Thus do all traitors;

       If their purgation did consist in words,

       They are as innocent as grace itself:—

       Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.

       ROSALIND

       Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor:

       Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.

       DUKE FREDERICK

       Thou art thy father’s daughter; there’s enough.

       ROSALIND

       So was I when your highness took his dukedom;

       So was I when your highness banish’d him:

       Treason is not inherited, my lord:

       Or, if we did derive it from our friends,

       What’s that to me? my father was no traitor!

       Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much

       To think my poverty is treacherous.

       CELIA

       Dear sovereign, hear me speak.

       DUKE FREDERICK

       Ay, Celia: we stay’d her for your sake,

       Else had she with her father rang’d along.

       CELIA

       I did not then entreat to have her stay;

       It was your pleasure, and your own remorse:

       I was too young that time to value her;

       But now I know her: if she be a traitor,

       Why so am I: we still have slept together,

       Rose at an instant, learn’d, play’d, eat together;

       And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans,

       Still we went coupled and inseparable.

       DUKE FREDERICK

       She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,

       Her very silence, and her patience

       Speak to the people, and they pity her.

       Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name;

       And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous

       When she is gone: then open not thy lips;

       Firm and irrevocable is my doom

       Which I have pass’d upon her;—she is banish’d.

       CELIA

       Pronounce that sentence, then, on me, my liege:

       I cannot live out of her company.

       DUKE FREDERICK

       You are a fool.—You, niece, provide yourself:

       If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,

       And in the greatness of my word, you die.

       [Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK and Lords.]

       CELIA

       O my poor Rosalind! whither wilt thou go?

       Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.

       I charge thee be not thou more griev’d than I am.

       ROSALIND

       I have more cause.

       CELIA

       Thou hast not, cousin;

       Pr’ythee be cheerful: know’st thou not the duke

       Hath banish’d me, his daughter?

       ROSALIND

       That he hath not.

       CELIA

       No! hath not? Rosalind lacks, then, the love

       Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one:

       Shall we be sund’red? shall we part, sweet girl?

       No; let my father seek another heir.

       Therefore devise with me how we may fly,

       Whither to go, and what to bear with us:

       And do not seek to take your charge upon you,

       To bear your griefs yourself, and leave me out;

       For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,

       Say what thou canst, I’ll go along with thee.

       ROSALIND

       Why, whither shall we go?

       CELIA

       To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.

       ROSALIND

       Alas! what danger will it be to us,

       Maids as we are, to travel forth so far?

       Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

       CELIA

       I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire,

       And with a kind of umber smirch my face;

       The like do you; so shall we pass along,

       And never stir assailants.

       ROSALIND

       Were it not better,

       Because that I am more than common tall,

       That I did suit me all points like a man?

       A gallant curtleaxe upon my thigh,

       A boar spear in my hand; and,—in my heart

       Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will,—

       We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside,

       As many other mannish cowards have

       That do outface it with their semblances.

       CELIA

       What shall I call thee when thou art a man?

       ROSALIND

       I’ll have no worse a name than Jove’s own page,

       And, therefore, look you call me Ganymede.

       But what will you be call’d?

       CELIA

       Something that hath a reference to my state:

       No longer Celia, but Aliena.

       ROSALIND

       But, cousin, what if we assay’d to steal

       The clownish fool out of your father’s court?

       Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

       CELIA

       He’ll go along o’er the wide world with me;

       Leave me alone to woo him. Let’s away,

       And get our jewels and our wealth together;

       Devise the fittest time and safest way

       To hide us from pursuit that will be made

       After my flight. Now go we in content

       To liberty, and not to banishment.

       [Exeunt.]

       ACT II

      SCENE I. The Forest of Arden

       [Enter DUKE Senior, AMIENS, and other LORDS, in the dress of foresters.]

       DUKE SENIOR

       Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,

       Hath not old custom made this life more sweet

       Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods