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As You Like It - Act 4, scene 3
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As You Like It - Act 4, scene 3Act 4, scene 3
Scene 3
Synopsis:
Phoebe sends “Ganymede” a letter offering herself in marriage. As Rosalind and Celia wait for Orlando, they learn that he is late for his appointment with “Ganymede” because he was wounded saving his brother Oliver from attack by a lion.
Enter Rosalind ⌜dressed as Ganymede⌝ and Celia⌜dressed as Aliena.⌝
ROSALIND 2199 How say you now? Is it not past two o’clock?
2200 And here much Orlando.
CELIA 2201 I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain
2202 he hath ta’en his bow and arrows and is gone forth
2203 5 to sleep.
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Enter Silvius.2204 Look who comes here.
SILVIUS, ⌜to Rosalind⌝
2205 My errand is to you, fair youth.
2206 My gentle Phoebe did bid me give you this.
⌜He gives Rosalind a paper.⌝
2207 I know not the contents, but as I guess
2208 10 By the stern brow and waspish action
2209 Which she did use as she was writing of it,
2210 It bears an angry tenor. Pardon me.
2211 I am but as a guiltless messenger.
⌜Rosalind reads the letter.⌝
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝
2212 Patience herself would startle at this letter
2213 15 And play the swaggerer. Bear this, bear all.
2214 She says I am not fair, that I lack manners.
2215 She calls me proud, and that she could not love me
2216 Were man as rare as phoenix. ’Od’s my will,
2217 Her love is not the hare that I do hunt.
2218 20 Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,
2219 This is a letter of your own device.
SILVIUS
2220 No, I protest. I know not the contents.
2221 Phoebe did write it.
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝ 2222 Come, come, you are a
2223 25 fool,
2224 And turned into the extremity of love.
2225 I saw her hand. She has a leathern hand,
2226 A freestone-colored hand. I verily did think
2227 That her old gloves were on, but ’twas her hands.
2228 30 She has a huswife’s hand—but that’s no matter.
2229 I say she never did invent this letter.
2230 This is a man’s invention, and his hand.
SILVIUS 2231 Sure it is hers.
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝
2232 Why, ’tis a boisterous and a cruel style,
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2233
35 A style for challengers. Why, she defies me2234 Like Turk to Christian. Women’s gentle brain
2235 Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention,
2236 Such Ethiop words, blacker in their effect
2237 Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?
SILVIUS
2238 40 So please you, for I never heard it yet,
2239 Yet heard too much of Phoebe’s cruelty.
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝
2240 She Phoebes me. Mark how the tyrant writes.
(Read.)
2241 Art thou god to shepherd turned,
2242 That a maiden’s heart hath burned?
2243 45 Can a woman rail thus?
SILVIUS 2244 Call you this railing?
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝
(Read.)
2245 Why, thy godhead laid apart,
2246 Warr’st thou with a woman’s heart?
2247 Did you ever hear such railing?
2248 50 Whiles the eye of man did woo me,
2249 That could do no vengeance to me.
2250 Meaning me a beast.
2251 If the scorn of your bright eyne
2252 Have power to raise such love in mine,
2253 55 Alack, in me what strange effect
2254 Would they work in mild aspect?
2255 Whiles you chid me, I did love.
2256 How then might your prayers move?
2257 He that brings this love to thee
2258 60 Little knows this love in me,
2259 And by him seal up thy mind
2260 Whether that thy youth and kind
2261 Will the faithful offer take
2262 Of me, and all that I can make,
2263 65 Or else by him my love deny,
2264 And then I’ll study how to die.
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SILVIUS
2265
Call you this chiding?CELIA, ⌜as Aliena⌝ 2266 Alas, poor shepherd.
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝ 2267 Do you pity him? No, he
2268 70 deserves no pity.—Wilt thou love such a woman?
2269 What, to make thee an instrument and play false
2270 strains upon thee? Not to be endured. Well, go your
2271 way to her, for I see love hath made thee a tame
2272 snake, and say this to her: that if she love me, I
2273 75 charge her to love thee; if she will not, I will never
2274 have her unless thou entreat for her. If you be a true
2275 lover, hence, and not a word, for here comes more
2276 company.Silvius exits.
Enter Oliver.
OLIVER
2277 Good morrow, fair ones. Pray you, if you know,
2278 80 Where in the purlieus of this forest stands
2279 A sheepcote fenced about with olive trees?
CELIA, ⌜as Aliena⌝
2280 West of this place, down in the neighbor bottom;
2281 The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream
2282 Left on your right hand brings you to the place.
2283 85 But at this hour the house doth keep itself.
2284 There’s none within.
OLIVER
2285 If that an eye may profit by a tongue,
2286 Then should I know you by description—
2287 Such garments, and such years. “The boy is fair,
2288 90 Of female favor, and bestows himself
2289 Like a ripe sister; the woman low
2290 And browner than her brother.” Are not you
2291 The owner of the house I did inquire for?
CELIA, ⌜as Aliena⌝
2292 It is no boast, being asked, to say we are.
OLIVER
2293 95 Orlando doth commend him to you both,
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2294
And to that youth he calls his Rosalind2295 He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?
⌜He shows a stained handkerchief.⌝
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝
2296 I am. What must we understand by this?
OLIVER
2297 Some of my shame, if you will know of me
2298 100 What man I am, and how, and why, and where
2299 This handkercher was stained.
CELIA, ⌜as Aliena⌝ 2300 I pray you tell it.
OLIVER
2301 When last the young Orlando parted from you,
2302 He left a promise to return again
2303 105 Within an hour, and pacing through the forest,
2304 Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
2305 Lo, what befell. He threw his eye aside—
2306 And mark what object did present itself:
2307 Under an old oak, whose boughs were mossed with
2308 110 age
2309 And high top bald with dry antiquity,
2310 A wretched, ragged man, o’ergrown with hair,
2311 Lay sleeping on his back. About his neck
2312 A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself,
2313 115 Who with her head, nimble in threats, approached
2314 The opening of his mouth. But suddenly,
2315 Seeing Orlando, it unlinked itself
2316 And, with indented glides, did slip away
2317 Into a bush, under which bush’s shade
2318 120 A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,
2319 Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch
2320 When that the sleeping man should stir—for ’tis
2321 The royal disposition of that beast
2322 To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.
2323 125 This seen, Orlando did approach the man
2324 And found it was his brother, his elder brother.
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CELIA, ⌜as Aliena⌝ 2325 O, I have heard him speak of that same brother,
2326 And he did render him the most unnatural
2327 That lived amongst men.
OLIVER 2328 130 And well he might so do,
2329 For well I know he was unnatural.
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝
2330 But to Orlando: did he leave him there,
2331 Food to the sucked and hungry lioness?
OLIVER
2332 Twice did he turn his back and purposed so,
2333 135 But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,
2334 And nature, stronger than his just occasion,
2335 Made him give battle to the lioness,
2336 Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling,
2337 From miserable slumber I awaked.
CELIA, ⌜as Aliena⌝ 2338 140Are you his brother?
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝ 2339 Was ’t you he rescued?
CELIA, ⌜as Aliena⌝
2340 Was ’t you that did so oft contrive to kill him?
OLIVER
2341 ’Twas I, but ’tis not I. I do not shame
2342 To tell you what I was, since my conversion
2343 145 So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝
2344 But for the bloody napkin?
OLIVER 2345 By and by.
2346 When from the first to last betwixt us two
2347 Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed—
2348 150 As how I came into that desert place—
2349 ⌜In⌝ brief, he led me to the gentle duke,
2350 Who gave me fresh array and entertainment,
2351 Committing me unto my brother’s love;
2352 Who led me instantly unto his cave,
2353 155 There stripped himself, and here upon his arm
2354 The lioness had torn some flesh away,
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2355
Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted,2356 And cried in fainting upon Rosalind.
2357 Brief, I recovered him, bound up his wound,
2358 160 And after some small space, being strong at heart,
2359 He sent me hither, stranger as I am,
2360 To tell this story, that you might excuse
2361 His broken promise, and to give this napkin
2362 Dyed in ⌜his⌝ blood unto the shepherd youth
2363 165 That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.
⌜Rosalind faints.⌝
CELIA, ⌜as Aliena⌝
2364 Why, how now, Ganymede, sweet Ganymede?
OLIVER
2365 Many will swoon when they do look on blood.
CELIA, ⌜as Aliena⌝
2366 There is more in it.—Cousin Ganymede.
OLIVER 2367 Look, he recovers.
ROSALIND 2368 170I would I were at home.
CELIA, ⌜as Aliena⌝ 2369 We’ll lead you thither.—I pray you,
2370 will you take him by the arm?
OLIVER, ⌜helping Rosalind to rise⌝ 2371 Be of good cheer,
2372 youth. You a man? You lack a man’s heart.
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝ 2373 175I do so, I confess it. Ah,
2374 sirrah, a body would think this was well-counterfeited.
2375 I pray you tell your brother how well I
2376 counterfeited. Heigh-ho.
OLIVER 2377 This was not counterfeit. There is too great
2378 180 testimony in your complexion that it was a passion
2379 of earnest.
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝ 2380 Counterfeit, I assure you.
OLIVER 2381 Well then, take a good heart, and counterfeit to
2382 be a man.
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝ 2383 185So I do; but, i’ faith, I should
2384 have been a woman by right.
CELIA, ⌜as Aliena⌝ 2385 Come, you look paler and paler. Pray
2386 you draw homewards.—Good sir, go with us.
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OLIVER 2387 That will I, for I must bear answer back
2388 190 How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.
ROSALIND, ⌜as Ganymede⌝ 2389 I shall devise something.
2390 But I pray you commend my counterfeiting to him.
2391 Will you go?
They exit.