As You Like It by William Shakespeare (knowledgeable books to read TXT) 📕

Rosalind, for wife. Rosalind I might ask you for your commission; but I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband: there’s a girl goes before the priest; and certainly a woman’s thought runs before her actions. Orlando So do all thoughts; they are winged. Rosalind Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed her. Orlando For ever and a day. Rosalind Say “a day,” without the “ever.” No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou art inclined to sleep. Orlando But will my Rosalind do so? Rosalind By my life, she will do as I do. Orlando O, but she is wise. Rosalind Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman’s wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and ’twill out at the key-hole; stop that, ’twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney. Orlando A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say “Wit, whither wilt?” Rosalind Nay, you might keep that cheque for it till you met your wife’s wit going to your neighbour’s bed. Orlando And what wit could wit have to excuse that? Rosalind Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never take her without her answer, unless you take her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband’s occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool! Orlando For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee. Rosalind Alas! dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours. Orlando I must attend the duke at dinner: by two o’clock I will be with thee again. Rosalind Ay, go your ways, go your ways; I knew what you would prove: my friends told me as much, and I thought no less: that flattering tongue of yours won me: ’tis but one cast away, and so, come, death! Two o’clock is your hour? Orlando Ay, sweet Rosalind. Rosalind By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot of your promise or come one minute behind your hour, I will think you the most pathetical break-promise and the most hollow lover and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind that may be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful: therefore beware my censure and keep your promise. Orlando With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind: so adieu. Rosalind Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try: adieu. Exit Orlando. Celia You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate: we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest. Rosalind O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal. Celia Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour affection in, it runs out. Rosalind No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness, that blind rascally boy that abuses every one’s eyes because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I am in love. I’ll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando: I’ll go find a shadow and sigh till he come. Celia And I’ll sleep. Exeunt. Scene II

The forest.

Enter Jaques, Lords, and Foresters. Jaques Which is he that killed the deer? A Lord Sir, it was I. Jaques Let’s present him to the duke, like a Roman conqueror; and it would do well to set the deer’s horns upon his head, for a branch of victory. Have you no song, forester, for this purpose? Forester Yes, sir. Jaques Sing it: ’tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough. Song. Forester

What shall he have that kill’d the deer?
His leather skin and horns to wear.
Then sing him home; The rest shall bear this burden.
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;
It was a crest ere thou wast born:
Thy father’s father wore it,
And thy father bore it:
The horn, the horn, the lusty horn
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn. Exeunt.

Scene III

The forest.

Enter Rosalind and Celia. Rosalind How say you now? Is it not past two o’clock? and here much Orlando! Celia I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath ta’en his bow and arrows and is gone forth to sleep. Look, who comes here. Enter Silvius. Silvius

My errand is to you, fair youth;
My gentle Phebe bid me give you this:
I know not the contents; but, as I guess
By the stern brow and waspish action
Which she did use as she was writing of it,
It bears an angry tenor: pardon me:
I am but as a guiltless messenger.

Rosalind

Patience herself would startle at this letter
And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all:
She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;
She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
Were man as rare as phoenix. ‘Od’s my will!
Her love is not the hare that I do hunt:
Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,
This is a letter of your own device.

Silvius

No, I protest, I know not the contents:
Phebe did write