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 F. She is too subtle for thee; and her smooth

ness,

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.

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

I cannot live out of her company.

DUKE F. You are a fool. You, niece, provide your

self:

If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,
And in the greatness of my word, you die.

[Exeunt Duke Frederick and Lords.
CEL. O my poor Rosalind, wither wilt thou go?
Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.
Ros. I have more cause.
CEL.

Thou hast not, cousin;

Ovid asso

71 like Juno's swans] There is nothing in classical mythology to justify this simile, which seems due to an error of memory. ciates Venus and not Juno with swans. Cf. Met., X, 708 seq. Shakespeare mentions "Venus' doves" seven times in the course of his works, but he ignores her swans.

70

80

Prithee, be cheerful: know'st thou not, the Duke
Hath banish'd me, his daughter?

Ros.

That he hath not.

CEL. No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love
Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one:
Shall we be sunder'd? 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 change 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.
Ros. Why, whither shall we go?

CEL. To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden.
Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

CEL. 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.

90

100

Were it not better,

110

Ros.
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,

98 your change] For this reading of the First Folio the Second and later Folios substituted your charge, which seems to improve the sense. But the original reading change, i. e. "reverse of fortune," may be right.

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.

CEL. What shall I call thee when thou art a man? Ros. 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?

CEL. Something that hath a reference to my state; No longer Celia, but Aliena.

Ros. 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?

CEL. 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.

121

130

Enter DUKE senior, AMIENS, and two or three Lords,

DUKE S.

EST

like foresters

OW, 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

More free from peril than the
envious court?

Here feel we but the penalty of
Adam,

The seasons' difference; as the
icy fang

And churlish chiding of the
winter's wind,

Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
"This is no flattery: these are counsellors

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That feelingly persuade me what I am.”
Sweet are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head:

And this our life exempt from public haunt

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones and good in every thing.

I would not change it.

AMI.

Happy is your Grace,

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

DUKE S. Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,

Being native burghers of this desert city,

Should in their own confines with forked heads

Have their round haunches gored.

14 precious jewel in his head] Cf. Lyly's Euphues: “The foule Toade hath a faire stone in his head" (ed. Arber, p. 53). The ignorant popular belief, that a toad carried a precious stone in its head, which was universal in Shakespeare's day, is apparently derived from the fact that a stone or gem, chiefly found in Egypt, is of the brownish gray colour of toads, and is therefore called a batrachite or toadstone. Pliny in his Natural History (Book 32) ascribes to a bone in the toad's head curative and other properties, but does not suggest that a gem is ever found there. In his description elsewhere of the toadstones of Egypt he only notes their association with toads in the way of colour.

24 forked heads] arrow heads. Roger Ascham, in Toxophilus (ed. Arber, p. 135), mentions that arrow heads, "having two points streching forwards," are commonly called "fork heads." Cf. Lear, I, i, 143, where the arrow-head is called "the fork."

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