Can a woman rail thus? Sil. Call you this railing? Ros. Why, thy godhead laid apart, Warr'st thou with a woman's heart? Did you ever hear such railing?— Whiles the eye of man did woo me, Meaning me a beast. If the scorn of your bright eyne Sil. Call you this chiding? Cel. Alas, poor shepherd! Ros. Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity.— Wilt thou love such a woman?-What, to make thee an instrument, and play false strains upon thee! not to be endured!-Well, go your way to her, (for see, love hath made thee a tame snake,) and say I vengeance] is used for mischief. ·youth and kind—] Kind is the old word for nature, all that I can make;] i. e. raise as profit from any thing. I see, love hath made thee a tame snake,)] This term was, VOL. III. this to her;-That if she love me, I charge her to love thee: if she will not, I will never have her, unless thou entreat for her.-If you be a true lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes more company. [Exit SILVIUS. Enter OLIVer. Oli. Good-morrow, fair ones: Pray you, know Where, in the purlieus of this forest, stands if you Cel. West of this place, down in the neighbour The rank of osiers, by the murmuring stream, Oli. If that an eye may profit by a tongue, Cel. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say, we are. in our author's time, frequently used to express a poor contemptible fellow. purlieus of this forest,] Purlieu, says Manwood's Treatise on the Forest Laws, c. xx. " Is a certaine territorie of ground adjoyning unto the forest, meared and bounded with unmoveable marks, meeres, and boundaries: which territories of ground was also forest, and afterwards disaforested againe by the perambulations made for the severing of the new forest from the old." napkin;] i. e. handkerchief. REED. Ros. I am: What must we understand by this? Oli. Some of my shame; if you will know of me What man I am, and how, and why, and where This handkerchief was stain'd. Cel. I pray you, tell it. Oli. When last the young Orlando parted from you, He left a promise to return again Within an hour; and, pacing through the forest, wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair, Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch, To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead: And found it was his brother, his elder brother. Çel. O, I have heard him speak of that same brother; And he did renders him the most unnatural That liv'd 'mongst men. And well he might so do, Oli. 8 And he did render him-] i. e. describe him. Ros. But, to Orlando;-Did he leave him there, Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness? Oli. Twice did he turn his back, and purpos'd so: But kindness, nobler ever than revenge, And nature, stronger than his just occasion, Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling' Cel. Are you his brother? Ros. Was it you he rescu'd? Cel. Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him? Oli. 'Twas I; but 'tis not I: I do not shame Oli. There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm The lioness had torn some flesh away, Which all this while had 'bled; and now he fainted, And cry'd, in fainting, upon Rosalind. Brief, I recover'd him; bound up his wound; And, after some small space, being strong at heart, He sent me hither, stranger as I am, To tell this story, that you might excuse His broken promise, and to give this napkin, 9 in which hurtling-] To hurtle is to move with impetuosity and tumult. Cel. Why, how now, Ganymede? sweet Gany [ROSALIND faints. mede? Oli. Many will swoon when they do look on blood. Cel. There is more in it:-Cousin-Ganymede!1 Oli. Look, he recovers. Ros. I would, I were at home. Cel. We'll lead you thither:- Oli. Be of good cheer, youth:-You a man?You lack a man's heart. Ros. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sir, a body would think this was well counterfeited: I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited.-Heigh ho! Oli. This was not counterfeit; there is too great testimony in your complexion, your complexion, that it was a passion of earnest. Ros. Counterfeit, I assure you. Oli. Well then, take a good heart, and counterfeit to be a man. Ros. So I do: but, i'faith I should have been a woman by right. Cel. Come, you look paler and paler; pray you, draw homewards:-Good sir, go with us. Oli. That will I, for I must bear answer back How you excuse my brother, Rosalind. Ros. I shall devise something: But, I pray you, commend my counterfeiting to him:-Will you go? [Exeunt. Cousin-Ganymede!] Celia, in her first fright, forgets Rosalind's character and disguise, and calls out cousin, then recollects herself, and says, Ganymede. JOHNSON. |