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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 passed upon her; she is banished.

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Cel. Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege: I cannot live out of her company.

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Duke F. You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself: If you outstay the time, upon mine honor, And in the greatness of my word, you die.

[Exeunt Duke Frederick and Lords.
Cel. O my poor Rosalind, whither 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;
Prithee, be cheerful: know'st thou not, the duke
Hath banished 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 sundered? 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,

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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

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And with a kind of umber smirch my face;
The like do you: so shall we pass along

And never stir assailants.

Were it not better,

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,

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.

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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 called?

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

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Ros. But, cousin, what if we assayed 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.

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[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I. The Forest of Arden.

Enter Duke Senior, Amiens, and two or three Lords, like foresters.

Duke S. 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

More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,

The season's 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
That feelingly persuade me what I am."
Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

ΤΟ

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life exempt from public haunt

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Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones and good in every thing.

Ami. I would not change it. 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

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Have their round haunches gored.

First Lord.

Indeed, my lord,

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The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,
And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp
Than doth your brother that hath banished you.
To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself

Did steal behind him as he lay along

Under an oak whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood:
To the which place a poor sequestered stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans

That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

Duke S.

But what said Jaques?

Did he not moralize this spectacle?

First Lord. O, yes, into a thousand similes.

First, for his weeping into the needless stream;

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"Poor deer," quoth he, "thou makest a testament

As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

To that which had too much: " then, being there alone, Left and abandoned of his velvet friends,

""Tis right," quoth he; "thus misery doth part

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The flux of company: ""

anon a careless herd,

Full of the pasture, jumps along by him

look

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And never stays to greet him; "Ay," quoth Jaques,
"Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?"
Thus most invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court,
Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse,
To fright the animals and to kill them up
In their assigned and native dwelling-place.

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Duke S. And did you leave him in this contemplation? Sec. Lord. We did, my lord, weeping and comment

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First Lord. I'll bring you to him straight.

[Exeunt

Scene II. A room in the palace.

Enter Duke Frederick, with Lords.

Duke F. Can it be possible that no man saw them?

It cannot be some villains of my court

Are of consent and sufferance in this.

First Lord. I cannot hear of any that did see her.

The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,

Saw her a-bed, and in the morning early

They found the bed untreasured of their mistress.

Sec. Lord.

oft

My Lord, the roynish clown, at whom so

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