Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

Such Ethiop words, blacker in their effect

Than in their countenance :-Will you hear the letter?

SIL. So please you, for I never heard it yet; Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty.

Ros. She Phebes me: Mark how the tyrant writes.

Art thou god to shepherd turn'd,
That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?

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,
That could do no vengeance to me.~

Meaning me a beast.

[ocr errors]

[Reads.

If the scorn of your bright eyne
Have power to raise such love in mine,
Alack, in me what strange effect
Would they work in mild aspect?
Whiles you chid me, I did love;
How then might your prayers move?
He, that brings this love to thee,
Little knows this love in me:
And by him seal up thy mind;
Whether that thy youth and kind

She Phebes me] Deals with me after that very fashion, and

in that character.

vengeance] Mischief.

*thy youth and kind] Natural and kindly affections.

Will the faithful offer take
Of me, and all that I can make;*
Or else by him my love deny,

And then I'll study how to die.

SIL. Call you this chiding?
CEL. Alas, poor shepherd!

Ros. Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity. -Wilt you 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 I see, love hath made thee a tame snake,(16) and say 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, if you know

Where, in the purlieus of this forest,(17) stands
A sheep-cote, fenc'd about with olive-trees?

CEL. West of this place, down in the neighbour

bottom,

The rank of oziers, (18) by the murmuring stream, Left on your right hand,' brings you to the place: But at this hour the house doth keep itself, There's none within.

OLI. If that an eye may profit by a tongue, Then I should know you by description;

3

me, and all that I can make] Make up, all that shall be my utmost amount. Johnson instances M. for M. "He's in for a commodity of brown paper; of which he made five marks ready money." Dict.

b

Left on your right hand] Being, as you pass, left.

Such garments, and such years: The boy is fair,
Of female favour, and bestows himself
Like a ripe sister: but the woman low,(19)
And browner than her brother. Are not you
The owner of the house I did inquire for?

CEL. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say, we are.
OLI. Orlando doth commend him to you both;
And to that youth, he calls his Rosalind,
He sends this bloody napkin; (20) Are you he?

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,
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
Lo, what befel! he threw his eye aside,

And, mark, what object did present itself!
Under an old oak,

with age,

whose boughs were moss'd

And high top bald with dry antiquity,

A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,
Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck

A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself,
Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd
The opening of his mouth; but suddenly
Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself,
And with indented glides did slip away
Into a bush: under which bush's shade
A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,

Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike

watch,

When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis The royal disposition of that beast,

(22)

To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead;
This seen, Orlando did approach the man,
And found it was his brother, his elder brother.
CEL. O, I have heard him speak of that same
brother;

And he did render him the most unnatural"
That liv'd 'mongst men.

OLI.

And well he might so do,

For well I know he was unnatural.

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,"
Made him give battle to the lioness,

Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling
From miserable slumber I awak'd.

CEL. Are you his brother?

Ros.

c

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 To tell you what I was, since my conversion So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.

Ros. But, for the bloody napkin ?

OLI.

By, and by.

When from the first to last, betwixt us two,

And he did render him-] Represent, account.
"May drive us to a render where we have liv'd."
Cymb. STEEVENS.

stronger than his just occasion] Such reasonable ground, as might have amply justified, or given just occasion for abandoning him. See Rosal. IV. 1.

hurtling] Clashing, conflict. See

"The noise of battle hurtled in the air."

Jul. C. II. 2. Calph.

Tears our recountments had most kindly bath'd,"
As, how I came into that desert place ;-
In brief, he led me to the gentle duke,
Who gave me fresh array, and entertainment,
Committing me unto my brother's love;
Who led me instantly unto his cave,
There stripp'd himself, and here upon his
The lioness had torn some flesh away,

arm

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
Dy'd in this blood; unto the shepherd youth
That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.

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! (23)

OLI. Look, he recovers.

Ros.

CEL. We'll lead

you

I would, I were at home. thither :

I pray you, will you take him by the arm?
OLI. Be of good cheer, youth :-You a man?-
You lack a man's heart.

b

Ros. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirra, a body would think this was well counterfeited: I pray

Tears our recountments had most kindly bath'd,

As, how-] i. e. with a train of circumstances, "As how." b Ah, sirra, a body would think this was well counterfeited] Yet, scarce more than half in possession of herself, in her flutter and tremulous articulation, she adds to one word the first letter, or article, of the succeeding one. For this, the reading of the folios, the modern editors give sir.

« AnteriorContinuar »