Exeunt.
¶
ACT V
Scene I
Enter Clown [Touchstone] and Audrey.
Touch. We shall find a time, Audrey, patience, gentle Audrey.
Aud. Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old gentleman’s saying.
Touch. A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to you.
Aud. Ay, I know who ’tis; he hath no interest in me in the world. Here comes the man you mean.
Enter William.
Touch. It is meat and drink to me to see a clown. By my troth, we that have good wits have much to answer for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold.
Will. Good ev’n, Audrey.
Aud. God ye good ev’n, William.
Will. And good ev’n to you, sir.
Touch. Good ev’n, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy head; nay, prithee be cover’d. How old are you, friend?
Will. Five and twenty, sir.
Touch. A ripe age. Is thy name William?
Will. William, sir.
Touch. A fair name. Wast born i’ the forest here?
Will. Ay, sir, I thank God.
Touch. “Thank God‘—a good answer. Art rich?
Will. Faith, sir, so, so.
Touch. “So, so” is good, very good, very excellent good; and yet it is not, it is but so, so. Art thou wise?
Will. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.
Touch. Why, thou say’st well. I do now remember a saying, “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth, meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do love this maid?
Will. I do, [sir].
Touch. Give me your hand. Art thou learned?
Will. No, sir.
Touch. Then learn this of me: to have, is to have. For it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being pour’d out of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other. For all your writers do consent that ipse is he: now, you are not ipse, for I am he.
Will. Which he, sir?
Touch. He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you clown, abandon—which is in the vulgar leave—the society—which in the boorish is company—of this female—which in the common is woman; which together is, abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou perishest; or to thy better understanding, diest; or (to wit) I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage. I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction; I will o’errun thee with [policy]; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways: therefore tremble and depart.
Aud. Do, good William.
Will. God rest you merry, sir.
Exit.
Enter Corin.
Cor. Our master and mistress seeks you. Come away, away!
Touch. Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey! I attend, I attend.
Exeunt.
¶
Scene II
Enter Orlando and Oliver.
Orl. Is’t possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her? that but seeing, you should love her? and loving, woo? and wooing, she should grant? and will you persever to enjoy her?
Oli. Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor [her] sudden consenting; but say with me, I love Aliena; say with her that she loves me; consent with both that we may enjoy each other. It shall be to your good; for my father’s house and all the revenue that was old Sir Rowland’s will I estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.
Enter Rosalind.
Orl. You have my consent. Let your wedding be to- morrow; thither will I invite the Duke and all ’s contented followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for look you, here comes my Rosalind.
Ros. God save you, brother.
Oli. And you, fair sister.
[Exit.]
Ros. O my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf!
Orl. It is my arm.
Ros. I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion.
Orl. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.
Ros. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to sound when he show’d me your handkercher?
Orl. Ay, and greater wonders than that.
Ros. O, I know where you are. Nay, ’tis true. There was never any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams, and Caesar’s thrasonical brag of “I came, saw, and [overcame].” For your brother and my sister no sooner met but they look’d; no sooner look’d but they lov’d; no sooner lov’d but they sigh’d; no sooner sigh’d but they ask’d one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy: and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage. They are in the very wrath of love, and they will together. Clubs cannot part them.
Orl. They shall be married to-morrow; and I will bid the Duke to the nuptial. But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes! By so much the more shall I to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall think my brother happy in having what he wishes for.
Ros. Why then to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?
Orl. I can live no longer by thinking.
Ros. I will weary you then no longer with idle talking. Know of me then (for now I speak to some purpose) that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit. I speak not this that you should bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know you are; neither do I labor for a greater esteem than may in some little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good, and not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things. I have, since I was three year old, convers’d with a magician, most profound in his art, and yet not damnable. If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries it out, when your brother marries Aliena, shall you marry her. I know into what straits of fortune she is driven, and it is not impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient to you, to set her before your eyes to-morrow, human as she is, and without any danger.
Orl. Speak’st thou in sober meanings?
Ros.