ARKCODEX
Act I, Scene 3
1A room in the palace.
2Enter Celia and Rosalind.
3CeliaWhy, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! not a word?
4RosalindNot one to throw at a dog.
5CeliaNo, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs; throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.
6RosalindThen there were two cousins laid up; when the one should be lamed with reasons and the other mad without any.
7CeliaBut is all this for your father?
8RosalindNo, some of it is for my child’s father. O, how full of briers is this working-day world!
9CeliaThey are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery: if we walk not in the trodden paths our very petticoats will catch them.
10RosalindI could shake them off my coat: these burs are in my heart.
11CeliaHem them away.
12RosalindI would try, if I could cry “hem” and have him.
13CeliaCome, come, wrestle with thy affections.
14RosalindO, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself!
15CeliaO, a good wish upon you! you will try in time, in despite of a fall. But, turning these jests out of service, let us talk in good earnest: is it possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?
16RosalindThe duke my father loved his father dearly.
17CeliaDoth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate not Orlando.
18RosalindNo, faith, hate him not, for my sake.
19CeliaWhy should I not? doth he not deserve well?
20RosalindLet me love him for that, and do you love him because I do. Look, here comes the duke.
21CeliaWith his eyes full of anger.
22Enter Duke Frederick, with Lords.
23Duke FrederickMistress, dispatch you with your safest haste
And get you from our court.
24RosalindMe, uncle?
25Duke FrederickYou, cousin
Within these ten days if that thou be’st found
So near our public court as twenty miles,
Thou diest for it.
26RosalindI do beseech your grace,
Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me:
If with myself I hold intelligence
Or have acquaintance with mine own desires,
If that I do not dream or be not frantic—
As I do trust I am not—then, dear uncle,
Never so much as in a thought unborn
Did I offend your highness.
27Duke FrederickThus do all traitors:
If their purgation did consist in words,
They are as innocent as grace itself:
Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.
28RosalindYet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor:
Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.
29Duke FrederickThou art thy father’s daughter; there’s enough.
30RosalindSo was I when your highness took his dukedom;
So was I when your highness banish’d him:
Treason is not inherited, my lord;
Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
What’s that to me? my father was no traitor:
Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
To think my poverty is treacherous.
31CeliaDear sovereign, hear me speak.
32Duke FrederickAy, Celia; we stay’d her for your sake,
Else had she with her father ranged along.
33CeliaI did not then entreat to have her stay;
It was your pleasure and your own remorse:
I was too young that time to value her;
But now I know her: if she be a traitor,
Why so am I; we still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learn’d, play’d, eat together,
And wheresoever we went, like Juno’s swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable.
34Duke FrederickShe is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,
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.
35CeliaPronounce that sentence then on me, my liege:
I cannot live out of her company.
36Duke FrederickYou are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself:
If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,
And in the greatness of my word, you die. Exeunt Duke Frederick and Lords.
37CeliaO 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.
38RosalindI have more cause.
39CeliaThou hast not, cousin;
Prithee be cheerful: know’st thou not, the duke
Hath banish’d me, his daughter?
40RosalindThat he hath not.
41CeliaNo, 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.
42RosalindWhy, whither shall we go?
43CeliaTo seek my uncle in the forest of Arden.
44RosalindAlas, what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
45CeliaI’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.
46RosalindWere it not better,
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.
47CeliaWhat shall I call thee when thou art a man?
48RosalindI’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?
49CeliaSomething that hath a reference to my state
No longer Celia, but Aliena.
50RosalindBut, 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?
51CeliaHe’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.