As You Like It

William Shakespeare

• Publisher: HarperPerennial Classics
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781443443265
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Théâtre shakespearien

Disguised as a man, Rosalind, along with her cousin Celia, flees her uncle's court. Finding refuge in the Forest of Arden, they are reunited with Rosalind's father, an exiled duke, and Orlando—also exiled and pining for his lost love, Rosalind. Still in disguise, Rosalind undertakes to help Orlando reunite with his beloved, while herself fighting off the advances of the shepherdess, Phebe.

Known as "The Bard of Avon, " William Shakespeare is arguably the greatest English-language writer known. Enormously popular during his life, Shakespeare's works continue to resonate more than three centuries after his death, as has his influence on theatre and literature. Shakespeare's innovative use of character, language, and experimentation with romance as tragedy served as a foundation for later playwrights and dramatists, and some of his most famous lines of dialogue have become part of everyday speech.

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ACT THREE

SCENE I. The palace.

Enter DUKE FREDERICK, OLIVER, and Lards.

DUKE FREDERICK Not see him since! Sir, sir, that cannot be.

But were I not the better part made mercy,

I should not seek an absent argument

Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it:

[5]

Find out thy brother wheresoe’er he is;

Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living

Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more

To seek a living in our territory.

Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine

[10]

Worth seizure do we seize into our hands,

Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother’s mouth

Of what we think against thee.

OLIVER O that your Highness knew my heart in this!

I never lov’d my brother in my life.

[15]

DUKE FREDERICK More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors;

And let my officers of such a nature

Make an extent upon his house and lands.

Do this expediently, and turn him going.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. The forest.

Enter ORLANDO, with a paper.

ORLANDO Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love;

And thou, thrice-crowned Queen of Night, survey

With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,

Thy huntress’ name that my full life doth sway.

[5]

O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books,

And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character,

That every eye which in this forest looks

Shall see thy virtue witness’d every where.

Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree,

[10]

The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.

[Exit.

Enter CORIN and TOUCHSTONE.

[12]

CORIN And how like you this shepherd’s life, Master Touchstone?

[21]

TOUCHSTONE Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself; it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd’s life, it is nought. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?

CORIN No more but that I know the more one sickens the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding, or comes of a very dull kindred.

[30]

TOUCHSTONE Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd?

CORIN No, truly.

TOUCHSTONE Then thou art damn’d.

CORIN Nay, I hope.

[35]

TOUCHSTONE Truly, thou art damn’d, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side

CORIN For not being at court? Your reason.

[40]

TOUCHSTONE Why, if thou never wast at court thou never saw’st good manners; if thou never saw’st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.

[45]

CORIN Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not at the court, but you kiss your hands; that courtesy would be uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds.

TOUCHSTONE Instance, briefly; come, instance.

CORIN Why, we are still handling our ewes; and their fells, you know, are greasy.

[51]

TOUCHSTONE Why, do not your courtier’s hands sweat? And is not the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance, I say; come.

CORIN Besides, our hands are hard.

[54]

TOUCHSTONE Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again. A more sounder instance; come.

[57]

CORIN And they are often tarr’d over with the surgery of our sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier’s hands are perfum’d with civet.

TOUCHSTONE Most shallow man! thou worm’s meat in respect of a good piece of flesh indeed!

[61]

Learn of the wise, and perpend: civet is of a baser birth than tar – the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd.

CORIN You have too courdy a wit for me; I’ll rest.

[64]

TOUCHSTONE Wilt thou rest damn’d? God help thee, shallow man! God make incision in thee! thou art raw.

[68]

CORIN Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness; glad of other men’s good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.

[75]

TOUCHSTONE That is another simple sin in you: to bring the ewes and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a bell-wether, and to betray a she-lamb of a twelvemonth to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not damn’d for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst scape.

CORIN Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress’s brother.

Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper.

[80]

ROSALIND ‘From the east to western Inde, No jewel is like Rosalinde. Her worth, being mounted on the wind,

Through all the world bears Rosalinde.

All the pictures fairest lin’d

Are but black to Rosalinde.

Let no face be kept in mind

[85]

But the fair of Rosalinde.’

TOUCHSTONE I’ll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners, and suppers, and sleeping hours, excepted. It is the right butter-women’s rank to market.

ROSALIND Out, fool!

[90]

TOUCHSTONE For a taste:

If a hart do lack a hind,

Let him seek out Rosalinde.

If the cat will after kind,

So be sure will Rosalinde.

[95]

Winter garments must be lin’d,

So must slender Rosalinde.

They that reap must sheaf and bind,

Then to cart with Rosalinde.

Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,

[100]

Such a nut is Rosalinde.

He that sweetest rose will find

Must find love’s prick and Rosalinde.

This is the very false gallop of verses; why do you infect yourself with them?

[105]

ROSALIND Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree

TOUCHSTONE Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.

[110]

ROSALIND I’ll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar. Then it will be the earliest fruit i’ th’ country; or you’ll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that’s the right virtue of the medlar

TOUCHSTONE You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge.

Enter CELIA, with a writing.

ROSAUND Peace!

Here comes my sister, reading; stand aside.

[115]

CELIA ‘Why should this a desert be?

For it is unpeopled? No;

Tongues I’ll hang on every tree...