Flourish. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords,
ORLANDO, CHARLES, and Attendants.

DUKE F. Come on; since the youth will not be entreated, his own peril on his forwardness. Ros. Is yonder the man?

LE BEAU. Even he, madam.

CEL. Alas, he is too young: yet he looks successfully.

DUKE F. How now, daughter and cousin! are you crept hither to see the wrestling?

Ros. Ay, my liege, so please you give us leave. DUKE F. You will take little delight in it, I can tell you, there is such odds in the men.* In pity of the challenger's youth, I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated. Speak to him, ladies; see if you can move him.

CEL. Call him hither, good monsieur Le Beau.
DUKE F. Do so; I'll not be by.

[DUKE goes apart. LE BEAU. Monsieur the challenger, the princesses call for you.

ORL. I attend them with all respect and duty. Ros. Young man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler?

ORL. No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I come but in, as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth.

CEL. Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years: you have seen cruel proof of this man's strength: if you saw yourself with your eyes, or knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to embrace your own safety, and give over this attempt.

Ros. Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore be misprised: we will make it our suit to the duke that the wrestling might not go forward.

ORL. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts; wherein I confess me much guilty," to deny so fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one dead that is willing to be so: I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when I have made it empty.

Ros. The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.

CEL. And mine, to eke out hers.

Ros. Fare you well. Pray heaven I be deceived in you!

CEL. Your heart's desires be with you! CHA. Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth? ORL. Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working.

DUKE F. You shall try but one fall.

CHA. No, I warrant your grace; you shall not entreat him to a second, that have so mightily persuaded him from a first.

ORL. You mean to mock me after; you should not have mocked me before; but come your ways. Ros. Now Hercules be thy speed, young man! CEL. I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg.

[ORLANDO and CHARLES wrestle. Ros. O excellent young man! CEL. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should down.

[CHARLES is thrown. (2) Shout.

DUKE F. No more, no more.

ORL. Yes, I beseech your grace; I am not yet well breathed.

DUKE F. How dost thou, Charles?
LE BEAU. He cannot speak, my lord.
DUKE F. Bear him away.

[CHARLES is borne out. What is thy name, young man? ORL. Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of sir Roland de Bois.

DUKE F. I would thou hadst been son to some
man else.

The world esteem'd thy father honourable,
But I did find him still mine enemy:
Thou shouldst have better pleas'd me with this

deed,

LE BEAU. Neither his daughter, if we judge by But yet, indeed, the lower is his daughter: The other is daughter to the banish'd duke, And here detain'd by her usurping uncle, To keep his daughter company; whose loves Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters. But I can tell you, that of late this duke Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece; Grounded upon no other argument, But that the people praise her for her virtues, And pity her for her good father's sake; And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady Will suddenly break forth.-Sir, fare you well; Hereafter, in a better world than this,

I shall desire more love and knowledge of you. ORL. I rest much bounden to you: fare you well. [Exit LE BEAU. Thus must I from the smoke into the smother; From tyrant duke, unto a tyrant brother:But heavenly Rosalind!

SCENE III.-A Room in the Palace.

Enter CELIA and ROSALIND.

[Exit.

CEL. Why, cousin; why, Rosalind ;-Cupid have mercy!-Not a word?

(*) Old text, taller.

Condition,-] Temper, frame of mind.

b The duke is humorous;] Humorous here means contrarious, perverse, capricious.

For my child's father.] Thus the old text, which, as involving an "indelicate anticipation." is enervated in nearly all the modern editions into "for my father's child." The meaning is simply, as Theobald long ago explained it, "for him whom I hope to marry," and the idea and its expression are perfectly

Ros. I would try, if I could cry hem and have him.

CEL. Come, come, wrestle with thy affections. Ros. O, they take the part of a better wrestle than myself!

CEL. O, 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 Roland's youngest son?

Ros. The duke my father loved his father dearly.

CEL. Doth 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.

Ros. No, 'faith, hate him not, for my sake. CEL. Why should I not? doth he not deserve well?

Ros. Let me love him for that; and do you love him, because I do. Look, here comes the duke.

CEL. With his eyes full of anger.

Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords. DUKE F. Mistress, despatch you with your safest haste,

And get you from our court.

Ros.

Me, uncle?

DUKE F. You, cousin. Within these ten days if that thou be'st found So near our public court as twenty miles, Thou diest for it.

conformable to the freedom of thought and speech in Shakespeare's age. It is remarkable that Rowe, who first suggested, and all the editors who have since adopted, the prudish substitution of "my father's child," should have overlooked its obvious incompatibility with Rosalind's subsequent observation :

"I would try, if I could cry hem and have him."

d For my father hated his father dearly;] See note on the word dear, in "Hamlet," Act I. Sc. 2 :

"Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven.",

Ros. So was I when your highness took his 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.

CEL. Dear sovereign, hear me speak. [sake, DUKE F. Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your Else had she with her father rang'd along.

CEL. I 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 wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans, Still we went coupled and inseparable.(4)

DUKE F. She 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. CEL. Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege;

I cannot live out of her company.

[yourself;

DUKE F. You are a fool.-You, niece, provide If you outstay the time, upon mine honour, And in the greatness of my word, you die.

[Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK and Lords. CEL. O my poor Rosalind! whither wilt thou go?

(*) First folio, likelihoods.

a No, hath not?] Mr. Singer looks upon this as an idiomatic phrase similar to the "No had, my lord?" in Act IV. Sc. 2, of "King John." See note (a), p. 315, Vol. I., but we believe he is

mistaken.

b And do not seek to take your change upon you,-] That is, says Malone, your reverse of fortune. The second folio, 1632,

That he hath not.

Ros. CEL. No, hath not? Rosalind lacks, then, the love Which teacheth thee that thou and I ain 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.(5) 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, 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, And with a kind of umber smirch my face; The like do you; so shall we pass along, And never stir assailants.

Ros. Were it not better, Because that I am more than common tall, That I did suit me all points like a man? A gallant curtle-ax 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. What shall I call thee when thou art a [own page,

man?

Ros. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's And therefore look you call me, Ganymede. But what will you be* call'd?

[state;

CEL. Something that hath a reference to my No longer Celia, but Aliena.

Ros. But, 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?

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 int content To liberty, and not to banishment.

(*) First folio, by.

reads charge, which is perhaps right.

[Exeunt.

(+) First folio, in we.

c Because that I am more than common tall.-] So Lodge's Rosalynde-"Tush (quoth Rosalynde) art thou a woman, and hast not a sodeine shift to prevent a misfortune? I (thou seest) am of a tall stature, and would very well become the person and apparel of a page."-Reprint in Shakespeare's Library, p. 32.