Oli. Farewel, good Charles. Now will I stir thi gamester: I hope, I shall fee an end of him; for my foul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than him. Yet he's gentle; never school'd, and yet learned; full of noble device; of all Sorts enchantingly be- loved; and, indeed, fo much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people who best know him, that I am altogether misprised. But it shall not be fo long-this wrestler shall clear all. Nothing remains, but that I kindle the boy thither, which now I'll go about. [Exit. Changes to an Open Walk, before the Duke's Palace. Enter Rofalind and Celia. Rof. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and would you yet I were merrier? Un Jess you could teach me to forget a banish'd father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure. Cel. Herein, I fee, thou lov'st me not with the full weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the Duke my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine; fo wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteoufly temper'd, as mine is to thee. Rof. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to rejoice in yours. Cel. You know, my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to have; and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt be his heir; for what he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee again in affection; by mine Honour, I will-and when I break that that oath, let me turn monster. Therefore, my sweet Rofe, my dear Rose, be merry. Rof. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise Sports. Let me fee-What think you of falling in love? Cel. Marry, I pr'ythee, do, to make sport withal; but love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport neither, than with safety of a pure blush thou may'st in honour come off again.: Rof. What shall be our Sport then? Cel. Let us fit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally. Rof. I would, we could do so; for her benefits are mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women. Cel. 'Tis true; for those, that she makes fair, she scarce makes honeft; and those, that she makes honest, she makes very ill-favoured. Rof. Nay, now thou goest from fortune's office to nature's: fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of nature. Enter Touchstone, a Clown. Cel. No! when nature hath made a fair creature, may the not by fortune fall into the fire? Though nature hath given us wit to flout at fortune, hath not fortune fent in this Fool to cut off this argument? Rof. Indeed, there is fortune too hard for nature; when fortune makes nature's Natural the cutter off of nature's Wit. it offergie Cel. Peradventure, this is not fortune's work, neither, but nature's; who, perceiving our natural wits too dull to reason of fuch Goddesses, hath fent this 8 - mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel,] The wheel of fortune is not the wheel of a housewife. Shakespeare has confounded fortune whose wheel only figures uncertainty and viciffitude, with the destinie that spins the thread of life, though indeed not with a wheel. Natural Natural for our whetstone: for always the dulness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How now, Wit, whither wander you? Clo. Mistress, you must come away to your father. Cel. Were you made the messenger? 1. Clo. No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you. T Rof. Where learned you that oath, fool? Clo. Of a certain Knight, that, fwore by his honour they were good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught. Now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught, and the mustard was good, and yet was not the Knight forsworn. ! Cel. How prove you that in the great heap of your knowledge? Rof. Ay, marry; now unmuzzle your wifdom. Clo. Stand you both forth now; stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave. Cel. By our beards, if we had them, thou art. Clo. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you swear by That that is not, you are not forfworn; no more was this Knight swearing by his honour, for he never had any: or if he had, he had sworn it away, before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.. Cel. Pr'ythee, who is that thou mean'st? Clo. One, that old Frederick Rof. My Father's Love is enough to honour him enough;) This Reply to the Clown is in all the Books plac'd to Rosalind; but, Frederick was not her Father, but Celia's: I have therefore ventur'd to prefix the Name of Celia. There is no Countenance from any Passage in the Play, or from 2 the Dramatis Perfona, to imagine, that Both the BrotherDukes were Namesakes; and One call'd the Old, and the Other the Younger Frederick; and, without some such Authority, it would make Confufion to suppose it. THEOBALD. Mr. Theobald seems not to know that the Dramatis Perfonæ were first enumerated by Rowe. enough! 1 enough! speak no more of him, you'll be whipt for Clo. The more pity, that fools may not speak wifely Cel.. By my troth, thou say'st true; for since the little wit that fools have was silenc'd', the little foolery that wife men have makes a great Show: here comes Monfieur Le Beu. : SCENE V. Enter Le Beu. Rof. With his mouth full of news. Cel. Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young. Rof. Then shall we be news-cram'd. Cel. All the better, we shall be the more marketable. Bon jour, Monsieur le Beu; what news? Le Beu, Fair Princess, you have lost much good Sport. Cel. Sport; of what colour? Le Beu. What colour, Madam? How shall I an fwer you? Rof. As wit and fortune will. Clo. Or as the destinies decree. Cel. Well faid; that was laid on with a trowel 2. Clo. Nay if I keep not my rank, Rof. Thou lofest thy old smell. Le Beu. You amaze me, ladies 3. I would have fince the little wit that I suppose the meaning is, that 3. You amaze me, ladies.] To amaze, here, is not to aftonish or and mockery, and about this time began to be less tolerated. plex; to confuse; as, to put out of the intended narrative. -laid on with a trowel.] told 10 1 told you of good wrestling, which you have loft the fight of. Rof. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling. Le Beu. I will tell you the beginning, and, if it please your Ladyships, you may fee the end, for the best is yet to do; and here where you are, they are coming to perform it. Cel. Well-the beginning that is dead and buried. Le Beu. There comes an old man and his three fons, 'Cel. I could match this beginning with an old tale. Le Beu. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and prefence; い Rof. With bills on their necks: Be it known unto all men by these presents +, "Le Beu. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles the Duke's Wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of his ribs, and there is little hope of life in him: so he ferv'd the Second, and fo the Third. Yonder they lie, the poor old man their father making fuch pitiful Dole over them, that all the beholders take his part with weeping. Rof. Alas! 4 With BILLS on their necks: Be it known unto all men by these presents; The ladies and the fool, according to the mode of wit at that time, are at a kind of cross purposes. Where the words of one speaker are wrested by another, in a repartee, to a different meaning. As where the Clown says just before Nay, if I keep not my rank. Rojalind replies-thou losest thy old smell. So here when Rosalind had faid, With bills on their necks, the Clown, to be quits with her, puts in, Knowy all men ly these prefents. She spoke of an inftru 1 |