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Por. If this were true, then should I know this secret.

I grant, I am a woman; but, withal,
A woman that lord Brutus took to wife :
I grant, I am a woman; but, withal,
A woman well reputed; Cato's daughter.
Think you, I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so father'd, and so husbanded?

Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose them :
I have made strong proof of my constancy,

Giving myself a voluntary wound

Here, in the thigh. Can I bear that with patience,
And not my husband's secrets?

Bru.

Render me worthy of this noble wife!

O ye gods,

[Knocking within.

Hark, hark! one knocks: Portia, go in a while;

And by and by thy bosom shall partake

The secrets of my heart.

All my engagements I will construe to thee,

All the charactery of my sad brows:

Leave me with haste.

SHAKESPEAR.

ORLANDO AND ROSALIND.

Ros. I will speak to him like a saucy lackey, and, under that habit, play the knave with him.-Do you hear, forester ?

Orla. Very well: What would you?

Ros. I pray you, what is't o'clock?

Orla. You should ask me what time o'day; there's no clock in the forest.

Ros. Then there is no true lover in the forest; else sighing every minute, and groaning every hour, would detect the lazy foot of time as well as a clock.

Orla. And why not the swift foot of time? had not that been as proper?

Ros. By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with divers persons: I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal?

Orla. I prithee, whom doth he trot withal?

Ros. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized : if the interim be but a sennight, Time's pace is so hard, that it seems the length of seven years.

Orla. Who ambles Time withal?

Ros. With a priest, that lacks Latin, and a rich man that hath not the gout: for the one sleeps easily, because he cannot study; and the other lives merrily, because he feels no pain; the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy, tedious penury: these Time ambles withal.

Orla.

Whom doth he gallop withal?

Ros. With a thief to the gallows: for, though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there. Orla. Who stays it still withal?

Ros. With lawyers, in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how Time

moves.

Orla. Where dwell you, pretty youth?

Ros. With this shepherdess, my sister; here, in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.

Orla. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.

Ros. I have been told so of many: but, indeed, an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God I am not a

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woman to be touch'd with so many giddy offences as he hath generally tax'd their whole sex withal.

Orla. Can you remember any of the principal evils, that he laid to the charge of women?

Ros. There were none principal; they were all like one another, as halfpence are: every one fault seeming monstrous, till his fellow fault came to match it.

Orla. I prithee, recount some of them.

Ros. No; I will not cast away my physic but on those that are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that abuses our young plants with carving Rosalind on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind: if I could meet that fancy-monger I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.

Orla. I am he, that is so love-shak'd; I pray you, tell me your remedy.

Ros. There is none of my uncle's marks upon you: he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner.

Orla. What were his marks?

Ros. A lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye and sunken, which you have not; an unquestionable spirit, which you have not; a beard neglected, which you have not but I pardon you for that. Then your

hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation. But you are no such man; you are rather point-de-vice in your accoutrements; as loving yourself, than seeming the lover of any other.

Orla. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.

Ros. Me believe it! you may as soon make her that

you love believe it; which I warrant she is apter to do, than to confess she does; that is one of the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees wherein Rosalind is so admired ?

Orla. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he.

Ros. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?

Orla. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much. Ros. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary, that the whippers are in love too: yet I profess curing it by counsel.

Orla. Did you ever cure any so?

Ros. Yes, one; and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me at which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing, and liking; proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every passion something, and for no passion truly any thing, as boys and women are, for the most part, cattle of this colour: would now like him; now loath him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness; which was to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook, merely monastic: and thus I cur'd him and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clear as a sound sheep's heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't.

Orla. I would not be cured, youth.

Ros. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cot and woo me.

Orla. Now, by the faith of my love, I will; tell me where it it is?

Ros. Go with me to it, and I will show it you, and, by the way, you shall tell me where in the forest you live: will you go?

Orla. With all my heart, good youth.

Ros. Nay, nay, you must call me Rosalind. - Come, sister, will you go? SHAKESPEAR.

LEAR AND CORDELIA.

Enter Lear in a Chair carried by Servants.
Phys. Ay, madam; in the heaviness of sleep
We put fresh garments on him.

Be by, good madam, when we do awake bim:
I doubt not of his temperance.

Cor. O my dear father! restoration hang
Her medicine on my lips, and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms, that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made.

Phys. Kind and dear princess!

Cor. Had you not been their father, these whites flakes Did challenge pity of them. Was this face

To be expos'd against the warring winds?
Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me, should
Have stood that night against my fire: and wast
Thou fain, poor father, to hovel thee with swine
And rogues forlorn, in short and musty straw!
Alack, 'tis wonder that thy life and wits
At once had not concluded all. He wakes!
Speak to him.

Phys. Madam, do you speak, 'tis fittest.

Cor. How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty? Lear. You do me wrong to take me out o'th' grave; Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound

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