SCENE II.A Lawn before the DUKE's Palace.
Enter ROSALIND and CELIA.

Celia. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry. Rosalind. Dear Celia, I shew more mirth than I am mistress of; and would you yet I were merrier ? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.

Cel. Herein I see 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, 10 so thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine: so would'st thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously temper'd as mine is to thee.

Ros. 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 20 thy father perforce, I will render thee again in affection by mine honour, I will; and when I break that oath, let me turn monster! Therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.

Ros. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports: let me see; 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 30 sport neither, than with safety of a pure blush thou may'st in honour come off again.

Ros. What shall be our sport then?

* I was supplied by Pope

[who had been forestalled by

Rowe in the latter's second edition (1714).]

Cel. Let us sit and mock the good housewife, Fortune, from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.

Ros. 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 40 scarce makes honest; and those that she makes honest, she makes very ill-favouredly.

Ros. 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.

Cel. No? When Nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by Fortune fall into the fire? Though Nature hath given us wit to flout at Fortune, hath not Fortune sent in this Fool to cut off the argument?

Ros. Indeed, there is a Fortune too hard for Nature, when Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter off of Nature's wit.

Cel. Peradventure, this is not Fortune's work neither, but Nature's; who, perceiving our natural wits too dull to reason of such goddesses, hath sent this natural for our whetstone for always the dulness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. - How now, wit? whither wander you?

35 from her wheel, not that of the housewife. (R)

41 honest, chaste, as often. (R) 46 Touchstone is called Clown here and elsewhere in the original. (w)

50

52 natural, fool. So too in 1. 56. (R)

55 perceiving. So the later folios. The first folio has perceiveth. [Recent editions, including Cambridge, follow the first folio.]

Touchstone. Mistress, you must come away to your 60

father.

Cel. Were
Were you made the messenger?

Touch. No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you.

Ros. Where learned you that oath, Fool?

Touch. Of a certain knight, that swore 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?

Ros. Ay, marry; now unmuzzle your wisdom. Touch. Stand you both forth now, stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.

70

Cel. By our beards (if we had them) thou art. Touch. By my knavery (if I had it) then I were: 80 but if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: 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 't that thou mean'st?

Touch. One that old Frederick, your father, loves. Cel. My father's love is enough to honour him enough: speak no more of him; you'll be whipp'd for 90 taxation, one of these days.

66 a certain knight, &c. The same joke is found in Edwards's Damon and Pythias. (R)

89 The original incorrectly assigns this speech to Rosalind. Duke Frederick is Celia's father. Touchstone's epithet does not VOL. IV. - 2

imply that the Duke is really aged.

91 taxation, censure. We still say "she taxed him with inconstancy, he taxed her with folly." Cf. II. vii. 86.

Touch. The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely, what wise men do foolishly.

Cel. By my troth, thou say'st true; for since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great shew. Here comes

Monsieur Le Beau.

Enter LE BEAU.

Ros. With his mouth full of news.

Cel. Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.

Ros. Then shall we be news-cramm'd.

Cel. All the better; we shall be the more marketable. Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: What's the

news?

Le Beau. Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.

Cel. Sport? Of what colour?

Le Beau. What colour, Madam? How shall I answer you?

Ros. As wit and fortune will.

Touch. Or as the destinies decree.

Cel. Well said; that was laid on with a trowel.
Touch. Nay, if I keep not my rank,

Ros. Thou losest thy old smell.

Le Beau. You amaze me, ladies: I would have told you of good wrestling, which you have lost the sight of. Ros. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.

100

110

Le Beau. I will tell you the beginning, and, if it please your ladyships, you may see the end; for the 120 best is yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.

107 colour, nature. Cf. King Lear, II. ii. 145 (Herford). (R) amaze, confuse. (R)

115

Cel. Well, buried.

the beginning, that is dead and

Le Beau. There comes an old man, and his three

Cel. I could match this beginning with an old tale.

Le Beau. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence ; —

Ros. With bills on their necks, "Be it known unto all men by these presents,"

130

Le Beau. 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, that there is little hope of life in him: so he serv'd the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man, their father, making such pitiful dole over them, that all the beholders take his part with weeping. 140 Ros. Alas!

Touch. But what is the sport, Monsieur, that the ladies have lost?

Le Beau. Why, this that I speak of.

Touch. Thus men may grow wiser every day! It is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.

Cel. Or I, I promise thee.

Ros. But is there any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? Is there yet another dotes upon 150 rib-breaking? — Shall we see this wrestling, cousin?

Le Beau. You must, if you

66

181 With bills on their necks. It is worthy of note that taking his forest bill on his neck " occurs several times in Rosalynde. [A play on words seems intended, i. e. notices and axes.]

stay here; for here is

149-50 broken music, properly used, about equivalent to our phrase “a string band." A play on words is intended. see may be a misprint for "feel" (Johnson). (R)