1    Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! not a word?

2    Not one to throw at a dog.

3    No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon
4    curs; throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.

5    Then there were two cousins laid up; when the one
6    should be lamed with reasons and the other mad
7    without any.

8    But is all this for your father?

9    No, some of it is for my child's father. O, how
10   full of briers is this working-day world!

11   They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in
12   holiday foolery: if we walk not in the trodden
13   paths our very petticoats will catch them.

14   I could shake them off my coat: these burs are in my heart.

15   Hem them away.

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

17   Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.

18   O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself!

19   O, a good wish upon you! you will try in time, in
20   despite of a fall. But, turning these jests out of
21   service, let us talk in good earnest: is it
22   possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so
23   strong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest son?

24   The duke my father loved his father dearly.

25   Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son
26   dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him,
27   for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate
28   not Orlando.

29   No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.

30   Why should I not? doth he not deserve well?

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

33   With his eyes full of anger.

34   Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste
35   And get you from our court.

36   Me, uncle?

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

41   I do beseech your grace,
42   Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me:
43   If with myself I hold intelligence
44   Or have acquaintance with mine own desires,
45   If that I do not dream or be not frantic,--
46   As I do trust I am not--then, dear uncle,
47   Never so much as in a thought unborn
48   Did I offend your highness.

49   Thus do all traitors:
50   If their purgation did consist in words,
51   They are as innocent as grace itself:
52   Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.

53   Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor:
54   Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.

55   Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough.

56   So was I when your highness took his dukedom;
57   So was I when your highness banish'd him:
58   Treason is not inherited, my lord;
59   Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
60   What's that to me? my father was no traitor:
61   Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
62   To think my poverty is treacherous.

63   Dear sovereign, hear me speak.

64   Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake,
65   Else had she with her father ranged along.

66   I did not then entreat to have her stay;
67   It was your pleasure and your own remorse:
68   I was too young that time to value her;
69   But now I know her: if she be a traitor,
70   Why so am I; we still have slept together,
71   Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together,
72   And wheresoever we went, like Juno's swans,
73   Still we went coupled and inseparable.

74   She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,
75   Her very silence and her patience
76   Speak to the people, and they pity her.
77   Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name;
78   And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
79   When she is gone. Then open not thy lips:
80   Firm and irrevocable is my doom
81   Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd.

82   Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege:
83   I cannot live out of her company.

84   You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself:
85   If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,
86   And in the greatness of my word, you die.

87   O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go?
88   Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
89   I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.

90   I have more cause.

91   Thou hast not, cousin;
92   Prithee be cheerful: know'st thou not, the duke
93   Hath banish'd me, his daughter?

94   That he hath not.

95   No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love
96   Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one:
97   Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl?
98   No: let my father seek another heir.
99   Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
100  Whither to go and what to bear with us;
101  And do not seek to take your change upon you,
102  To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out;
103  For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
104  Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.

105  Why, whither shall we go?

106  To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden.

107  Alas, what danger will it be to us,
108  Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
109  Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

110  I'll put myself in poor and mean attire
111  And with a kind of umber smirch my face;
112  The like do you: so shall we pass along
113  And never stir assailants.

114  Were it not better,
115  Because that I am more than common tall,
116  That I did suit me all points like a man?
117  A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
118  A boar-spear in my hand; and--in my heart
119  Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will--
120  We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,
121  As many other mannish cowards have
122  That do outface it with their semblances.

123  What shall I call thee when thou art a man?

124  I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page;
125  And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
126  But what will you be call'd?

127  Something that hath a reference to my state
128  No longer Celia, but Aliena.

129  But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal
130  The clownish fool out of your father's court?
131  Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

132  He'll go along o'er the wide world with me;
133  Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away,
134  And get our jewels and our wealth together,
135  Devise the fittest time and safest way
136  To hide us from pursuit that will be made
137  After my flight. Now go we in content
138  To liberty and not to banishment.