I am but as a guiltless meffenger. Ref. [reading.] Patience herfelf would startle at this letter, And play the fwaggerer; bear this, bear all: She fays, I am not fair; that I lack manners; Why writes fhe fo to me?-Well, shepherd, well, Sil. No, I proteft, I know not the contents; A freeftone-coloured hand; I verily did think That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands; She has a hufwife's hand: but that's no matter: I fay, she never did invent this letter; This is a man's invention, and his hand. Rof. Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel ftile, Rof. She Phebe's me: Mark how the tyrant writes. [Reads.] Art thou god to fhepherd turn'd, That a maiden's heart hath burn'd? Can a woman rail thus ? Sil. Call you this railing? * turn'd into the extremity of love,]-driven stark mad by it: Rof. Rof. [Reads.] Why, thy godhead laid apart, Did you ever hear fuch railing? Whiles the eye of man did woo me, f That could do no vengeance to me. Meaning me a beast. If the fcorn of your bright eyne g And by him feal up thy mind; Of me, and all that I can make ; And then I'll study how to die. Sil. Call you this chiding? Rof. Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity.—Wilt thou love fuch a woman?-What to make thee an instrument, and play false strains upon thee! not to be endured! -Well, go your way to her, (for I fee love hath made thee a tame fnake) and fay this to her;-"That if she love me, I charge her to love thee: if she will not, I will never "have her, unless thou intreat for her." If you be a true Vengeance]-mifchief. youth and kind]-youthful inclination. lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes more com[Exit Silvius. pany. Enter Oliver. Oli. Good-morrow, fair ones: Pray you, if you know Where, in the purlieus of this forest, stands A fheep-cote, fenc'd about with olive-trees? Cel. Weft of this place, down in the neighbour-bottom; Oli. If that an eye may profit by a tongue, h Like a ripe fifter: but the woman low, And browner than her brother. Are not you Rof. I am What must we understand by this? Cel. I pray you, tell it. Orlando parted from you, Oli. When last the young and beftores himself like a ripe fifter:]-hath the appearance and carriage of an elder fister. i napkin ;]-handkerchief. k Within an hour; and, pacing through the foreft, Lo, what befel! he threw his eye afide, And, mark, what object did present itself! A wretched ragged man, o'er-grown with hair, A green and gilded fnake had wreath'd itself, And with indented glides did flip away A lionefs, with udders all drawn dry, Lay couching, head on ground, with cat-like watch, The royal difpofition of that beast, To prey on nothing that doth feem as dead: This feen, Orlando did approach the man, And found it was his brother, his elder brother. Cel. O, I have heard him speak of that fame brother; And he did render him the most unnatural That liv'd 'mongst men. Oli. And well he might fo do, For well I know he was unnatural. Rof. But, to Orlando;-Did he leave him there, Food to the fuck'd and hungry lioness? Oli. Twice did he turn his back, and purpos'd fo: But kindness, nobler ever than revenge, And nature, stronger than his just occasion, * tawo hours. 1 fweet and bitter fancy,]-of love, which is faid to be made up of contraries. Who Who quickly fell before him; in which "hurtling Cel. Are you his brother? Rof. Was it you he refcu'd? Cel. Was't you that did fo oft contrive to kill him? Oli. 'Twas I; but 'tis not I: I do not shame Oli. By, and by. When from the first to laft, betwixt us two, Tears our recountments had moft kindly bath'd, There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted, And cry'd, in fainting, upon Rofalind. Brief, I recover'd him; bound up his wound; To tell this story, that you might excufe Cel. Why, how now, Ganymed? fweet Ganymed? [Rofalind faints. Oli. Many will fwoon when they do look on blood. Cel. There is more in it :-Coufin-Ganymed! |