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;
She calls me proud; and, that she could not love me
Were man as rare as phoenix: 'Od's my will!
Her love is not the hare that I do hunt :

Why writes fhe fo to me?-Well, shepherd, well,
This is a letter of your own device.

Sil. No, I proteft, I know not the contents;
Phebe did write it, with her own fair band.
Rof. Come, come, you are a fool,
And turn'd into the extremity of love.
I faw her hand: fhe has a leathern hand,

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.
Sil. Sure, it is hers.

Rof. Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel ftile,
A ftile for challengers; why, fhe defies me,
Like Turk to Chriftian: woman's gentle brain
Could not drop forth fuch giant-rude invention,
Such Ethiop words, blacker in their effect
Than in their countenance :-Will you hear the letter?
Sil. So please you, for I never heard it yet;
Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty.

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,
War'st thou with a woman's heart?

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
Have power to raise such love in mine,
Alack, in me what strange effect
Would they work in mild afpect?
Whiles you chid me, I did love;
How then might your prayers move?
He, that brings this love to thee,
Little knows this love in me:

g

And by him feal up thy mind;
Whether that thy & youth and kind
Will the faithful offer take

Of me, and all that I can make ;
Or else by bim my love deny,

And then I'll study how to die.

Sil. Call you this chiding?
Cel. Alas, poor fhepherd!

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;
The rank of ofiers, by the murmuring ftream,
Left on your right hand, brings you to the place:
But at this hour the house doth keep itself,
There's none within.

Oli. If that an eye may profit by a tongue,
Then should I know you by description;
Such garments, and fuch years: The boy is fair,
Of female favour, and befiows himself

h

Like a ripe fifter: but the woman low,

And browner than her brother. Are not you
The owner of the house I did enquire for?
Cel. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say, we are.
Oli. Orlando doth commend him to you both;
And to that youth, he calls his Rofalind,
He fends this bloody napkin; Are you he?

Rof. I am What must we understand by this?
Oli. Some of my fhame; if you will know of me
What man I am, and how, and why, and where
This handkerchief was ftain'd.

Cel. I pray you, tell it.

Orlando parted from you,

Oli. When last the young
He left a promise to return again

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,
Chewing the food of 'fweet and bitter fancy,

Lo, what befel! he threw his eye afide,

And, mark, what object did present itself!
Under an oak, whofe boughs were mofs'd with age,
And high top bald with dry antiquity,

A wretched ragged man, o'er-grown with hair,
Lay fleeping on his back about his neck

A green and gilded fnake had wreath'd itself,
Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd
The opening of his mouth; but fuddenly
Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itfelf,

And with indented glides did flip away
Into a bush: under which bufh's fhade

A lionefs, with udders all drawn dry,

Lay couching, head on ground, with cat-like watch,
When that the fleeping man should stir; for 'tis

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,
Made him give battle to the lionefs,

* 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
From miferable flumber I awak'd.

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
To tell you what I was, fince my conversion
So fweetly tastes, being the thing I am.
Rof. But, for the bloody napkin ?—

Oli. By, and by.

When from the first to laft, betwixt us two,

Tears our recountments had moft kindly bath'd,
As how I came into that defert place;
In brief, he led me to the gentle duke,
Who gave me fresh array, and entertainment,
Committing me unto my brother's love;
Who led me instantly unto his cave,

There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm
The lionefs had torn fome flesh away,

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;
And, after fome fmall space, being strong at heart,
He fent me hither, ftranger as I am,

To tell this story, that you might excufe
His broken promife, and to give this napkin,
Dy'd in his blood, unto the fhepherd youth
That he in sport doth call his Rofalind.

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!