SCENE III. Before OLIVER'S house. As You Like It  Shakespeare homepage  |  As You Like It  | Act 2, Scene 3 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE III. Before OLIVER'S house. 

 Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting  ORLANDO  Who's there? 

 ADAM  What, my young master? O, my gentle master! 

 O my sweet master! O you memory 

 Of old Sir Rowland! why, what make you here? 

 Why are you virtuous? why do people love you? 

 And wherefore are you gentle, strong and valiant? 

 Why would you be so fond to overcome 

 The bonny priser of the humorous duke? 

 Your praise is come too swiftly home before you. 

 Know you not, master, to some kind of men 

 Their graces serve them but as enemies? 

 No more do yours: your virtues, gentle master, 

 Are sanctified and holy traitors to you. 

 O, what a world is this, when what is comely 

 Envenoms him that bears it! 

 ORLANDO  Why, what's the matter? 

 ADAM  O unhappy youth! 

 Come not within these doors; within this roof 

 The enemy of all your graces lives: 

 Your brother--no, no brother; yet the son-- 

 Yet not the son, I will not call him son 

 Of him I was about to call his father-- 

 Hath heard your praises, and this night he means 

 To burn the lodging where you use to lie 

 And you within it: if he fail of that, 

 He will have other means to cut you off. 

 I overheard him and his practises. 

 This is no place; this house is but a butchery: 

 Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it. 

 ORLANDO  Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go? 

 ADAM  No matter whither, so you come not here. 

 ORLANDO  What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food? 

 Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce 

 A thievish living on the common road? 

 This I must do, or know not what to do: 

 Yet this I will not do, do how I can; 

 I rather will subject me to the malice 

 Of a diverted blood and bloody brother. 

 ADAM  But do not so. I have five hundred crowns, 

 The thrifty hire I saved under your father, 

 Which I did store to be my foster-nurse 

 When service should in my old limbs lie lame 

 And unregarded age in corners thrown: 

 Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed, 

 Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, 

 Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold; 

 And all this I give you. Let me be your servant: 

 Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; 

 For in my youth I never did apply 

 Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, 

 Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo 

 The means of weakness and debility; 

 Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, 

 Frosty, but kindly: let me go with you; 

 I'll do the service of a younger man 

 In all your business and necessities. 

 ORLANDO  O good old man, how well in thee appears 

 The constant service of the antique world, 

 When service sweat for duty, not for meed! 

 Thou art not for the fashion of these times, 

 Where none will sweat but for promotion, 

 And having that, do choke their service up 

 Even with the having: it is not so with thee. 

 But, poor old man, thou prunest a rotten tree, 

 That cannot so much as a blossom yield 

 In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry 

 But come thy ways; well go along together, 

 And ere we have thy youthful wages spent, 

 We'll light upon some settled low content. 

 ADAM  Master, go on, and I will follow thee, 

 To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. 

 From seventeen years till now almost fourscore 

 Here lived I, but now live here no more. 

 At seventeen years many their fortunes seek; 

 But at fourscore it is too late a week: 

 Yet fortune cannot recompense me better 

 Than to die well and not my master's debtor. 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  As You Like It  | Act 2, Scene 3 

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