SCENE III. The forest. As You Like It  Shakespeare homepage  |  As You Like It  | Act 4, Scene 3 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE III. The forest. 

 Enter ROSALIND and CELIA  ROSALIND  How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock? and 

 here much Orlando! 

 CELIA  I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he 

 hath ta'en his bow and arrows and is gone forth to 

 sleep. Look, who comes here. 



 Enter SILVIUS  SILVIUS  My errand is to you, fair youth; 

 My gentle Phebe bid me give you this: 

 I know not the contents; but, as I guess 

 By the stern brow and waspish action 

 Which she did use as she was writing of it, 

 It bears an angry tenor: pardon me: 

 I am but as a guiltless messenger. 

 ROSALIND  Patience herself would startle at this letter 

 And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all: 

 She says 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 she so to me? Well, shepherd, well, 

 This is a letter of your own device. 

 SILVIUS  No, I protest, I know not the contents: 

 Phebe did write it. 

 ROSALIND  Come, come, you are a fool 

 And turn'd into the extremity of love. 

 I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand. 

 A freestone-colour'd hand; I verily did think 

 That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands: 

 She has a huswife's hand; but that's no matter: 

 I say she never did invent this letter; 

 This is a man's invention and his hand. 

 SILVIUS  Sure, it is hers. 

 ROSALIND  Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style. 

 A style for-challengers; why, she defies me, 

 Like Turk to Christian: women's gentle brain 

 Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention 

 Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect 

 Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter? 

 SILVIUS  So please you, for I never heard it yet; 

 Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty. 

 ROSALIND  She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes. 



 Reads  Art thou god to shepherd turn'd, 

 That a maiden's heart hath burn'd? 

 Can a woman rail thus? 

 SILVIUS  Call you this railing? 

 ROSALIND  [Reads] 

 Why, thy godhead laid apart, 

 Warr'st thou with a woman's heart? 

 Did you ever hear such railing? 

 Whiles the eye of man did woo me, 

 That could do no vengeance to me. 

 Meaning me a beast. 

 If the scorn of your bright eyne 

 Have power to raise such love in mine, 

 Alack, in me what strange effect 

 Would they work in mild aspect! 

 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: 

 And by him seal 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 him my love deny, 

 And then I'll study how to die. 

 SILVIUS  Call you this chiding? 

 CELIA  Alas, poor shepherd! 

 ROSALIND  Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity. Wilt 

 thou love such 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 see 

 love hath made thee a tame snake, and say 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 entreat for her. If you be a true lover, 

 hence, and not a word; for here comes more company. 



 Exit SILVIUS 

 Enter OLIVER  OLIVER  Good morrow, fair ones: pray you, if you know, 

 Where in the purlieus of this forest stands 

 A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees? 

 CELIA  West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom: 

 The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream 

 Left on your right hand brings you to the place. 

 But at this hour the house doth keep itself; 

 There's none within. 

 OLIVER  If that an eye may profit by a tongue, 

 Then should I know you by description; 

 Such garments and such years: 'The boy is fair, 

 Of female favour, and bestows himself 

 Like a ripe sister: the woman low 

 And browner than her brother.' Are not you 

 The owner of the house I did inquire for? 

 CELIA  It is no boast, being ask'd, to say we are. 

 OLIVER  Orlando doth commend him to you both, 

 And to that youth he calls his Rosalind 

 He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he? 

 ROSALIND  I am: what must we understand by this? 

 OLIVER  Some of my shame; if you will know of me 

 What man I am, and how, and why, and where 

 This handkercher was stain'd. 

 CELIA  I pray you, tell it. 

 OLIVER  When last the young Orlando parted from you 

 He left a promise to return again 

 Within an hour, and pacing through the forest, 

 Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy, 

 Lo, what befell! he threw his eye aside, 

 And mark what object did present itself: 

 Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age 

 And high top bald with dry antiquity, 

 A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair, 

 Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck 

 A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself, 

 Who with her head nimble in threats approach'd 

 The opening of his mouth; but suddenly, 

 Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself, 

 And with indented glides did slip away 

 Into a bush: under which bush's shade 

 A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, 

 Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch, 

 When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis 

 The royal disposition of that beast 

 To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead: 

 This seen, Orlando did approach the man 

 And found it was his brother, his elder brother. 

 CELIA  O, I have heard him speak of that same brother; 

 And he did render him the most unnatural 

 That lived amongst men. 

 OLIVER  And well he might so do, 

 For well I know he was unnatural. 

 ROSALIND  But, to Orlando: did he leave him there, 

 Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness? 

 OLIVER  Twice did he turn his back and purposed so; 

 But kindness, nobler ever than revenge, 

 And nature, stronger than his just occasion, 

 Made him give battle to the lioness, 

 Who quickly fell before him: in which hurtling 

 From miserable slumber I awaked. 

 CELIA  Are you his brother? 

 ROSALIND  Wast you he rescued? 

 CELIA  Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him? 

 OLIVER  'Twas I; but 'tis not I	I do not shame 

 To tell you what I was, since my conversion 

 So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am. 

 ROSALIND  But, for the bloody napkin? 

 OLIVER  By and by. 

 When from the first to last betwixt us two 

 Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed, 

 As how I came into that desert 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 lioness had torn some flesh away, 

 Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted 

 And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind. 

 Brief, I recover'd him, bound up his wound; 

 And, after some small space, being strong at heart, 

 He sent me hither, stranger as I am, 

 To tell this story, that you might excuse 

 His broken promise, and to give this napkin 

 Dyed in his blood unto the shepherd youth 

 That he in sport doth call his Rosalind. 



 ROSALIND swoons  CELIA  Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede! 

 OLIVER  Many will swoon when they do look on blood. 

 CELIA  There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede! 

 OLIVER  Look, he recovers. 

 ROSALIND  I would I were at home. 

 CELIA  We'll lead you thither. 

 I pray you, will you take him by the arm? 

 OLIVER  Be of good cheer, youth: you a man! you lack a 

 man's heart. 

 ROSALIND  I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would 

 think this was well counterfeited! I pray you, tell 

 your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho! 

 OLIVER  This was not counterfeit: there is too great 

 testimony in your complexion that it was a passion 

 of earnest. 

 ROSALIND  Counterfeit, I assure you. 

 OLIVER  Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man. 

 ROSALIND  So I do: but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by right. 

 CELIA  Come, you look paler and paler: pray you, draw 

 homewards. Good sir, go with us. 

 OLIVER  That will I, for I must bear answer back 

 How you excuse my brother, Rosalind. 

 ROSALIND  I shall devise something: but, I pray you, commend 

 my counterfeiting to him. Will you go? 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  As You Like It  | Act 4, Scene 3 

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