her without her tongue, Oh, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool!

SONG.--ROSALIND.
When daisies pied and violets blue,

Aud ladies smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo buds of yellow hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then on every tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings hem

Cuckoo-
Cuckoo, cuckoo-Oh, word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,

And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings hem

Cuckoo
Cuckoo, cuckoo-oh, word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear.
Orl. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.
Ros, Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours !

Orl. I must attend the duke at dinner; by two o'clock I will be with thee again.

Pos. Ay, go your ways, go your ways; I knew what you would prove! my friends told me as much, and I thought no less: that flattering tongue of yours won me; 'tis but one cast away, and so-come death. Two o'clock is your hour?

Orl. Ay, sweet Rosalind !

Ros. By my troth, and in good earnest, and so, God mend me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot of your promise, or come one minute behind your hour, I will think you the most pathetical break-promise, and the most hollow lover, and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind, that may be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful: therefore, beware my censure, and keep your promise.

Orl. With no less religion, than if thou wert indeed ту Rosalind : so, adieu !

Ros. Well, time is the old justice, that examines all such offenders, and let time try : Adieu ! (Exit Orlando, L.

Pardon me,

Cel. You have simply misused our sex in your loveprate.

Ros. (L.) Oh, coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal.

Cel. Or, rather, bottomless; that, as fast as you pour affection in, it runs out.-Look, who comes here?

Enter Sylvius, L. Sylv. My errand is to you, fair youth ; My gentle Phæbe bid me give you this: [Giving a letter. 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. I am but as a guiltless messenger. Ros. (Reading.] 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 phonix. '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.

Sylu. No, I protest, I know not the contents;
Phæbe did write it.

Ros. Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style, A style for challengers; why, she defies me, Like Turk to Christian; woman's gentle brain Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention, Such Ethiop words, blacker in their effect Thar in their countenance.— Will you hear the letter ?

Sylv. So please you, for I never heard it yet; Yet heard too much of Phæbe's cruelty.

Ros. She Phæbe's me: mark how the tyrant writes :[Reads.] “ Art thou god to shepherd turned,

That a maiden's heart hath burned ?" Can a woman rail thus?

Sylv. Call you this railing ?

chid me,

Ros. [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

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."
Sylv. Call you this chiding?
Cel. Alas, poor shepherd !

Ros. [Crosses, R.] 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 1 see love hath made thee a tame snake,) and say this to her :“ That, if she loves 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 Sylvius, L. Enter OLIVER, L. Oliv. (L.) Guod morrow,

fair ones : Pray you,

if

you know, Where, in the purlieus of this forest, stands A sheep.cote, fenced about with olive-trees? Cel. c.) West of this place, down in the neighbour

bottom, Brings you to the place:

But, at this hour, the house doth keep itself;
There's none within.

Oliv. 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 : but the woman low,
And browner than her brother.” Are not you
The owner of the house 1 did inquire for ?

Cel. It is no boast, being asked, to say we are.

Oliv. Orlando doth commend him to you both;
And to that youth he calls his Rosalind,
He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he ?
Ros. (Advancing to c.] I am. What must we under.

stand by this?
Oliv. Some of my shame-if you will know of me
What man I am, and how, and why, and where
This handkerchief was stained.

Cel. I pray you, tell it.

Oliv. 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 befel ! he threw his eye aside, And, mark, what object did present itself! Under an oak, whose boughs were mossed 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, approached The opening of his mouth; but, suddenly Seeing Orlando, it unlinked 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 cat-like 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 mar, And found it was his brother, his elder brother.

SO:

Ros. Oh, I have heard him speak of that same brother And he did render him the most unnatural That lived 'mongst men.

Oliv. And well he might so do, For well I know he was unnatural.

Ros. But to Orlando :-Did he leave him there, Food to the sucked and hungry lioness ?

Oliv. (1. c.) Twice did he turn his back, and purposed
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.

Cel. (L. c.) Are you his brother?
Ros. (c.) Was it you

he rescued ?
Cel. Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him ?

Oliv. '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.

Ros. But, for the bloody napkin ?

Oliv. 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 stripped 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 recovered 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 this blood, unto the shepherd youth That he in sport doth call his Rosalind, Cel. Why, how now, Ganymede ? sweet Ganymede ?

[Rosalind faints.