I will phyfick your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla, Dennis!

Enter Dennis.

DEN. Calls your worship?

OLI. Was not Charles, the duke's wrestler, here to speak with me?

DEN. So pleafe you, he is here at the door, and importunes access to you.

OLI. Call him in-[Exit Dennis.] 'Twill be a good way; and to-morrow the wrestling is.

Enter Charles.

CHA. Good morrow to your worship.

OLI. Good monfieur Charles, what's the new news at the new court?

CHA. There's no news at the court, Sir, but the old news; that is, the old duke is banish'd by his younger brother the new duke, and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him; whofe lands and revenues enrich the new duke, therefore he gives them good leave to wander.

OLI. Can you tell, if Rofalind, the old duke's daughter, be banish'd with her father?

CHA. O, no; for the new duke's daughter her cousin so loves her, being ever from their cradles bred together, that fhe would have followed her exile, or have died to stay behind her. She is at the court, and no lefs beloved of her uncle than his own daughter; and never two ladies loved as they do.

OLI. Where will the old duke live?

CHA. They fay he is already in the foreft of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the

old Robin Hood of England. They fay, many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time care lefly, as they did in the golden world.

OLI. What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new duke?

CHA. Marry, do I, Sir; and I came to acquaint you with a matter. I am given, Sir, fecretly to understand, that your younger brother Orlando hath a difpofition to come in difguis'd against me to try a fall. To-morrow, Sir, I wrestle for my credit; and he, that escapes me without fome broken limb, fhall acquit him well. Your brother is but young and tender, and for your love I would be loth to foil him; as I must for mine own honour, if he come in. Therefore out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint you withal; that either you might stay him from his intendment, or brook fuch difgrace well as he shall run into; in that it is a thing of his own fearch, and altogether against my will.

OLI. Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou fhalt find, I will moft kindly requite. I had myself notice of my brother's purpose herein, and have by underhand means laboured to diffuade him from it; but he is refolute. I tell thee Charles, he is the ftubborneft young fellow of France; full of ambition, an envious emulator of every man's good parts, a fecret and villainous contriver against me his natural brother. Therefore ufe thy difcretion; I had as lief thou didst break his neck, as his finger. And thou wert beft look to't; for if thou doft him any flight difgrace, or if he do not mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison; entrap thee by fome treacherous device; and never leave thee, 'till he hath ta'en thy life by fome indirect means or other; for I affure thee, (and almost with tears I fpeak it) there is not one, fo young and fo villainous this day living. I fpeak but brotherly of

him; but fhould I anatomize him to thee as he is, I muft blush and weep, and thou must look pale and wonder.

CHA. I am heartily glad, I came hither to you. If he come to-morrow, I'll give him his payment; if ever he go alone again, I'll never wrestle for prize more. And fo, God keep your worship. [Exit.

OLI. Farewel, good Charles. Now will I stir this gamefter; I hope, I fhall fee an end of him; for my foul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than him. Yet he's gentle; never school'd, and yet learned; full of noble device; of all forts enchantingly beloved; and, indeed, so much in the heart of the world, and efpecially of my own people who best know him, that I am altogether mifprifed. But it fhall not be fo long-this wrestler shall clear all. Nothing remains, but that I kindle the boy thither, which now I'll go about. [Exit.

SCENE IV. Changes to an open walk, before the Duke's

palace.

Enter Rofalind and Celia.

CEL. I pray thee, Rofalind, fweet my coz, be merry. Ros. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banish'd father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.

CEL. Herein, I fee, thou lov't me not with the full weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, fo thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine; fo wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to me were fo righteoufly temper'd as mine is to thee.

Ros. Well, I will forget the condition of my eftate, to

rejoice in yours.

CEL. You know, my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to have; and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt be his heir; for what he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee again in affection; by mine honour, I will-and when I break that oath, let me turn monster. Therefore, my fweet Rofe, my dear Rose, be merry.

Ros. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let me fee-What think you of falling in love?

CEL. Marry, I pr'ythee, do, to make sport withal; but love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport neither, than with fafety of a pure blush thou may'st in honour come off again.

Ros. What shall be our sport then?

CEL. Let us fit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.

Ros. I would we could do fo; for her benefits are mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman doth most miftake in her gifts to women.

CEL. 'Tis true; for those that she makes fair, she searce makes honeft; and thofe, that she makes honest, she makes very ill-favoured.

Ros. Nay, now thou goest from fortune's office to nature's: fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of nature.

Enter Touchstone, a clown.

CEL. No! when nature hath made a fair creature, may the not by fortune fall into the fire? Though nature hath given us wit to flout at fortune, hath not fortune fent in this fool to cut off this argument?

Ros. Indeed, there is fortune too hard for nature; when fortune makes nature's natural the cutter off of nature's wit.

CEL. Peradventure, this is not fortune's work, neither, but nature's; who, perceiving our natural wits too dull to reafon of fuch goddeffes, hath fent this Natural for our whetftone: for always the dulnefs of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How now, wit, whither wander you ?

CLO. Mistress, you must come away to your father.
CEL. Were you made the ineffenger?

CLO. No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you.
Ros. Where learned you that oath, fool?

CLO. Of a certain knight, that swore by his honour they were good pancakes, and fwore by his honour the mustard was naught. Now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and yet was not the knight forfworn.

CEL. How prove you that in the great heap of your knowledge?

M

Ros. Ay, marry; now unmuzzle your wisdom.

CLO. Stand you both forth now; ftroke your chins, and fwear by your beards that I am a knave.

: CEL. By our beards, if we had them, thou art.

CLO. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you fwear by That that is not, you are not forfworn; no more was this knight fwearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had fworn it away, before ever he faw those pancakes or that mustard.

CEL. Pr'ythee, who is that thou mean'st?

CLO. One, that old Frederick your father loves.

CEL. My father's love is enough to honour him :-enough! fpeak no more of him, you'll be whipt for taxation one of thefe days.