Love's Labour's Lost (version 2) - Free Audiobook

000 Scene III. A room in the palace.

AYLI I. 3 Enter Celia and Rosalind.

Cel. Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! not a word?

Ros. Not one to throw at a dog.

Cel. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away 005 upon curs; throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.

007 Ros. Then there were two cousins laid up; when the one should be lamed with reasons and the other mad without any.

010 Cel. But is all this for your father?

011 Ros. No, some of it is for my child’s father. O, how full of briers is this working-day world!

Cel. They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery: if we walk not in the trodden paths, our 015 very petticoats will catch them.

Ros. I could shake them off my coat: these burs are in my heart.

Cel. Hem them away.

Ros. I would try, if I could cry hem and have him.

020 Cel. Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.

Ros. O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself!

Cel. O, a good wish upon you! you will try in time, in despite of a fall. But, turning these jests out of service, 025 let us talk in good earnest: is it possible, on such a sudden, 026 you should fall into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?

Ros. The Duke my father loved his father dearly.

Cel. Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his 030 son dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate not Orlando.

032 Ros. No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.

033 Cel. Why should I not? doth he not deserve well?

034 Ros. Let me love him for that, and do you love him 035 because I do. Look, here comes the Duke.

036 Cel. With his eyes full of anger.

Enter Duke Frederick, with Lords.

037 Duke F. Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste

And get you from our court.

Ros.

Me, uncle?

Duke F.

You, cousin:

039 Within these ten days if that thou be’st found

040 So near our public court as twenty miles,

Thou diest for it.

Ros.

I do beseech your Grace,

Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me:

If with myself I hold intelligence,

044 Or have acquaintance with mine own desires;

045 If that I do not dream, or be not frantic,—

As I do trust I am not,—then, dear uncle,

Never so much as in a thought unborn

Did I offend your Highness.

Duke F.

Thus do all traitors:

If their purgation did consist in words,

050 They are as innocent as grace itself:

Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.

Ros. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor:

053 Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.

Duke F. Thou art thy father’s daughter; there’s enough.

055 Ros. So was I when your Highness took his dukedom;

So was I when your Highness banish’d him:

Treason is not inherited, my lord;

Or, if we did derive it from our friends,

What’s that to me? my father was no traitor:

060 Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much

To think my poverty is treacherous.

Cel. Dear sovereign, hear me speak.

Duke F. Ay, Celia; we stay’d her for your sake,

Else had she with her father ranged along.

065 Cel. I did not then entreat to have her stay;

066 It was your pleasure and your own remorse:

I was too young that time to value her;

But now I know her: if she be a traitor,

Why so am I; we still have slept together,

070 Rose at an instant, learn’d, play’d, eat together,

And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans,

072 Still we went coupled and inseparable.

Duke F. She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,

Her very silence and her patience

075 Speak to the people, and they pity her.

Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name;

077 And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous

When she is gone. Then open not thy lips:

Firm and irrevocable is my doom

080 Which I have pass’d upon her; she is banish’d.

Cel. Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege:

I cannot live out of her company.

Duke F. You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself:

If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,

085 And in the greatness of my word, you die. [Exeunt Duke Frederick and Lords.

086 Cel. O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go?

087 Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.

I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.

Ros. I have more cause.

Cel.

089 Thou hast not, cousin;

090 Prithee, be cheerful: know’st thou not, the Duke

Hath banish’d me, his daughter?

Ros.

That he hath not.

092 Cel. No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love

093 Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one:

Shall we be sunder’d? shall we part, sweet girl?

095 No: let my father seek another heir.

Therefore devise with me how we may fly,

Whither to go and what to bear with us;

098 And do not seek to take your change upon you,

To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out;

100 For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,

Say what thou canst, I’ll go along with thee.

Ros. Why, whither shall we go?

103 Cel. To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden

Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us,

105 Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

Cel. I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire

108 And with a kind of umber smirch my face;

The like do you: so shall we pass along

And never stir assailants.

Ros.

110 Were it not better,

Because that I am more than common tall,

That I did suit me all points like a man?

A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,

A boar-spear in my hand; and—in my heart

115 Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will—

We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside,

As many other mannish cowards have

That do outface it with their semblances.

Cel. What shall I call thee when thou art a man?

120 Ros. I’ll have no worse a name than Jove’s own page;

And therefore look you call me Ganymede.

122 But what will you be call’d?

Cel. Something that hath a reference to my state;

No longer Celia, but Aliena.

125 Ros. But, cousin, what if we assay’d to steal

The clownish fool out of your father’s court?

Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

Cel. He’ll go along o’er the wide world with me;

Leave me alone to woo him. Let’s away,

130 And get our jewels and our wealth together;

Devise the fittest time and safest way

To hide us from pursuit that will be made

133 After my flight. Now go we in content

To liberty and not to banishment. [Exeunt.