Comedy plays; Exiles -- Drama; Fathers and daughters -- Drama; Pastoral drama
ORLANDO.
As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but
poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayst, charged my brother, on his
blessing, to breed me well; and there begins my sadness. My brother
Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit.
For my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more
properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that keeping, for
a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox?
His horses are bred better, for, besides that they are fair with their
feeding, they are taught their manage and to that end riders dearly
hired; but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth, for the
which his animals on his dunghills are as much bound to him as I.
Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the something
that nature gave me his countenance seems to take from me. He lets me
feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a brother, and as much as in
him lies, mines my gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that
grieves me, and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me,
begins to mutiny against this servitude. I will no longer endure it,
though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it.
Enter Oliver.
ADAM.
Yonder comes my master, your brother.
ORLANDO.
Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up.
[_Adam retires._]
OLIVER.
Now, sir, what make you here?
ORLANDO.
Nothing. I am not taught to make anything.
OLIVER.
What mar you then, sir?
ORLANDO.
Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor
unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.
OLIVER.
Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile.
ORLANDO.
Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion
have I spent that I should come to such penury?
OLIVER.
Know you where you are, sir?
ORLANDO.
O, sir, very well: here in your orchard.
OLIVER.
Know you before whom, sir?
ORLANDO.
Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are my eldest
brother, and in the gentle condition of blood you should so know me.
The courtesy of nations allows you my better in that you are the
first-born, but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there
twenty brothers betwixt us. I have as much of my father in me as you,
albeit I confess your coming before me is nearer to his reverence.
OLIVER.
What, boy!
ORLANDO.
Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.
OLIVER.
Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?
ORLANDO.
I am no villain. I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys; he was
my father, and he is thrice a villain that says such a father begot
villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy
throat till this other had pulled out thy tongue for saying so. Thou
has railed on thyself.
ADAM.
[_Coming forward_.] Sweet masters, be patient. For your father’s
remembrance, be at accord.
OLIVER.
Let me go, I say.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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