Comedy plays; Exiles -- Drama; Fathers and daughters -- Drama; Pastoral drama
CHARLES.
Marry, do I, sir, and I came to acquaint you with a matter. I am given,
sir, secretly to understand that your younger brother Orlando hath a
disposition to come in disguised against me to try a fall. Tomorrow,
sir, I wrestle for my credit, and he that escapes me without some
broken limb shall acquit him well. Your brother is but young and
tender, and for your love I would be loath to foil him, as I must for
my 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 such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that
it is a thing of his own search and altogether against my will.
OLIVER.
Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt find I will
most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my brother’s purpose
herein, and have by underhand means laboured to dissuade him from it;
but he is resolute. I’ll tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest
young fellow of France, full of ambition, an envious emulator of every
man’s good parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me his
natural brother. Therefore use thy discretion. I had as lief thou didst
break his neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to’t; for if thou
dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace himself on
thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap thee by some
treacherous device, and never leave thee till he hath ta’en thy life by
some indirect means or other. For I assure thee (and almost with tears
I speak it) there is not one so young and so villainous this day
living. I speak but brotherly of him, but should I anatomize him to
thee as he is, I must blush and weep, and thou must look pale and
wonder.
CHARLES.
I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come tomorrow I’ll give
him his payment. If ever he go alone again I’ll never wrestle for prize
more. And so, God keep your worship.
[_Exit._]
OLIVER.
Farewell, good Charles. Now will I stir this gamester. I hope I shall
see an end of him; for my soul—yet I know not why—hates nothing more
than he. Yet he’s gentle, never schooled and yet learned, full of noble
device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much in the
heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him,
that I am altogether misprized. But it shall not be so long; this
wrestler shall clear all. Nothing remains but that I kindle the boy
thither, which now I’ll go about.
[_Exit._]
SCENE II. A Lawn before the Duke’s Palace
Enter Rosalind and Celia.
CELIA.
I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.
ROSALIND.
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 banished father,
you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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