Ferdinand Old duke of Burgundy Banish by his Brother Frederick his Brother yethe usurper of Burgundy. Amiens a follower of Ferdinand. Jaques a melancholly GentlemanOliver James Orlando}Brothers; sons to
SrSir Rowland de BoyesAdam their servant Charles the Dukes wrastler Le Beu a courtierSilviaus Corin}2 ShepherdsClowne Dennis servant to Oliver sir Oliver martext PHymen. Lords attendants on Frederick Lords Companions of Ferdinand. WomenRosalinde daughter to Ferdinand Celia daughter to Frederick Phebe a shepherdess beloved by Silvius Audrey a countrey Girle.
As I remember Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed
me by will, but a poore thousand crownes, and as thou sayst chargd
my brother on his blessing to breed me well; and there begins my–my sadness: my Brother James he keeps at schoole, and report speakes
golgenly of his profit: for my part he keeps me here rustically at–
haome, or rather stays me here unkept; for call you
ytthat keeping foor a gentleman of my birth
ytthat differs tnot from the stalling of an
ox? his horses are bred better, for beside that they are faire
wthwith their
feeding, they are taught their manage, and to
ytthat end Riders deerly hird
But I his brother, gain nothing under him but growth, for
which his animalls on his dunghills are as much beholding to
him as I. This is it Adam that griefs me, and the spirit of
my father which I thinck is within me, begins to mutiny a-against gainst this servitude. I will no longer endure it thoug I know
no wise remedy to avoid it.
Stamp: Bibliothèque publique Douai Enter Oliver.
yes better then 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 courtesie of nations allows you my better
in that you are first born, but the same tradition takes not
away my blood were there 20 brothers between us. I have as –as much of my father in me as you, although I confess your
coming before me is neerer to his reverence.
I am no villaine, I am the yongest son of sir Rowland
de Boyes, he was my father and he is thrice a villaine
ytthat sais
such a father begot villaines: wert thou not my brother I
would not take this hand from thy throat till this other had
puld out thy tongue, for saying so thou hast raild on thy selfe.
I will not till I please: you shall heare me: my father
charg’d you in his will to give me good education: you have traind
me like a pesant obscuring and hiding from me all gentlegentlemanlike manlike qualities: the spirit of my father grows strong in
me and I will no longer endure it: therfor allow me such exerexercises cises as may become a gentleman or give me
yethe poor allowance my father left me by testament, with
ytthat I will goe bybuy my
fortunes.
and
wtwhat wilt thou doe beg when that is spent? well sir
get you in. I will not long be troubled with you: you shall some part of
yryour will, I pray you leave me.
none but the old;
ytthatyethe old Duke is banishd by his yonger
brother the new duke, and 3 or 4 loving Lords have put them–themselves selves into voluntarie exile with him, whose lands enrich
the new Duke, therfor he gives them leave to wander.
oh no, for her cozen so loves her being ever bredtogea togeather ther that she would have followd her exile, or dy’d to stay
behind her: she’s at the court and no less belov’d of her unckle
then his own daughter; and never two ladies lov’d as theydoe.they doe.
they say he is allready in
yethe forrest of Arden, and
ytthatmamany ny young Gentlemen flock to him daily and fleet the time
carelessly as they did in the golden world.
yes sir, and I come to acquaint you
wthwith a matter; I
secretly understandytthatyour Bro: Orlando hath a mind to –
to com in disguisd against me and try a fall to morrow
sir I wrastle for my credit and he
ytthat escapes me
wthoutwithout
some
broken limb shall acquit him well. your brother is but yong
and tender; and for
yryour love I would be loth to foyle him as I
must for my honor if he come against me; therfor out
of my love to you I came hither to acquaint yoyu ,
ytthateieither ther you might stay him from his enterprize or brook
his disgrace since ’tis a thing of his own search and much against my will.
Charles I thank thee for thy love,
wchwhich shall be requited
I had notice of his purpose, and endeavour’d to disuade him
from it, but he’s resolute. I tell thee Charles ’tis the stubornst
young fellow in all france an envious emulator of all mens
good parts, and my profess’d enemie. therfor use thy discretion
I had rather thou wouldst breake his neck as his finger. And
thou weret best looke too’t for If thou dost him any slight
disgrace he will practise against thee by poison, and never
leave thee till he hath tane thy life by some means or other
for I assure thee (and almost with tears I speak’t) there’s
not one so young and so villanous this day living. I speake
but brotherly of him, but should I anato tmizeanatomize him to
thee, as he is I must blush and weep and thou must looke
pale and wonder.
I am heartily glad I came hither to you; If he come totomorrow morrow I’ll give him his payment; If ever he goe alone againe
I’ll never wrastle for prize more: and so God keep your worship.
farewell good charles.
(Exit now I will stirr this gamester; I hope I shall see an end of him.
for my soule, (though I know not why) hates nothing more then
he; yet he’s gentle, never schoold, yet learned, full of noble de—device, vice, of all sorts enchantingly belovd,
ytthat
I am alltogeather even
by my own people dispis’d: but it shall not be long, this wrastler
35
shall clear all: nothing remains but
ytthat I kindle the boy thither,
wchwhich now I’ll goe about.
( Exit:
Deer Cælia I show more mirth then I am
mrsmistress of and would
you have me still merrier? Unless you can teach me to forget a
banishd father, you must not teach me to remember aneyextraextraordinary ordinaryfpleasure.
herein I see that thou lovest me not
wthwith the full weight that
I love theethmy unkle thy banishd father had banishd the Duke
my father so thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught
my love to take thy father for mine, so wouldst thou to mewere If the truth of thy love to me were righteoulsly temper’d, as mine to thee.
you know my father hath no child but me, nor none is like
to have, and truly whe he dies thou slhalt be his heire. for
wtwhat he hath
taken from thy father by force, I will render thee again in affecaffection: tion: by my honor I will, and when breake
ytthat oath let me turn
monster: therefor my sweet Rose my deer Rose be merry
marry pray thee doe to make sport withall. but love no man
in earnest, nor no further in sport neither, then with safety of a pure
blush thou maiest come of againe in honor.
No when nature hath made a fair clreature may she not by
fortune fall into the fire? though nature hath given us wit to
flout at fortune, hath not fortune sent this foole to cut of the Argument?
Perchance this is not fortunes work neither but natures who perpercieving cieving our naturall witts too dull to reason of such Goddesses, hath
sent this naturall for our whetstone: the dullness of the foole being
alwaies the whetstone of the witts. how now wit whither goe you?
of a Certaine knight madam that swore by his honor the
pankakes were good and the mustard was nought: now I’ll
stand too’t the pancakes were naught and the mustard was good
and ‸yetthe knight was not forsworne.
by my knavery then (If I had it) so I were. but if you swear
by
ytthatytthat is not you are not forsworne: no more was this knight
swearing by his honor for he never had any. or if he had, he had
swore it away before he ever saw those pancakes or that mustard.
the elder of the 3 wrastled
wthwith charles the Dukes wrastler
but Charles in a moment threw him and broke three of his ribs
ytthat there is little hope of life in him; so he servd
yethe2dsecond, so the third:
yonder they lye the poor old man their father making such
pittyfull moan over them, that all the beholders weep too.
youlel take little delight in’t I can tell you there’s such
odds in the man: in pitty of the chalengers youth, I would fain
disswade him, but he will not be entreated. speake to him Ladies
see if you can move him.
yong Gentleman your spirits are too bold for your years: you
have seen cruell proofe of this mans strength. we pray you for
yryour own
fsake to embrace
yryour own safety and give over your attempt.
I beseech you punish me not
wthwith your hard thoughts, wherin
37
I con fessconfess my selfe much guilty to deneye so fair and excellent ladies a=any ny thing. but let your faire eyes and Gentle wishes goe with youme to my
tryall; wherin If I be foyld, there is but one sham’d that has no honor
to loose, if kild but one dead
ytthat is willing to be so. I shall my friends
no wrong for I have none to lament me; the world no injury for in
it I have nothing; but only fill up a place in it, which may be
better supply’d when I have made it empty.
I wish thou hadst bin son to some man else,
The world esteemd thy father honourable,
but I did find him still my enemie;
Thou shouldst have better pleasd me
wthwith this deed
hadst thou descended from some other house.
but fare thee well thou art a gallant youth
I would thou hadst told me of another father
Exit Duke.
my father lov’d Sir Rowland as his soule
and all the world was of my fathers mind
had I before thought this young man his son
I should have given him tears unto entreatyes
ere he should thus have ventur’d
Gentle cozen lett us goe thanke him & encourage him
my fathers rough and envious disposition
sticks me at heart. sir you have well deserv’d
If you doe keep
yryour promises in love
but justly as you have exceeded all in promise
yryourmrsmistress shall be happy.
he calls us back: my pride fell with my fortunes
I’ll aske him
wtwhat he would: Did you call sir?
sir you have wrastled well and overthrowne
more then your enemies
Good sir I doe in friendship counsaile you
to leave this bplace: Allthough you have deservd
high comendation true aplause & love
yet such is now the Dukes condition
that he misconsters all that you have sdone:
The Duke is humorous
wtwhat he is indeed
more sutes eyou to concieve then I to speake.
neither his daughter if we judge by manners
and yet indeed the lesser is his daughter
the other’s daughter to the banishd Duke
and here detaind by her usurping unckle
to keep his daughter company whose loves
are deerer then the naturall bond of sisters:
but I can tell
ytthat of late this Duke
I tHath tane deispleasure gainst his gentle niece
grounded upon no other argument
but
ytthatyethe people praise her for her vertues
and pity her for her good fathers sake.
and on my life his malice ’gainst the Lady
will sodainly breakforthbreak forth: sir fareyouwell fare you well here after in A better world then this
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you
I rest much bound unto you, fare you well.
thus must I from the smoake into
yethe smother
from tyrant Duke unto a tyrant Brother.
But Heavenly Rosaline. Exit.
Doth it therfor follow that you should love his son deerly?
by this kind of chace I should hate him, for my father hated
his father, and yet I hate not Orlando.
I doe beseech
yryour grace
let me the knowledge of my fault beare with me,
38
if
wthwith my selfe I hold intelligence
or have acquaintance
wthwith my own desires
I that I doe not dreame or be not frantik
(As I doe trust I am not) then dear Uncle
never so much as in a thought unborne
Did I offend
yryour highness.
so was I when
yryour highness tooke his Dukedome
so was when from hence you banishd him;
Treason is not inherited my
LdLord or if we did derive it from our friends
wt’swhat’s that to me my father was no thrator .
then good my liege mistake me not so much
to think my poverty is treacherous.
I did not then entreat to have her stay
it was
yryour pleasure and your owne remorse
I was too young that time to value her;
but now I know her, if she be a traytor
why so am I: we alwaies slept togeather
Rose at one einstant learnd, plaid eat togeather
and wheresoere we went like Juno’s swanns
still we went coupled ‸and inseperable.
she is too subtle for thee and her smoothness,
her very silence and her patience
Speake to the people, and they pitty her:
Thou art a fool she robs thee of thy name
and thou wilt show more bright and seem more vertuous
when she is gone: then open not thy lips
firm and irrevocable is my doome
which I have pasd upon her she is banish’d.
hath not? Rosalinde then wants the love
which should teach thee that thou & I are one. shall be sundred? shall we part sweet Girle?
no let my father seeke another heire;
therfor devise with me how we may flye
whither to goe and
wtwhat to bear
wthwith us
and do not seek to bearyryour charge alone and all your griefs yryour selfe and leave me out:
for by this heaven (now at our sorrows pale
say
wtwhat thou canst Ill goe along
wthwith thee.
were it not better
because
ytthat I am more than commaon tall
that I did sute me all points like a man
a gallant curtelax upon my thigh
a Borespeare in my hand and in my heart
lie there
wtwhat hidden womans feare there will
we’ll have a swashing and a marshall outside
as many other mannish cowards have
that doe outface it
wthwith their semblances.
he’ll goe along ore the wide world with me
leave me alone to woe him; letts away
and get our jewells and our wealth togeather
devise the fittest meanes atnd safest way
to hides us from pursuit that will be made
after my flight: now goe we in content
to liberty and not to banishment.
Exeunt
Act II
Sc: I
Enter Old Duke Amiens and other Lords like forresters.
now my coe-mates and brothers in exile
hath not old custome made this life more sweet
then that of painted pomp? are not these woods
more free from perill then the envious court?
here feel we not the penaltie of Adam
here feel we not the penalty of Adam the seasons difference as the icie Phange
and churlish chiding of the winters wind
which when blows and bites upon my body
even till I shrink with cold I smile and say
this is no flattery: these are couselours
that feelingly perswade me
wtwhat I am:
sweet are the uses of adversity,
and this our life exempt from publik hant
finds bookes in trees, tongues in the running brookes sermons in stones and good in every thing.
come shall we goe and kill us venison
and yet it irks me the poor dapled fooles
being native burgers of this desert citty
should in their confineswthwith forked heads
have their round haunches goar’d.
Indeed my
LdLord the Melancholly Jaques
does grieve at that.
and in
ytthat kind sweares you doe more usurp
then doth
yryour brother that hath banishd you:
40
today my
LdLord of Amiens and my selfe
did steale behind him as he lay along
under an oake whose antique head peeps out
upon the brooke
ytthat brauls along this wood
to the which place a poore sequestred stagg
that from the hunters aime had tane a hurt
did come to languish and indeed my
LdLord the wretched animall heav’d forth sauch groanes
that their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
almost to bustrsting, and the big round teares
coursd one another down his innocent nose
in pitteous chase; and thus the hairy foole
much marked of the melancholy Jaques
ostood on th’ extremest nverge of the swift brooke
augmenting it with dtears.
o yes into a 1000 similies
first for his weeping into the needless streame;
poor Deer quoth he thou makst a testament
as wordlings doe, giving thy sum of more
to that which had too much; then being alone
left and abandond of his velvet friend
tis right quoth he dthus misery doth part
The flux of company: anon a careless herd
full of the pasture jumps along by him
and never fstays to greet him. I quoth Jaques
sweep on you fatt and greazy citizens
tis just the fashion; wherefor doe you looke
upon
ytthat poore and broken bankrupt there?
thus most invectively he pierces through
The bodie of
yethe country citty court
yea and of this our life, swearing that we
are meer usurpers tyrants, and
wtswhat’s worse
to fright the animalls and kill them up
in their assignd and native dwelling place
I cannot heare of any
ytthat did see her
the ladies the attendants of her chamber
saw her in bed, and in the morning early
they found the sheets untreasur’d of their
mrsmistress.
my
LdLord the foolish Clown, at whom so oft
yryour grace was wont to laugh is also missing;
Hespieria the princess gGentle woman
confesses that she secretly ore heard
your daughter and her cozen much comend
the parts and graces of the wrastler
that did but lately foyle the synowy Charles
and she beleeves where ever they are gone
that youth is surely in their company
if he be absent bring his brother to me
I’ll make him find him: doe this sodainly;
and let not search and inquisition quaile
to bring again those foolish runawaies.
oh my sweet youn master
wtwhat make you here? your praise is come too swiftly home before you.
know you not master to some kind of men
their graces serve them but as enemies;
no more doe yours: your vertues gentle master
are sanctified and holy traytors to you:
oh
wtwhat a world is this when
wtwhat is comely
envenoms him that bears it?
oh unhappy youth
come not within these doores: wthwith this Roofe
The enemie of all
yryour graces lives.
he has heard
yryour praises & this night he means
to burn the lodging where you use to lye
and you within it; if he faile of that
he will have other means to cut you of
I overheard him, and his practises:
this house is but a butchery
abhor it feare it doe not enter in.
wtwhat
wouldst thou have me goe and beg my food
or with a base and boystrous sword enforce
a theevish living on the common rode? I rather will submit me to the malice
but doe not so I have 500 crowns
the thrifty hire I I savd under your father take
ytthat and he
ytthat doth yethe ravens feed be comfort to my age; here is the gold
all this I give you let me be
yryour servant
thou I look old yet I am strong and lusty I’ll doe the service of a yonger man
in all your business and necessities.
let me goe with you.
oh good old man how well in thee apears
the constant service of
yetheancient world
well come thy waies wee’ll goe a longalong togeather
and ere we have thy youthfull wages spent
wee’ll light upon some setled low content.
master goe on and I will follow thee
to the last step with truth and loyalty.
for fortune can not recompense me better
then to dye well and not my masters debtor.
Exeunt.
Scene IV
Enter Rosalinde Cælia and
Clowne, alias touchstone.
I could find in my heart to disgrace my mans apparell
and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort the weaker —
vessell as doublet and hose ought to shew it selfe couragious
to petycoat. therfore courage good Aliena.
no Corin being old thou canst not guess
though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover
as ever sighd upon a midnight pillow:
but if thy love were ever like to mine
as sure I thinck never did man love so,
how many actions most ridiculous
hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasie?
oh thou didst then nere love so heartily.
if thou remembrest not the slightest folly
ytthat ever love did make thee run into
thou hast not lovd.
or if thou hast sate as I doe now
wearying thy hearer in thy
MrsMistress praise
Thou hast not lov’d.
or if thou hast not broke from company
abruptly as my passion now makes me
thou hast not lov’d.
O Phœbe Phœbe Phœbe.
Exeunt
and I mine I remember when I was in love I broke my sword
over a stones head and bid it take
ytthat for coming anights to
Jane Smile, and I remember the kissing of her batlet, and the
cows duggs that her prety chopt hands had millkd; we that are
true lovers run into sad capers.
I prethee shepheard if
ytthat love or Gold
can in this desert place buy enterteinment
bring us where we may rest sour selfes and feed
here’s a yong maid
wthwithtravell much oppresd
and faints for succor
fair sir I pitty her
and wish for her sake more then for my owne
my fortunes were more able to releeve her:
but I am shepheard to another man
and do not sheere the fleeces that I graze:
my master is of churlish disposition
43
and never thincks to find the way to heaven
by deeds of hospitality.
by besides his coatte his flock, and bounds of feed
are now on sale, atnd at our sheepcoat now
by reason of his absence there is nothing
ytthat you will feed on: but
wtwhat is come see
and in my voice most wellcome shall you be.
assuredly the thing is to be sold
goe with me if you like upon report
The soile the profit and this kind of life
I will your very faithfull feeder be
and buy it with your Gold immediatly.
why how now Adam? no greater heart in thee
live a little comfort thy heart a little.
if this uncouth forrest yeeld any thing savage
I will either be food for it or bring it for food for thee:
For my sake be comforted hold death a while
at the armes end: I will here be with thee presently
and If I bring thee not somthing to eat
I’ll give thee leave to dye, but if thou dyest
before I come thou art a mocker of my Labor
well said thou lookest Cheerfully I’ll be with thee again quickly: yet thou lyest
in the bleake ayre; come I will bear thee
to some shelter and thou shalt not dye
for lack of a dinner
If there live any thing in this desert.
Exeunt
A foole a foole I met a foole ith forrest as I doe live by food I met a foole
who laid him down and bakd him in the sun
and raild on lady fortune in good termes
in good set termes, and yet a motley foole.
good morrow foole quoth I; no sir quoth he
call me not foole, till heaven hath sent me fortune.
and then he drew a diall from his poake
and looking on it saies ’tis 10 a clock thus may you see quoth he how the world waggs
44
tis but an hour agoe since it was nine
and after one hour more twill be eleven
and so from hour to hour we rippe and ripe
and then from hour to hour we rot and rot,
and therby hangs a tale. when I did heare
The motley foole thus morall on the time
my lungs begun to crow like Chanticleere
that fooles should be so deep contemplative
and I did laugh sans intermission
an houre by his Diall. oh noble foole.
motley’s the only wear.
you touch’d my vein at first, the thorny point
of bare distress hath tane from me the shew
of smooth Civility: yet I am inland bred,
and know some nurture: but forbeare I say
He dies
ytthat touches any of this fruit
till I and my affaires are answered.
Speake you so Gently? pardon me I pray you
I thought that all things had been savage here
and therfor put I on the countenance
of stern commandment. but
wtwhat ere you are
ytthat in this desert inaccessible
under the shade of melancholly boughs
loose and neglect the creeping houres of time
If ever you have lookd on better days if ever sate at any goodmans feast
if ever from
yryour eye lids wip’d a tear
and know
wtwhat tis to pittie and be pittied
let gentleness my strong enforcement be
in the which hope I bush and hide my sword.
true it is
ytthat we have seen better daies and sate adt good mens feast and wip’d oure eyes
of drops
ytthat sacred pitty hath engendred
and therfor sit you down in Gentleness
and take upon comand
wtwhat help we have
that to
yryour wanting may be ministred.
then but forbeare
yryour food a little while
whilst like a doe I dgoe to find my fawn
and give it food. there is ald an old poore man
who after me hath many a weary step
limpt in pure love. till he be first sufficd
oppresst
wthwith two great evills age and hunger
I will not touch a bit.
all the whole world’s a stage
and all the men and women meerly players;
They have their Exits and their entrances
and one man in his time plaies many parts,
his acts being 7 ages: at first the infant
muling and puking in his nurses armes:
Then the whining schoolboy
wthwith his satchell
and shining morning face creeping like a snaile unwillingly to schoole. and then the lover
sighing like a furnace,
wthwith a wofull ballad
made to his
MrsMistress eyebrow. then a soldior
full of strange oaths and beardend like a pard seeking the buble reputation
even in the canons mouth: and then the justice
in fair Round belly
wtwith fat capon lind
with eyes severe and beard of formall cut and so he plays his part. the sixt age thifts into the lean and sipperd pantaloone
with spectacles on nose and pouch on side
His youthfull hose well savd a world too wide
For his shrunck shank, and his big manly voice
turning again towards childish treble pipes
and whistles in his sound. last scene of all
that ends this strange eventfull history
is second childishness, and mere oblivion
sans teeth, sans, eyes, sans tast, sans every thing.
Enter Orlando bearing Adam
if that you were the good
SrSir Rowlands son
as you have whisperd faithfully you were
and as my eye doth his effigies wittness,
most truly limnd and, living in your face,
be truly wellcome hither: I am the Duke
ytthat lovd
yryour father: the residue of your fortune
goe to my cave and tell me. good old man
thou art right welcome as thy master is:
support him by the arm; give me thy hand
and let me all
yryour fortunes understand.
not see him since sir sir
ytthat cannot be!
Find out thy brother where soere he is
seek him with candle, bring him alive or dead within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more
to seek a living in my territory
thy lands and all the things thou dost call thine
worth havingwe do seize in-to our hands
till thou canst quit thee by thy brothers mouth
of
wtwhat we thinck against thee
more villain thou! well push him out of doores
and let my officers of such a nature
make an extent upon his house and lands
doe this expediently, and turn him going.
(Exeunt.
hang there my verse in witness of my love.
and thou thrice crowned queen of night survey
with thy chast eye from thy pale spheare above
thy huntress that my full life doth sway.
O Rosalinde these trees shall be my bookes
and in their barks my thoughts I’ll character
that every eye which in this forrest lookes
shall see thy vertue wittnest every where.
run run Orlando carve on every tree
the fair the chast and unexpressive she.
Exit. Enter Corin and Clowne
truly shepherd in respect of its selfe it is a good life, but
in respect that it is a shepheards life it is naught; in respect it
is in the fields nOit pleaseth me well, but in respect it is not in
the court it is tedious. has’t any Philosophy in thee shepherd
no more but that I know when one sikens the more, hes still
The worse at ease, that he
ytsthat’swthwithout mony, meat, and content is
wthwithwithout out 3 good friends: that the property of raine is to wet, of fire to
burne: that the great cause of the night is the Lack of
yethesun.
not a whit, those that are good manners at court are as ridiridiculous culous in the country as the behaviour of the country isat court.
you told me you salute not at the court, but you kiss your hands
that courtesie would be nasty if courtiours were shepherds.
most shallow man: thou worms meat in respect of a good
piece of flesh: learn of the wise and perpend: civet is of a baser
birth than tarr, being the uncleanly flux of a cat. mend the
instance shepherd.
sir I am a true labourer, I earne
ytthat I eat, get that I wear
owne no man hate; envie no mans happyness: glad of others good
content with my harme, and the gretest of my pride is to see
my lambs suck and ewes graze. but here comes
MrMaster Ganimed
my new
mrsmistress Brother. Enter Rosalinde
for a taste.
If a hart doe lack a hind
Lett him find out Rosalinde
If the Cat will after kinde
so be sure will Rosalinde
Witer garments must be lin’d
So must slender Rosalinde
They that reap must sheafe and bind
then to cart with Rosalinde
Sweetest nut hath sowrest rinde
such a nut is Rosalinde.
He that sweetest Rose will finde
must find loves prick and Rosalind
This is the very false gallop of verses, why doe you infect your selfe
with them?
peace here comes my sister reading stand a side
Enter Cælia reading
why should this a desert be
for it is unpeopled? no:
Tongues I’ll hang on every tree
ytthat shall civill sayings show.
some how brief the life of man
runs his erring pilgrimage,
That the stretching of span buckles in his sum of age.
some of violated vowes
twixt the soules of friend and friend
But upon the fairest bowes
or at every sentence end
will I Rosalinda write
teaching all that read to know
the quintessence of every sprite
heaven would in little show
Therfor heaven nature chargd
that one body should be fild
with all graces wide enlarg’d
nature presently distilld
Helens g Cheek but not her heart
Atalanta’s majestie
Cleopatra’s better part
Sad lucrecia’s modestie.
Thus Rosalinde of many parts
by heavenly synod was devisd
of many faces eyes and hearts
to have the touches deerest prizd.
Heaven would that she these gifts should have
and I to live and dye her slave.
I was 7 of the 9 daies out of wonder before you came
48
for looke here
wtwhat I found on a Palme tree. I never was so beberim’d rim’d since Pythagora’s time when I was an Irish ratt and
that I can scarce remember.
I prethee take the corke out of thy mouth that I may—
drink thy tydings. is he of gods making?
wtwhat manner of man?
is his head worth a hat? or his chin worth a beard?
alas the day
wtwhat shall. I doe
wthwith my doublet and hose?
wtwhat did he when thou sawst him?
wtwhat said he? how lookd he?
wtwhat makes
he here? did he ask for me? where remains he? how parted
he from thee? and when shall thou see him again? answer
me in one word.
it is as easie to count Atomes as to resolve the propopropositions sitions of a lover. but take a tast of my finding him and
rellish it with a good observance. I found him under a tree like
a drop’d acorne
you have a nimble wit; I thinck ’twas made of Atalan=Atalanta’s ta’s heels. will you sitt down with me, and we’ll raill against
our
mrsmistress the wotrld, and all our misery.
by no means sir. time travells in divers paces
wthwith diverse
persons. he stands still with some, ambles
wthwith others, trots with others
and gallops infine with others.
marry
wthwith a yong maid between the contract of her mariage
and the day ’tis solemniz’d: if the interim be but a sennight
times pace is so hard
ytthat it seems seven years.
with a priest that wants latine and a rich man
ytthat hath
not the gout; for the one sleeps easily because he can not study
and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain
I have been told so of many: but indeed an old religious uncle
of mine taught me to speake who was in his youth an inland man
and one
ytthat knew courtship too well for there he fell in love. I have
heard him read many Lectures against it, and I thanck god I am
not a woman to be touchd
wthwith so many giddy offenses as he
taxd their whole sex withall.
no I will not cast away my Phisick but upon those that
are sick. there’s a man hants our forrest that abuses the young plants with carving Rosalinde on their barkes, hangs
odes upon hawthornes, and elegies on brambles; all forsooth–
deifying the name of Rosalinde. If I could meet that fancy
=monger I would give him some good counsaile, for he seems
to have the quotidian of love on him.
A lean cheek which you have not: a blew eye; which
you have not; a beard neglected which you have not. (but
I pardon you for ytthat, for simpliy your having no beard is a
yonger brothers revenew.) then
yryour hose should be ungarterd your sleeve unbuttoned,
yryour shoe unty’d, and every thing about
you demonstrating a careless desolation: but you are no such
man: you are rather point device in
yryour accoustrements as
as loving your selfe rather than seeming the lover of another.
me beleev’et! you may as soon manke her you love belevt
which I warrant she’s apter to doe then confess she does. but
in good truth are you he that hang the verses on the trees
wherein Rosalind is so admir’d?
love is a meer madness and I tell you deserves as well
a darke house and a whip as madmen doe: and the reason
why they are not so whipd and cur’d is,
ytthat the lunacie is so
ordinarie that the whippers are in love too. yet I profess
curing it by counsell.
yes one and in this manner. he was to imagine me
his love; and I set him every day to wooe me. at which time
would I beeing but a moonish youth, greeve be effeminate
changeable, longing and liking proud fantasticall apish
shallow inconstant full of teares full of smiles; for every
passion something and for no passion truly any thing, as
boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour.
That I Drave my sutor from his mad humor of love to a liliving ving humor of Madness, which was to forswear the full stream
of the world and in a corner live meerly monastick: and
thus I curd him and this way will I take to wash your
liver as clear as a sound sheep’s heardt thadt theere shall
not be one spot of love in’t.
well thanck god for thy sluttishnes fouleness sluttish=sluttishness ness may come hereafter. but I’ll marry thee, I have been
with sir Oliver Martext who hath promisd to couple us
yes, I thinck he is not a pickpoket nor a horsestealer
but for his veryty in love I thinck him as hollow as a covecovered red goblet or a worm eaten nut
was is not is: besides the oath of a lover is no stronger
Then the word of a tapster, they are both the confirmers of
false reckonings. he attends on the Duke
yryour father.
I met the Duke yesterday and had much question
with him; he askt me of
wtwhat parentage I was; I told him as good as he, so he laughd and lett me goe. But
wtwhat talke
oh
ytsthat’s a brave man he writes brave verses, speakes brave ‸wordsoaths swears brave oaths, breaks them bravely quite travers the heart
of his lover. but all’s brave that youth mounts and folly guides:
who comes here?
Enter Corin.
MrsMistress
and Master you have oft enquird
after the shepherd that complaind of love
whom you saw sitting by me on the turfe
praising the proud disdainfull shepherdess
that was his
MrsMistress.
If you will see a pageant truly play’d
between the pale complexion of true love
and
yethe red glow of scorn and proud disdaine
goe hence a little and I shall conduct you
If you will marke it.
o come lett us remove
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love:
bring us to this sight and you both shall say
I’ll prove a busie actor in their play.
(Exeunt
sweet Phœbe do not scorne me, do not Phebe
say
ytthat you love me not but say not so in in bitterness: the common executioner
whose heart the accustomd sight of blood makes hard
falls not the ax upon
yethe humbled neck
but first f begs fpardon: will you sterner be
Then he that dies and lives by bloody drops.
Enter Rosalind Cælia and Corin.
I flye thee for I would not injure thee;
thou tellst me there is murder in my eye.
tis pretty sure and very probable
That eyes that are the frailst and softest things
who shut their coward gates on Atomies
should be cald tyrants butchers murtherers.
now doe I frown on thee with all my heart
and if my eyes can wound now lett em kill thee.
now counterfeit to swoond, why now fall down
or if thou canst not oh forshamefor shame for shame
lye not to say my eyes are murtherers:
now shew the wound my eyes have made in thee
scratch thee but with a pin and there remains
some scarr of it: leane but upon a rush
the cicatrice and capable impressure
thy palm somtime retains: but now my eyes
which I have darted at thee hurt thee not.
o deare Phœbe
if ever (as
ytthat ever may be near)
you meet in some fresh cheeke the power of fancy
then shall you know the wounds invisible
that loves keen arrow makes.
but till
ytthat time
come thou not near me: and when that time comes
afflict me with thy mocks, pitty me not
as till
ytthat time I shall not pitty thee.
and why I pray you? who might be
yryour mother?
Thant you insult exult, and all at once
over the wretched?
wtwhat though you have no beauty
as by my faith I see no more in you
then without candle may goe dark to bed:
must you be therfor proud and pittyless?
why
wtwhat means thois? why doe you looke on me?
53
I see no more in you then in the ordinary
of natures sale-work? ods my little life
I thinke tshe means to tangle my eyes too
no faith proud
MrsMistress hope not after it
tis not
yryour inkie brows your black silk haire
your bugle eye balls nor your cheek of cream
that can entame my spirits to your worship:
you foolish shepherd wherefor doe you follow her?
like foggy south puffing with wind and raine;
you are a thousand times a properer man
then she a woman. ’tis such fooles as you
that makes the world full of illfavoured children.
tis not her glass but you that flatter her
and out of you she sees herself more proper
Then any of her lineaments can show her:
But
MrsMistress know
yryour selfe down on
yryour knees
and thank heaven fasting for a good mans love;
for I must tell you friendly in
yryour eare
sell when you can you are not for all markets:
Cry the man mercy love him take his offer so take her to thee shepherd, fare you well.
he’s falln in love with her foulness, and she’ll
fall in love wthwith my anger: if it be so as fast
as she answers thee with frowning lookes, i’ll
sauce her with better words.
why looke you so upon me?
I pray you do not fall in love wthwith me.
for I am falser then vows made in wine
besides I like you not: if you will know my house
tis at the tuft of olives here hard by:
will you goe sister; shepheard ply her hard.
Come sister: shepherdess looke on him better
and be not proud, though all the world could see
none could be so abusd in sight as he.
Come to our flock.
Exeunt Ros: Cæ & Cor:
why that were covetous nesscovetousness:
Selvius the time was that I hated thee
and yet it is not
ytthat I bear thee love
but since that thou canst talk of love so well
thy company which once was hatefull to me
I will endure; and I’ll employ thee too:
but doe not looke for further recompence
then thy own gladness that thou art employd.
holy and so perfect is my love
and in so great a poverty of grace
that I shall thinck it a most plenteous crop
to glean the broken eares after the man
that the main harvest reaps: loose now and then
a scatterd smile, and
ytthat I’ll live upon.
thinck not I love him though I ask for him
tis but a peevish boy yet he talks well
but
wtwhat care I for words? yet words do well
when he
ytthat speakes them pleases those that heare.
it is a pretty youth, not very pretty
but sure he’s proud and yet his pride becomes him;
hee’ll make a proper man; the best thing in him
is his complexion; and faster then his tongue
did make offence, his eye did heale it up:
he’s not very tall, yet for his years he’s tall
lis leg is but soe so, and yet tis well:
There was a pretty redness in his lip
a little riper and more lusty red
Then that mixt in heis cheeke: twas just the difference
betwixt the constant red, and mingled damask.
There are some women Silvius, had they markt him
in parcells as I did would have gone neer
to fall in love with him: but for my part
I love him not nor hate him not: and yet
I have more cause to hate him, then to love him.
for
wtwhat had he to doe to chide at me?
he said my eyes were black and my hair black
and now I doe remember scornd at me:
I wonder why I answerd not again
but
ytsthat’s all one omittance is no quittance:
I’ll write to him a very tanting letter
and thou shalt bear it willt thou Silvius?
I have neither the schollers melancholly which is emuemulation; lation; nor the musitians which is fantasticall; nor the–
courtiers which is proud, non the soldiers which is ambitious nor the ladies which is nice nor the lovers which is all these;
but it is a melancholly of my owne compounded of many
simples, extracted from many objects and indeed the sundry
computation of my travells, in which my often rumination
wraps me in a most humorous sadness.
a Traveler: by my troth you have great reason to be sad:
I fear you have sold your own lands to see othersr mens: then
to have ‸seen much and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and
poor hands.
farewell MrMastertravellor. why how now Orlando where have you
been all this while? you a lover? if you serve me such another trick
never come more in my sight.
yes of a snaile: for though he comes slowly he carries his
house on his head; a better jointure I thinck then you can make
a woman: bad besides he brings his destinie with him.
nay you had better first speake, and when you were gragraveld veld for want of matter, you might take occasion to kiss:
very good orators when they are out they will spitt, and for
lovers lacking (god warne us) matter the lClenliest shift is –
to kiss.
no faith dye by attorney.
yethe poore world is almost 6000
yeares old, and in all this time there has not one dy’d in his
own person, viz. in a love cause. men have dy’d from time
to time, and wormes have eaten them, but not for love.
by this hand it would not kill a fly. but come now
I will be your Rosalinde in a more coming on disposition: &
aske me
wtwhat you will I will grant it.
why then can one desire too much of a good thing: Come
sister you shall be the priest and marry us: give me
yryour hand
Orland.
wtwhat doe you say sister?
I might ask you for
yryour commission
but I doe take thee orlando for my husband: there’s a girle goes before
the priest; and certainly a womans thought runs before her actions
say a day and leave out the ever. no no Orlando men are
Aprill when they woe and December when they wed: maides are
may when they are maides but the sky changes when they are wives
I will be more clamorous then a cockpigeon againt raine, more
newfangled then an ape, more giddy in my desires then a monmonky. ky. I will weep for nothing like Diana in the fountaine, and I
will doe that when you are dispos’d to be merry: I will laugh like
a hyen, and that when thou art inclind to sleepe.
else she could never have the witt to doe this. The wiser the
waywarder; shut the doores on a womans witt and it will out
attheat the casmate; shut that and ’twill out at the key hole; stop
that and ’twill fly out
yethe chimney
wthwith the Smoake.
yes goe your waies goe your waies: I knew
wtwhat you would
prove my friends told me as much:
ytthat flattring tongue of
yrsyours won me: tis but one cast away and so come death. two
a clock is your hour.
by my troth, and in good earnest and by all the
pretty oathes that are not dangerous, if you breake one–
jot of
yryour promise, or come one minute behindyryourbehind your houre
I will thinck you the mostaunworthy of her you call Ro=Rosalinde, salinde, that may be chosen out of the grosse band of the
unfaithfull: therfore beware my censure and keep your
promise.
you have simply misusd our sex in your
love prate: we must have your doublet and hose taken
from you and show the world wtwhat the bird hath done to
her owne nest.
o Coz coz my pretty little coz that thou didest
know how many fathom deep I am in love; my affectiaffection on hath an unknown bottom like
yethe bay of portugall.
no
ytthat same wicked bastard of Venus, that blind rasrascally cally boy, that abuses every ones eyes because his own are out
lett him be judge how deep I am in love. I’ll tell thee Aliena I
cannot be out of the sight of Orland. I’ll goe find a shade and sigh till he come
lett’s present him to the duke like a roman conqueror
and it would doe well to set the dears horns upon his head for a
branch of victory have you no song forrester for this purpose?
my errand is to you faire youth
my gentle Phebe bid me give you this:
I know not the contents, but as I ghess
by the stern brow and waspish action
which she did use as she was writing it,
it beares an angry tenor; pardon me
patience herselfe would startle at this letter
and play the swagrer, beare this beare all:
she saies I am not faire
ytthat I want manners
she calls me proud and
ytthat she could lnot love me
were men as rare as phœnix: ods me my will
her love is not the hare
ytthat I did hunt,
why writes she thus to me? well shepherd well
this is a letter of your owne device
come come you are a foole
and turnd into the extremity of love.
I saw her hand she has a leathern hand
a freestone colourd hand: I verily did think
ytthat her old gloves were on but ’twas her hands:
I say she never did invent this letter
This is a mans invention and his hand.
why tis a boystrous and a cruell stille
a stile for chalengers: why she defies me
like turk to Christian: womens gentle braine
could not drop forth such giantlike invention
such Ethiop words blacker in their effect
then in their countenance: will you heare the letter?
reads.
”why thy godhead laid apart
”warrst thou with a womans heart?
did you ever hear such railing?
” whilst the eye of man did wooe me
”that could doe no harme unto me.
meaning me a beast.
”if the scorn of
yryour bright eyne
”have power to raise such love in mine
”alas! in me
wtwhat strange effect
”would they work in sweet aspect?
”whilst yuou chid me, I did love
”how then might your prayers move?
”he
ytthat brings these lines to thee
”little knows this love in me:
”and by him seale up thy minde
”whether that thy youth and kinde
will the faithfull offer take
of me and all
ytthat I can make
or else by him my love deny
and then I’ll study how to dye.
doe you pitty him? no he deserves no pitty: wilt thou love
such a woman?
wtwhat to make thee an instrument and play false
strings upon thee? not to be endur’d. well goe you way to her and say this to her, that if she love me I charge her to love
thee: if she will not I will never love her unless thou intreat
for her: if you be a true lover hence and not a word, for here
comes more company
(Exit Silv: Enter Oliver.
west of this place down in the neibor bottome.
the row of Oziers by the murmuring streame
Left on your Right hand bring you to the place
but att this houre the house doth keep it selfe,
There’s none within.
if
ytthat an ey may profit by a tongue
Then should I know you by discription.
Such garments and such years: the boy is faire
of female favour and bestows himselfe
like a ripe sister: but the woman low
and browner then her brother: are not you
the owners of the house I did enquire for.
when last the young orlando parted from you
tHe left a promise to returne againe
withing an houre and pacing through the forrest
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
loe
wtwhat befell; he threw his eyes aside
and marke
wtwhat object did present it selfe
under an oake whose boughs were mossd with age
and high top bald with dry antiquity
a weretched ragged man ore grown with haire
59
lay sleeping on his back; about his neck
a green and guilded snake had wreathd it selfe
who with its head, nimble in threats approachd
The opening of his mouth. but sodainly se seing orlando, it unlinckd it selfe
and with indented glides did slip away
into a bush, under whose branches shade
a Lyoness with udders all drawn drie
lay. couching head on ground,
wthwith cat like watch
when
ytthatyethe sleeping man should stirr, for ’tis
the royall disposition of
ytthat beast
to prey on nothing
ytthat doth seem as dead:
This seen Orlando did approach the man
and found it was his brother his eldest brother.
twice did he turne his back and purposd so
but kindness nobler ever than revenge
and nature stronger then his just occasion
made him give battle to the Lyoness:
who quickly fell before, in which hurtling
from miserable slumber I awakd.
by and by:
when from the first to last between us two
tears our recountments had most kindly bathd
as how I came into that desart place.
In briefe he led me to the gentle duke
who gave me fresh array and enterteinment
committing me unto my brothers love:
who led me instantly unto his cave
there stript himselfe and here upon his arme
the lyoness had torne some flesh away
which all this while had bled; and now he fainted
and cry’d in fainting upon Rosalinde.
Briefe I recoverd him, bound up his wounds
and after some small space being strong at heart
he sent me hither stranger as I am
to tell this story
ytthat you might excuse
his broken promise, and to give this napkin
dy’d in his blood unto the shepheard youth,
that he in sport doth call his Rosalinde.
is’t possible
ytthat on so little acquaintance you should
like her?
ytthat but seing you should love her? and loving wooe?
and woeing she should grant? and will you persever to marry her?
neither call the giddiness of ’t in question; her poverty the small acquaintance, my sodaine wooing, nor her sodaine
consenting: but say with me I love Aliena: say with her
ytthat she loves me: consent
wthwith both
ytthat we may enjoy one another
it shall be to your good: for my fathers house & revenue will
I estate upon you and here live and die a shepheard.
you have my consent.
let your wedding be to morrow: thither will I
invite the Duke and his contendted followers.
goe you and prepare Aliena: for looke you
here comes my Rosalinde.
oh I know where you are: nay tis true; there was never any
thing so sodaine, but
yethe fight of 2 ramms and Cæsars thrathrasonicall sonicall brag of I came saw and overcame. for my sister
and
yryour Brother no sooner met but they lookd no sooner lookd
but they lovd, no sooner lovd but they sigh’d; no sooner sighd
but they ask’d one another the reason: no sooner sought knew
the reason but sought the remedy: and in these degrees have
they made a pair of stairs to mariage which they will climb
in continent,incontinent, or else be incontinent before mariage; they
are in the very wrath of love and will togeather. clubs can
not part them.
they shall be married to morrow, and I will bid the
duke to the festivall. but oh how bitter a thing is it to looke
61
into happiness through anothers eyes: by so much the more shall
I to morrow be at thees height of sorrow, by how much I shall
thinck my brother happy, in having
wtwhat he wishes for.
I will weary you then no longer with idle talking. know
of me then that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit:
beleeive, then if you please that I can doe strange things: I have
since I was 3 years old converst with a magitian most pro=profound found in his art and yet not damnable. If you doe love Rosalinde
so near at heart as your gesture cryes it out: when your
Brother marries Aliena you shall marry her. I know into
wtwhat straights of fortune she is driven, and it is not impossible
to me if it appear not inconvenient to you to set her bebefore foreyryour eyes to morrow humane as she is and without any
danger.
by my life I doe: therefore put you in
yryour best array
inviteyryour friends: for if you will be married to morrow you
shall and to Rosaline if you will.
Enter Silvius and Phebe. looke here comes a lover of mine and a lover of hers
I care not if I have: it is my study
to seeme dispightfull and ungentle to you:
you are there followed by a faithfull shepherd
look on him; love him, for he worships you.
it is to be all made of fantasie.
all made of passion and all made of wishes
all adoration duty and observance
all humbleness, all patience and impatience
all purity all try alltryall, all obedience and so am I for Phebe.
pray you ‸nomore of this tis like the howling of Irish wolves
against the moone: I will help you if I can
(to Sil:) I will love you If I could.
(to Ph:)and I’ll marry you if ere I marry
woman, and I will be maried to morrow. I will content
you if
wtwhat pleases you contents you and you shall be married totomorrow, morrow, as you love Rosalinde meet
(to Orla:)
as you love PhePhebe be meet;
)( to S)
and as I love no woman I’ll meet. so fare
you well: I have left you comands.
I have promisd to make all this matter even:
keep you
yryour word o Duke to give
yryour daughter
you yours Orlando to receive
yethe maid.
keep yoursSPhebe that you’ll marry me,
or else refusing me to wed this shepherd,
keep
yryour word Silvius to marry her
if she refuse me; and from hence I goe
to make these doubts all cleer. come
wthwith me sister ( Ex: R & Ce:
my
LdLordyethe first time that I ever saw him
methought he was a brother to
yryour daughter:
but my good lord this boy is forrest borne
and hath been tutord in the rudiments
of many desperate studies, by his uncle
whom he reports to be a great magician,
obscured in the circle of the wood
there is sure another flood towards and these couples are
coming to the arke. here comes a pair of very strange beasts
which in all tongues are called fooles.
if any man doubt
ytthat lett him put me to my purgapurgation tion I have trod a measure I have flatterd a Lady; I have been
politick with my friend, smooth with my enemie; I have unundone done 3 tailors I have had 4 quarrells, and was like to have
fought one
god thancke you. I press in here among the rest of
the country copulatives, to sweare and to forswear, accor=according
63
=ding
as mariage bind and flesh breakes: a poor virgin sir
an ill favourd thing sir, but my hOwne, a pure humor of
mine sir to take
ytthat which no body else will: rich honesty
— dwells like a miser in a poror house like a pearle in a foule
oyster.
upon a lye 7 times remov’d; (Bear
yethe body more seeming
Audrey) as thus sir: I did dislike the cut of a courtiers beard
he sent me word if I said his beard was not well cut, he was
in the mind it was: this is called the retort courteous. If I sent
him word againe it was not well cut, he would sentd me word
he cut his beard to please himselfe: this is cald the quip mo=modest dest. If again it was not well cut, he disabled my Judgement
This is cald the reply churlish: if againe it was not wellcut
he would answer I spake not true: this is call the reproofe–
valiant. if he againe I said it was not well cut he would
say I lyse: this is calld the countercheck quarrellsom; and so
to lie Circumstantiall, and the lye direct.
oh sir we quarrell in print by the booke, as you have
bookes for good manners: I will name you the degrees. the –
firs the retort courteous, the second the quip modest the
third the reply churlish; the fourth the reply reproofe valiant
The fift the countercheck quarrellsome the sixt the ly with circircumstance cumstance the sixt seventh the lye direct: all these you may
avoid but
yethe lye direct: and
ytthat too with an if: I knew
when 7 Justices could not take up a quarrell, but when
the parties met themselves, one of them thought but of an
if, as if you said so I said so: and they shookhandsshook hands and swore
brothers. your if is the only peacemaker theres much virvirtue tue in if.
then is ther mirth in heaven
when earthly things made even
Attone together
good duke recieve thy daughter
Hymen from heaven brought her
yea brought her hither
thatt thou mightst joyne her hand and his whose heart within her bosome is.
peace hoa: I barr confusion
Tis I must make conclusion
of these most strange events
here’s 8
ytthat must take hands
to joyne in hymens bands
if truth holds true contents.
you and you no cross. shall part
you and you are heart in heart
you to his love must accord
or have a lady foryryour Lord.
you and you are sure together
as the winter to foule weather.
whilst a wedlock hymne we sing
feed
yryour selves with questioning:
ytthat reason wonder may diminish
how thus we met and thus things finish.
Song
wedding is great juno’s crowne
o blessed bond of board and bed
tis hymen peoples every towne
high wedlock then be honoured:
honor high honor and renowne
to hymen god of every towne.
lett me have audience for a word or 2
I am
yethe 2dsecond son of old Sir Rowland
that bring these tidings to this faire assembly.
Duke Frederick hearing how
ytthat every day
men of great worth resorted to this forrest
addrest amighty a mighty power, which were on foot
in his own conduct purposing to take
his brother here and put him to the sword:
and to the skirts of this wild wood he came
where meeting
wthwith an old religious man
after some question with him was converted
both from his enterprize and from the world:
his crowne bequeathing to the banishd Duke and all their lands restor’d to theem againe
that were with him exild. this to be true
I doe engage my life.
wellcome yong man,
thou offerst fairly to thy brothers wedding:
to th’ one his lands withheld and to
yethe other
a land it selfe at large, a potent dukedome.
First in this forrest, let us doe those ends
that here were well begun and well begot
and after every of this happy number
that have endur’d shrewd daies and nights
wthwith us
shall share the good of our returned fortune
according to
yethe measure of their states.
mean time forget this newfalne dignitie
and fall into our Rustick revellry;
play musick and you brides and bridegroomes all
with measure heap’d in joy to’th’ mesures fall
There is much matter to be heard and learnt;
you to
yryour former honor I bequeath
yryour patience and
yryour vertue will deserve it
you to a love
ytthat your truefaithtrue faith doth merit
you to
yethe land and love & great allies
you to a long and well deserved bed
and you to wrangling, for thy loving voyage
is but for two months victualed; so to your pleasures
I am for other then
yryour dancing measures.
it is not the fashion to see the Ladie the Epilogue, but
it is no more unhandsome then to see the Lord the prologue:
If it be true
ytthat good wine needs no bush, tis true ytthat a good play
needs no Epilogue. yet to wgood wine they use good bushes, and
good wine prove the better by good epilogues:
wtwhat a case am
I in then that am neither a good Epilogue, nor can ininsinuate sinuate with you in
yethe behalfe of a good bplay? I am
not furnishd like a begger therfore to beg would not bebecome come me. my way is to conjure you and I’ll begin
wthwith the women; I charge you women for the love you bear
to men to like as much of this play as shall please you; and I charge you o men for the love you bear
to women (as I percieve by your simpring none of you
hates them) that between you and the women the
play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss
as many of you as had beards that pleasd me, comcomplexions plexions that I kliked, and breaths that I defy’d not;
and I am sure as many As have good beards, good
faces and sweet breathes, will for my kind offer when
I make curtsie bid me farewell.
Exeunt.
Finis
1694/5 9° Martij
Annotations
James
Why the scribe or editor changes the name of Orlando’s second brother from Jaques
to James (the English version of Jaques) throughout the Douai As You Like It is a matter of speculation. This correction might simply be to distinguish him from
his namesake, the melancholy courtier also called Jaques, but James would of course
have been a culturally resonant name for Recusants in the 1690s. Not only was the
exiled king called James II, but his son was also named James, for James Edward Francis.
Incidentally, the prince, who was born in 1688, was raised in exile in France at Saint-Germain.
golgenly
Scribal error for goldenly.
Drammatis Personæ
No list in F2. This is the first list of characters for this play, and it precedes
Rowe.
here feel we not the penalty of Adam
Accidental repetition of a line.
Enter Corin
Corin was made to exit after Sp229, and therefore needs to enter again (an added stage direction which shows careful
editing).
bush
Scribal error for blush.
lis
Transcription error for his.
some some
Accidental repetition.
firs
Scribal error for first.
she
The Douai editor edits F2 which has he; F3 also has she.
The Douai manuscript is the only source which calls the duke duke of Burgundy. This might have made more sense for a Douai exile, in that a large part of the Ardennes
area, in Flanders, belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy until 1482 (which was the year
of the death of Mary of Burgundy), after which the Burgundian state was dissolved
and the Low Countries fell under the domination of the Spanish Habsburgs. Douai itself
became Spanish possession until it was ceded to France in 1668. Rowe’s list of characters simply has duke of (blank), but Malone was the first to suggest (almost a century after the Douai editor) that the forest
of Arden of the play could be Ardennes in Flanders rather than the forest of Arden
in Warwickshire.
I: besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the something that nature
gave me, his countenance seemes to take from me: he lets me feede with his Hindes,
barres me the place of a brother, and as much as in him lyes, mines my gentility with
my education.
Ros. With his mouth full of newes. / Cel. Which he will put on us, as Pigeons feed
their young. / Ros. Then shall we be newes-cram’d. / Cel. All the better: we shallbe
more marketable. Boon-jour Mounsier Le Beu, what the newes?
strength, if you saw your selfe with your eyes, or knew your selfe with your judgement,
the feare of your adventure would counsell you to a more equall enterprise.
Father: Oh how full of briers is this working day world. / Cel.They are but burs,
Cosen, throwne upon thee in holiday foolery, if we walke not in the trodden paths,
our very petty-coates will catch them. / Ros. I could shake them off my coate, these
burs are in my heart. / Cel. Hem them away. / Ros. I would try if I could cry hem,
and have him.
O, a good wish upon you: you will try in time in despight of a fall: but turning these
jests out of service, let us take in good earnest: Is it possible on such a sodaine,
you should fall into so strong a liking with
What my yong master, oh my gentle master, / Oh my sweet master, O you memory / Of
old Sir Rowland? why, what make you here? / Why are you vertuous? Why doe people love
you? / And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant? / Why would you be so fond
to overcome / The bonny priser of the humorous Duke?
lusty; / For in my youth I never did apply / Hot, and rebellious liquors in my bloud,
/ Nor did not with unbashfull forehead wooe, / The meanes of weakeness and debility,
/ Therefore my age is a lusty winter, / Frosty, but kindly; let me goe with you,
antique world, / When service sweate for duty, not for meede: / Thou art not for the
fashion of these times, / Where none will sweate, but for promotion, / And having
that doe choake their service up, / Even with the having, it is not so with thee:
/ But poore old man, thou prun’st a rotten tree, / That cannot so much as blossome
yeeld, / In lieu of all thy paines and husbandry, / But
milk’d; and I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her, from whom I tooke two
cods, and giving her them againe, said with weeping teares, weare these for my sake:
Scaena Quinta. / Enter, Amyens, Iaques, and others. / Song / Vnder the greene wood
tree, / who loves to lye with me, / And turne his merry Note, / unto the sweet Birds
throte: / Come hither, come hither, come hither: / Heere shall he see no enemy, /
But Winter and rough Weather. / Iaq. More, more, I prethee more. / Amy. It will make
you melancholly Monsieur Iaques / Iaq. I thanke it: More, I prethee more, I can sucke
melancholly out of a song. As a Weazel suckes egges: More, I prethee more. / Amy.
My voyce is ragged, I know I cannot please you. / Iaq. I doe not desire you to please
me, I doe desire you to sing: Come, more, another stanzo: Call you’em stanzo’s? /
Amy. What you will Monsieur Iaques. / Iaq. Nay, I care not for their names, they owne
me nothing. Will you sing. / Aym. More at your request, then to please my selfe. /
Iaq. Well then, if ever I thanke any man, Ile thanke you: but that they call complement
is like th’encounter of two dog-Apes. And when a man thankes me hartily, me thinkes
I have given him a penny, and he renders me the beggerly thankes. Come sing, and you
that will not, hold your tongues. / Amy. Well, Ile end the song. Sirs, cover the while,
the Duke will drinke under this tree; he hath beene all this day to looke you. / Iaq.
And I have beene all this day to avoyd him: / He is too disputeable for my company:
/ I thinke of as many matters as he, but I give / Heaven thankes, and make no boast
of them. / Come, warble, come. / Song. Altogether heere. / Who doth ambition shunne,
/ and loves to live i’th’Sunne, / Seeking the food he eates, / and pleas’d with what
he gets: / Come hither, come hither, come hither, / Heere shall he see, & / Iaq. Ile
give you a verse to this note, / That I made yesterday in despight of my invention.
/ Aym. And ile sing it. / Iaq. Thus it goes. / If it doe come to passe, that any man
turne Asse: / Leaving his wealth and ease, / A Hubborne will to please, / Ducdame,
ducdame, ducdame: / Heere shall he see, grosse fooles as he, / And if he will come
to me. / Aym. What’s that Ducdame? / Iaq. ’Tis a Greeke invocation, to call fooles
into a circle. Ile goe sleepe if I can: if I cannot, Ile raile against all the first
borne of Egypt. / Aym. And Ile goe seeke the Duke, / His banket is prepar’d. / Exeunt.
Omission of scene V, possibly because of the songs, which are often cut in other plays
too (see Douai Twelfth Night, for instance).
Du.Sen. What foole is this? / Iaq O worthie foole: One that hath bin a Courtier /
And sayes, if Ladies be but young, and faire, / They have the gift to know it: and
in his braine, / Which is as dry as the remainder bisket / After a voyage: He hath
strange places cram’d / With observation, the which he vents / In mangled formes.
O that I were a foole, / I am ambitious for a motley coat. / Du. Sen.Thou shalt have
one. / Iaq. It is my onely suite, / Provided that you weed your better judgements
/ Of all opinion that growes ranke in them, / That I am wise. I must have liberty
/ Withall, as large a Charter as the winde, / To blow on whom I please, for so fooles
have: / And they that are most gauled with my folly, / They most must laugh: And why
sir must they so. / The why is plaine, as way to Parish Church: / He that a foole
doth very wisely hit, / Doth very foolishly, although he smart / Seeme senseless of
the bob. If not, / The Wise-man’s folly is anathomiz’d / Even by the squandring glances
of the foole. / Invest me in my motley: Give me leave / To speake my minde, and I
will through and through / Cleanse the foule body of th’infected world, / If they
will patiently receive my medicine. / Du.Sen. Fie on thee. I can tell what thou wouldst
do. / Iaq. What, for a Counter, would I do, but good? / Du.Sen. Most mischeevous foule
sin, in chiding sin: / For thou thy selfe hast ben a Libertine, / As sensuall as the
brutish sting it selfe, / And all th’imbossed sores, and headed evils, / That thou
with license of free foot hast caught, / Would’st thou disgorge into the generall
world. / Iaq. Why who cries out on pride, / That can therein taxe any private partie:
/ Doth it not flow as hugely as the Sea, / Till that the wearie verie meanes do ebbe.
/ What woman in the Citie do I name, / When that I say the Cittie woman beares / The
cost of Princes on unworthie shoulders? / Who can come in, and say that I meane her,
/ When such a one as she, such is her neighbour? / Or what is he of basest function,
/ That sayes his braverie is not on my cost, / Thinking that I meane him, but therein
suites / His folly to the mettle of my speech, / There then, how then, what then,
let me see wherein / My tongue hath wrong’d him: if it do him right, / Then he hath
wrong’d himselfe: if he be free, / Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies / Vnclaim’d
of any man. But who comes here?
A very long cut, which leaves out a satire of the world. The passage is summarized
by the editor in three lines, and a stage direction is added.
Song. / Blow, blow, thou winter winde, / Thou art not so unkinde, as mans ingratitude
/ Thy tooth is not so keene, because thou art not seene, / although thy breath be
rude. / Heigh ho, sing heigh ho, unto the greene holly, / Most friendship is fayning;
most Loving, meere folly: / The heigh ho, the holly, / This Life is most iolly, /
Freize, freize, thou bitter skie that dost not bight so nigh / as benefitts forgot:
/ Though thou the waters warpe, thy sting is not so sharpe, / as friend remembred
not. / Heigh ho, sing &c.
my Ewes graze, and my / Lambes sucke / Clo. That is another simple sinne in you, to
bring the / Ewes and the Rammes together, and to offer to get your / living, by the
copulation of Cattle, to be bawd to a Bel- / weather, and to betray a shee-Lambe of
a twelvemonth / to a crooked-pated olde Cuckoldly Ramme, out of all / reasonable match.
If thou bee’st not damn’d for this, the divell / himselfe will have no shepheards,
I cannot see else / how thou shouldst scape.
fruite. / Ros. Ile graffe it with you, and then I shall graffe it with a Medler: then
it will be the earliest fruit i’th country: for you’l be rotten ere you be halfe ripe,
and that’s the right vertue of the Medler. / Clo. You have said: but whether wisely
or no, let the Forrest judge.
too, for some of them had in them more feete then the Verses would beare. / Cel. That’s
no matter: the feet might beare the Verses. / Ros. I, but the feet were lame, and
could not beare themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.
wonderfull, and most wonderfull / wonderfull, and yet againe wonderfull, and after
that out / of all hooping. / Ros. Good my complection, dost thou thinke though / I
am caparison’d like a man, I have a doublet and a hose in / my disposition? One inch
of delay more, is a South-sea / of discoverie. I pre’thee tell me, who is it quickely,
and / speake apace: I would thou couldst stammer, that thou / might’st powre this
conceal’d man out of thy mouth, as / Wine comes out of a narrow mouth’d bottle: either
too / much at once, or none at all. I pre’thee take the Corke out of thy mouth, that
I may drinke thy tydings. / Cel. So you may put a man in your belly.
Your features, Lord warrant us: what features? / Clo. I am heere with thee, and thy
Goates, as the most / capricious Poet honest Ovid was among the Gothes. / Iaq. O knowledge
ill inhabited, worse then love in a / thatch’d house. / Clo. When a mans verses cannot
be understood, nor a / mans good wit seconded with the forward childe, under- / standing:
it strikes a man more dead then a great reckon- / ing in a little roome: truly, I
would the Gods had made / thee poeticall. / Aud. I do not know what Poeticall is:
is it honest in deed / and word: is it a true thing? / Clo. No truly: for the truest
poetrie is the most faining, / and Lovers are given to Poetrie: and what they sweare
in / Poetrie, may be said as Lovers, they do feigne. / Aud. Do you wish then that
the Gods had made mee / Poeticall? / Clow. I do truly: for thou swear’st to me thou
art ho- / nest: Now if thou wert a Poet, I might have some hope / thou didst feigne.
/ Aud. Would you not have me honest? / Clo. No truly, unlesse thou wert hard favour’d:
for / honestie coupled to beautie, is to have Honie a sawce to / Sugar. / Iaq. A materiall
foole.
The parts of Touchstone and of Audrey are considerably abridged.
Amen. A man may if he weare of a fearfull heart, / stagger in this attempt: for heere
wee have no Temple / but the wood, no assembly but horne-beasts. But what / though?
Courage. As hornes are odious, they are neces- / sarie. It is said, many a man knowes
no end of his goods; / right: Many a man has good Hornes, and knowes no end / of them.
Well, that is the dowrie of his wife, ’tis none / of his owne getting; hornes, even
so poore men alone: / No, no, the noblest Deere hath them as huge as the Ras- / call:
Is the single man therefore blessed? No, as a wall’d / Towne is more worthier then
a village, so is the forehead / of a married man, more honourable then the bare brow
/ of a Batcheller: and by how much defence is better then / no skill, by so much is
a horne more precious then to / want. / Enter Sir Oliver Mar-text / Heere comes Sir
Oliver: Sir Oliver Mar-text you are well / met. Will you dispatch us heere under this
tree, or shall / we goe with you to your Chappell?
I will not take her on guift of any man. / Ol. Truely she must bee given, or the marriage
is not / lawfull. / Iaq. Proceede, proceede: Ile give her. / Clo. Good even good M.
what ye cal’t: how doe you / Sir, you are verie well met: godild you for your last
com- / panie, I am verie glad to see you, even a toy in hand heere / Sir: Nay, pray
be cover’d. / Iaq. Wil you be married, Motley? / Clo. As the Oxe hath his bow sir,
the horse his curb, and / the Falkon her bels, so man hath his desires, and as Pige-
/ ons bill, so wedlocke would be nibling. / Iaq. And will you (being a man of your
breeding) bee / married under a bush like a begger? Get you to Church, / and have
a good Priest that can tell you what marriage is: / this fellow will but joyne you
together, as they joyne / Wainscot, then one of you will prove a shrunke pannell,
/ and like greene timber, warpe, warpe. / Clo. I am not in the minde, but I were better
to be mar- / ried of him then of another, for he is not like to marrie me / well:
and not being well married, it will be a good excuse / for me hereafter, to leave
my wife.
colour: / Ros. And his kissing is as full of sanctitie, / As the touch of holy bread.
/ Cel. Hee hath bought a paire of chast lips of Diana: a / Nun of winters sisterhood
kisses not more religiouslie, / the very yce of chastitie is in them.
Travellor: looke you lispe, / and weare strange suites; disable all the benefits of
your / own Countrie: be out of love with your nativity, & almost / chide God for making
you that countenance you are; / or I will scarce thinke you have swam in a Gundello.
love? he that will / divide a minute into a thousand parts, and breake but a / part
of the thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, / it may be said of him that
Cupid hath clapt him oth’ shoul- / der, but Ile warrant him hearthole.
cause: Troilus had his braine dash’d out with a / Grecian club, yet hee did what hee
could to die before, / and he is one of the patternes of love. Leander, he would /
have liv’d many a faire yeere though Hero had turn’d / Nun; if it had not beene for
a hot Midsomer-night, for / (good youth) hee went but forth to wash in the Hel- /
lespont and being taken with the crampe, was droun’d, and / the foolish Chroniclers
of that age, found it was Hero of / Sestos. But these are all lies
Song. / What shall he have that kild the Deare? / His Leather skin, and hornes to
weare: / Then sing him home, the rest shall beare this burthen; / Take thou no scorne
to weare the horne, / It was a crest ere thou wast borne, / Thy fathers father wore
it, / And thy father bore it, / The horne, the horne, the lustly horne, / Is not a
thing to laugh to scorne.
Enter Clowne and Awdrie. / Clo. We shall finde a time Awdrie, patience gentle / Awdrie.
/ Awd. Faith the Priest was good enough, for all the / old gentlemans saying. / Clow.
A most wicked Sir Oliver, Awdrie., a most vile / Mar-text. But Awdrie, there is a
youth heere in the For- / rest layes claime to you. / Awd. I, I know who ’tis: he
hath no interest in me in / the world: here comes the man you meane. / Enter William.
/ Clo. It is meat and drinke to me to see a Clowne, by / my troth, we that have good
wits, have much to answer / for: we shall be flouting: we cannot hold. / Will. Good
eu’n Audrey. / Aud. God ye good eu’n William / Will. And good eu’n to you Sir. / Clo.
Good eu’n gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover / thy head: Nay prethee be couer’d.
How olde are you / Friend? / Will. Five and twenty Sir. / Clo. A ripe age: Is thy
name William? / Will. William, sir. / Clo. A faire name. Was’t borne i’th Forrest
heere? / Will. I sir, I thanke God. / Clo. Thanke God: A good answer: / Art rich?
/ Will. ’Faith sir, so, so. / Clo. So, so, is good, very good, very excellent good:
/ and yet it is not, it is but so, so: / Art thou wise? / Will. I sir, I have a prettie
wit. / Clo. Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a say- / ing: The foole doth
thinke he is wise, but the wiseman / knowes himselfe to be a Foole. The Heathen Philoso-
/ pher, when he had a desire to eate a Grape, would open / his lips when he put it
into his mouth, meaning there- / by, that Grapes were made to eate, and lippes to
open. You do love this maid? / Will. I do sir. / Clo. Give me your hand: Art thou
Learned? / Will. No sir. / Col. Then learne this of me, To have, is to have. For it
is a figure in Rhetoricke, that drinke being powr’d out / of a cup into a glasse,
by filling the one, doth empty the / other. For all your Writers do consent, that
Ipse is hee: / now you are not ipse for I am he. / Will. Which he sir? / Col. He sir, that must marrie this woman: Therefore
/ you Clowne, abandon: which is in the vulgar, leave the / societie: which in the
boorish, is companie, of this fe- / male: which in the common, is woman: which toge-
/ ther, is, abandon the society of this Female, or Clowne / thou perishest: or to
thy better understanding, dyest; or / (to wit) I kill thee, make thee away, translate
thy life in- / to death, thy liberty into bondage: I will deale in poy- / son with
thee, or in bastinado, or in steele: I will bandy / with thee in faction, I will ore-run
thee with policy: I / will kill thee a hundred and fifty wayes, therefore trem- /
ble and depart. / Aud. Do good William. / Will. God rest yov merry sir. Exit.
Act 5 scene 1 is entirely left out (which is consistent with earlier cuts that left
out many of the Clown’s lines, most particularly his bawdy jokes and songs).
conceit: I speake not this, that you should beare a good opinion / of my knowledge:
insomuch (I say) I know you are: nei- / ther doe I labor for a greater esteeme then
may in some / little measure draw a beleefe from you, to doe your selfe / good, and
not to grace me.
Scena Tertia. / Enter Clowne and Audrey. / Clo. To morrow is the joyfull day Audrey,
to morrow will we be married. / Au. I do desire it with all my heart and I hope it
is no dishonest desire, to desire to be a woman of the world? Heere come two of the
banish’d Dukes Pages. / Enter two Pages. / I.Pa. Wel met honest Gentleman. / Clo.
By my troth well met: come, sit, sit, and a song. / 2.Pa. We are for you, sit i’th
middle. / I.Pa. Shal we clap into’t roundly, without hauking,or spitting, or saying
we are hoarse, which are the onely prologues to a bad voice. / 2.Pa. I faith, y’faith,
and both in a tune like two gipsies on a horse. / Song. / It was a Lover, and his
Lasse, / With a hey, and aho, and a hey nonino, / That o’re the greene corne feeld
did passe, / In the spring time: the onely pretty rang time, / When Birds do sing,
hey ding a ding, ding. / Sweet Lovers love the spring, / And therefore take the present
time, / With a hey, & a ho, and a hey nonino, / For love is crowned with the prime,
/ In spring time, &c. / Betweene the acres of the Rie, / With a hey, and a ho, & a
hey nonino: / These pretty Country folks would ly. / In spring time, &c. / This Carroll
they began that houre, / With a boy and a ho, & a hey nonino, / How that a life was
but a Flower, / In spring time, &c. / Clo. Truly youg Gentlemen, though there was
no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untunable. / I.Pa. you are deceive’d
Sir, we kept time, we lost not our time. / By my troth yes: I count it but time lost
to heare such a foolish song. God buy you, and God mend your voices. Come Audrie.
/ Exeunt.
This scene (Act 5, scene 3 in F2), which is entirely excised, functions as an interlude.
Once again it involves Touchstone and Audrey and includes a song. F2 Scene 4 is renumbered
here as Scene 3.
loyalty, / From seventy yeeres, till now almost fourescore / Here lived I, but now
live here no more. / At seventeen yeeres, many their fortunes seeke / But at fourescore,
it is too late a weeke,
Ada Souchu is an MA student at Sorbonne Université in Early Modern English literature.
After a BA in Classics in 2021, they are currently doing an MA on Latin and Greek
sources in Early Modern theatre. They are a junior transcriber on the Douai Shakespeare
Manuscript Project.
Aurélien Sicart
Béatrice Rouchon
Béatrice Rouchon is a PhD candidate at Sorbonne Université. Her research interests
lie in authorial strategies and paratexts in early modern England. She is currently
working on the Douai Shakespeare Manuscript Project.
Côme Saignol
Côme Saignol is a PhD candidate at Sorbonne University where he is preparing a thesis
about the reception of Cyrano de Bergerac. After working several years on Digital
Humanities, he created a company named CS Edition & Corpus to assist researchers in classical humanities. His interests include: eighteenth-century
theatre, philology, textual alignment, and XML databases.
Janelle Jenstad
Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director
of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.
Line Cottegnies
Line Cottegnies teaches early-modern literature at Sorbonne Université. She is the
author of a monograph on the politics of wonder in Caroline poetry, L’Éclipse du regard: la poésie anglais du baroque au classicisme (Droz, 1997), and has co-edited several collections of essays, including Authorial Conquests: Essays on Genre in the Writings of Margaret Cavendish (AUP, 2003, with Nancy Weitz), Women and Curiosity in the Early Modern Period (Brill, 2016), with Sandring Parageau, or Henry V: A Critical Guide (Bloomsbury, 2018), with Karen Britland. She has published on seventeenth-century
literature, from Shakespeare and Raleigh to Ahpra Behn and Mary Astell. Her research
interests are: early-modern drama and poetry, the politics of translation (between
France and England), and women authors of the period. She has also developed a particular
interest in editing: she had edited half of Shakespeare’s plays for the Gallimard
bilingual complete works (alone and in collaboration), and, also, Henry IV, Part 2, for The Norton Shakespeare 3 (2016). With Marie-Alice Belle, she has co-edited two Elizabethan translations of
Robert Garnier (by Mary Sidney Herbert and Thomas Kyd), published in 2017 in the MHRA
Tudor and Stuart Translation Series as Robert Garnier in Elizabethan England. She is currently working on an edition of three Behn’s translations from the French
for the Cambridge edition of Behn’s Complete Works
Louise Fang
Louise Fang is a Lecturer in English Literature at the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord.
She has published a monograph on Shakespeare and games (Shakespeare et les jeux, Classiques Garnier, 2021) and is working on early modern drama. She is a transcriber
and an editor in the Douai Shakespeare Manuscript Project.
Mahayla Galliford
Assistant project manager, 2024-present; research assistant, encoder, and remediator,
2021-present. Mahayla Galliford (she/her) graduated with a BA (Hons) English from
the University of Victoria in 2024. Mahayla’s undergraduate research explored early
modern stage directions and civic water pageantry. She continues her studies through
the UVic English master’s program and focuses on editing and encoding girls’ manuscript
writing in collaboration with LEMDO.
Mathilde Kujas
Navarra Houldin
LEMDO project manager 2022–present. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin
(they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the
University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality
in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through
an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where
they will specialize in Digital Humanities.
Nicolas Thibault
Nicolas Thibault is a former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris) and is
currently completing a PhD on counsel and counsellors in late Elizabethan and early
Jacobean English history plays at Sorbonne Université under the supervision of Line
Cottegnies. He has recently published an article on The Intelligibility of History and the (In)visibility of the Bruised Bodies in Sir Thomas More in a 2021 issue of the Sillages Critiques journal (VALE, Sorbonne University). From 2018 to 2021, he taught English and American
literature and British history at Sorbonne Université. Since 2022, he has been a research
and teaching assistant at the Languages Department of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne Université.
His areas of interest include early modern drama, political history, and the representation
of counsel.
William Shakespeare
Bibliography
Capell, Edward, ed. Mr William Shakespeare: His Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. 10 vols. London: J. and R. Tonson, 1767–1768. ESTC T138599. Murphy 304.
Hanmer, Thomas. The Works of Mr William
Shakespear. 6 vols. London,
1743–1744. ESTC T138604.
Johnson, Samuel, ed. The Plays of William Shakespeare. 8 vols. London: J. and R. Tonson, 1765. ESTC T138601.
Malone, Edmond, ed. The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. 10 vols. London: J. Rivingston and Sons, 1790. ESTC T138858.
Pope, Alexander, ed. The works of Shakespear. 6 vols. London: Jacob Tonson, 1725. ESTC N26060.
Rowe, Nicholas, ed. The Works of Mr William Shakespear. 6 vols. London, 1709; rpt. 8 vols. 1714. ESTC T138296.
Shakespeare, William. Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. London: Robert Allot, 1632. STC 22274. ESTC S111233.
Theobald, Lewis, ed. The works of Shakespeare: in seven volumes. Collated with the oldest copies, and corrected;
with notes, explanatory, and critical. 7 vols. London: A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, J. Tonson, F. Clay, W. Feales, and R. Wellington, 1733. ESTC T138606.
Orgography
Bibliothèque Marceline Desbordes Valmore (DOUA2)
Bibliothèque municipale de Douai (DOUA2)
https://www.bm-douai.fr/
Formerly known as Bibliothèque municipale de Douai.
LEMDO Team (LEMD1)
The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project
director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators,
encoders, and remediating editors.
University of Victoria (UVIC1)
https://www.uvic.ca/
Witnesses
Shakespeare, William. Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. London: Robert Allot, 1632. STC 22274. ESTC S111233.
Text of Douai MS 787 as transcribed by Louise Fang
Notes on scribal hands
Douai MS Hand 1
The primary scribal hand used in the Douai MS, which is MS 787 in the
Bibliothèque Marceline Desbordes-Valmore repository. The scribe made changes
and additions at a later stage.
Douai MS Hand 2
A second, later hand is used in the Douai MS, which is MS 787 in the
Bibliothèque Marceline Desbordes-Valmore repository. It is responsible
for the insertion of stage directions. This later hand is smaller,
thinner, and more slanting than the main scribal hand. It does not appear in
Macbeth.
Douai MS Hand 3
A word by a third hand is added to the text of Julius
Caesar in the Douai MS, which is MS 787 in the Bibliothèque
Marceline Desbordes-Valmore repository.
Douai MS Hand 4
A fourth hand appears in the Douai MS, that of the Librarian, in Twelfth Night.
Metadata
Authority title
As You Like It: Semi-Diplomatic Edition
Type of text
Primary Source Text
Publisher
Sorbonne Université and University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online
Platform
Intellectual copyright in this edition is held by the lead editor, Line Cottegnies. The XML file of the semi-diplomatic transcription and enhanced edition is licensed
for reuse under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license, which means that it is freely downloadable without permission under the following
conditions: (1) credit must be given to the editor, the Douai Manuscript Project,
and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2) derivatives (e.g., adapted
scripts for performance) must be shared under the same CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license; and
(3) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the editor,
the Douai Manuscript Project, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor the code in this
file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM,
or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to
be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.
Images provided by the Bibliothèque Marceline Desbordes-Valmore are licensed under
a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. They can be downloaded and reproduced in scholarly publications and presentations
provided that credit is included. Credit must include the phrase: Used by kind permission of the Bibliothèque Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Douai , and must include the shelfmark MS 787 and the folio numbers. We ask that a copy of any scholarly publication be sent to
the Douai library via email attachment to the Curator, currently Jean Vilbas at jvilbas@ville-douai.fr, or via mail to the following address: Bibliothèque Marceline Desbordes-Valmore,
61 Parvis Georges Prêtre, BP 20625, 59506 Douai cedex, France.
