Enter Duke FREDERICK, with Lords. DUKE F. Mistress, despatch you with your safest haste, And get you from our court. Ros. DUKE F. Me, uncle? You, cousin : Within these ten days if that thou be'st found Ros. I do beseech your grace, Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me: Or have acquaintance with mine own desires; DUKE F. Thus do all traitors; Ros. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor: Tell me, whereon the likelihood depends. DUKE F. Thou art thy father's daughter, there's enough. Ros. So was I, when your highness took his dukedom; So was I, when your highness banish'd him : Or, if we did derive it from our friends, CEL. Dear sovereign, hear me speak. DUKE F. Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake, Else had she with her father rang'd along. 8 CEL. I did not then entreat to have her stay, It was your pleasure, and your own remorse; I was too young that time to value her, But now I know her: if she be a traitor, Why so am I; we still have slept together, Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together; And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans, Still we went coupled, and inseparable. DUKE F. She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness, Her very silence, and her patience, Speak to the people, and they pity her. virtuous,1 When she is gone: then open not thy lips; Firm and irrevocable is my doom Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd. CEL. Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege; I cannot live out of her company. remorse;] i. e. compassion. So, in Macbeth: "Stop the access and passage to remorse.” we still have slept together, STEEVENS. Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together;] Youthful friendship is described in nearly the same terms in a book pubKished the year in which this play first appeared in print :"They ever went together, plaid together, eate together, and usually slept together, out of the great love that was between them." Life of Guzman de Alfarache, folio, printed by Edward Blount, 1623, P. I. B. I. c. viii. p. 75. REED. 1 And thou wilt show more bright, and seem more virtuous,] When she was seen alone, she would be more noted. JOHNSON. 1 DUKE F. You are a fool :-You, niece, provide yourself; If you out-stay the time, upon mine honour, [Exeunt Duke FREDERICK and Lords. CEL. Thou hast not, cousin ; 2 Pr'ythee, be cheerful: know'st thou not, the duke Hath banish'd me his daughter? Ros. That he hath not. CEL. No? hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one: 3 Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl? No; let my father seek another heir. 1 Therefore devise with me, how we may fly, • Thou hast not, cousin;] Some word is wanting to the metre. Perhaps our author wrote: 3 Indeed thou hast not, cousin. STEEVENS. · Rosalind lacks then the love Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one:] The poet certainly wrote-which teacheth me. For if Rosalind had learnt to think Celia one part of herself, she could not lack that love which Celia complains she does. WARBURTON. Either reading may stand. The sense of the established text is not remote or obscure. Where would be the absurdity of saying, You know not the law which teaches you to do right? JOHNSON. to take your change upon you,] i. e. to take your change or reverse of fortune upon yourself, without any and or participation. MALONE. To bear your griefs yourself, and leave me out; For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale, Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee. Ros. Why, whither shall we go? CEL. To seek my uncle. Ros. Alas, what danger will it be to us, Maids as we are, to travel forth so far? Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. CEL. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire, And with a kind of umber smirch my face;" The like do you; so shall we pass along, And never stir assailants. Ros. Were it not better, Because that I am more than common tall, A boar-spear in my hand; and (in my heart 8 I have inserted this note, but without implicit confidence in the reading it explains. The second folio has-charge. STEEVENS. 5 To seek my uncle.] Here the old copy adds-in the forest of Arden. But these words are an evident interpolation, without use, and injurious to the measure: Why, whither shall we go?-To seek my uncle, being a complete verse. Besides, we have been already informed by Charles the wrestler, that the banished Duke's residence was in the forest of Arden. STEEVENS. 6 And with a kind of umber smirch my face;] Umber is a dusky yellow-coloured earth, brought from Umbria in Italy. See a note on "the umber'd fires," in King Henry V. Act III. MALONE. 7 -curtle-ax-] Or cutlace, a broad sword. JOHNSON. • We'll have a swashing &c.] A swashing outside is an appearance of noisy, bullying valour. Swashing blow is men As many other mannish cowards have, CEL. What shall I call thee, when thou art a man? Ros. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page, And therefore look you call me, Ganymede. CEL. Something that hath a reference to my state; No longer Celia, but Aliena. Ros. But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal The clownish fool out of your father's court? Would he not be a comfort to our travel? CEL. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me; Leave me alone to woo him: Let's away, [Exeunt. tioned in Romeo and Juliet; and, in King Henry V. the Boy says: "As young as I am, I have observed these three swashers;" meaning Nym, Pistol, and Bardolph. STEEVENS. 9 Now go we in content,] The old copy reads-Now go in we content. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. I am not sure that the transposition is necessary. Our author might have used content as an adjective. MALONE. |