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Sil. So please you, for I never heard it yet;

Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty.

Ros. She Phebes me: Mark how the tyrant writes.

Art thou god to shepherd turn'd,

That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?—

Can a woman rail thus ?

Sil. Call you this railing?

Ros. Why, thy godhead laid apart,

Did

Warr'st thou with a woman's heart?

you ever hear such railing?—

Whiles the eye of man did woo me,

64

That could do no vengeance ** to me.—

Meaning me a beast.—

If the scorn of your bright eyne

Have

power to raise such love in mine,
Alack, in me what strange effect
Would they work in mild aspéct?
Whiles you chid me, I did love;
How then might your prayers move?
He, that brings this love to thee,
Little knows this love in me:
And by him seal up thy mind;
Whether that thy youth and kind 5
Will the faithful offer take
Of me, and all that I can make ;
Or else by him my love deny,

And then I'll study how to die.

[Reads.

Sil. Call you this chiding?

Cel. Alas, poor shepherd!

Ros. Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity.Wilt thou love such a woman?-What, to make thee an instrument, and play false strains upon thee! not to be endured '-Well, go your way to her, (for, I see, love hath made thee a tame snake,) and say this to her ;-That if she love me, I charge her to love thee: if she will not, I will never have her, unless thou entreat for her. If you be a true lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes more company. [Exit Silvius. Enter OLIVER.

Oli. Good-morrow, fair ones: Pray you, if

know

Where, in the purlieus of this forest, stands

A sheep-cote, fenc'd about with olive-trees?

you

Cel. West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom,

The rank of osiers, by the murmuring stream,

Left on your right hand, brings you to the place :
But at this hour the house doth keep itself,
There's none within.

Oli. If that an eye may profit by a tongue,
Then I should know you by description;
Such garments, and such years: The boy is fair,
Of female favour, and bestows himself
Like a ripe sister: but the woman low,

And browner than her brother. Are not you

The owner of the house I did enquire for?

Cel. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say, we are.
Oli. Orlando doth commend him to you both;
And to that youth, he calls his Rosalind,
He sends this bloody napkin; Are you he?

Ros. I am: What must we understand by this?
Oli. Some of my shame; if you will know of me
What man I am, and how, and why, and where
This handkerchief was stain'd.

Cel.

I pray you, tell it. Oli. When last the young Orlando parted from He left a promise to return again

you,

Within an hour 66; and, pacing through the forest,
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
Lo, what befel! he threw his eye aside,
And, mark, what object did present itself!

Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age,
And high top bald with dry antiquity,

A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,

Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck

A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself,

Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd
The opening of his mouth; but suddenly

Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself,
And with indented glides did slip away
Into a bush under which bush's shade

A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,

Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch, When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis The royal disposition of that beast,

To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead :

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