Act 3, Scene 5

Modern spelling. Stage directions omitted.

Listen to Act 3. LibriVox volunteers recorded “Act 3” as one track, so it runs past this scene and includes stage directions this page leaves out. LibriVox catalog.

SILVIUS

Sweet Phoebe, do not scorn me, do not, Phoebe.
Say that you love me not, but say not so
In bitterness. The common executioner,
Whose heart th’ accustomed sight of death makes hard,
Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
But first begs pardon. Will you sterner be
Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?

PHOEBE

I would not be executioner;
I fly , for I would not injure .
tell’st me there is murder in mine eye.
pretty, sure, and very probable
That eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
Should be called tyrants, butchers, murderers.
Now I do frown on with all my heart,
And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill .
Now counterfeit to swoon; why, now fall down;
Or if canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.
Now show the wound mine eye made in .
Scratch but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,
The cicatrice and capable impressure
palm some moment keeps. But now mine eyes,
Which I have darted at , hurt not;
Nor I am sure there is not force in eyes
That can do hurt.

SILVIUS

O dear Phoebe,
If ever—as that ever may be near—
You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
Then shall you know the wounds invisible
That love’s keen arrows make.

PHOEBE

But till that time
Come not near me. And when that time comes,
Afflict me with mocks, pity me not,
As till that time I shall not pity .

ROSALIND

And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother,
That you insult, exult, and all at once,
Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty—
As, by my faith, I see no more in you
Than without candle may go dark to bed—
Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
I see no more in you than in the ordinary
Of nature’s sale-work. ’Od’s my little life,
I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it.
not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,
That can entame my spirits to your worship.
You foolish shepherd, do you follow her,
Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?
You are a thousand times a properer man
Than she a woman. such fools as you
That makes the world full of ill-favoured children.
not her glass but you that flatters her,
And out of you she sees herself more proper
Than any of her lineaments can show her.
But, mistress, know yourself; down on your knees,
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love.
For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.
Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;
Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
So take her to , shepherd. Fare you well.

PHOEBE

Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together!
I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.

ROSALIND

He’s fall’n in love with your foulness, and she’ll fall in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers with frowning looks, I’ll sauce her with bitter words. Why look you so upon me?

PHOEBE

For no ill will I bear you.

ROSALIND

I pray you do not fall in love with me,
For I am falser than vows made in wine.
Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,
at the tuft of olives here hard by.
Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.
Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,
And be not proud. Though all the world could see,
None could be so abused in sight as he.
Come, to our flock.

PHOEBE

Dead shepherd, now I find saw of might:
“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”

SILVIUS

Sweet Phoebe—

PHOEBE

Ha, what sayst , Silvius?

SILVIUS

Sweet Phoebe, pity me.

PHOEBE

Why, I am sorry for , gentle Silvius.

SILVIUS

Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.
If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
By giving love your sorrow and my grief
Were both extermined.

PHOEBE

my love. Is not that neighbourly?

SILVIUS

I would have you.

PHOEBE

Why, that were covetousness.
Silvius, the time was that I hated ;
And yet it is not that I bear love;
But since that canst talk of love so well,
company, which erst was irksome to me,
I will endure, and I’ll employ too.
But do not look for further recompense
Than own gladness that art employed.

SILVIUS

So holy and so perfect is my love,
And I in such a poverty of grace,
That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
To glean the broken ears after the man
That the main harvest reaps. Loose now and then
A scattered smile, and that I’ll live upon.

PHOEBE

Know’st the youth that spoke to me erewhile?

SILVIUS

Not very well, but I have met him ,
And he bought the cottage and the bounds
That the old carlot once was master of.

PHOEBE

Think not I love him, though I ask for him.
but a peevish boy—yet he talks well.
But what care I for words? Yet words do well
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
It is a pretty youth—not very pretty—
But sure he’s proud, and yet his pride becomes him.
He’ll make a proper man. The best thing in him
Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
He is not very tall, yet for his years he’s tall;
His leg is but so-so, and yet well.
There was a pretty redness in his lip,
A little riper and more lusty red
Than that mixed in his cheek. just the difference
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.
There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him
In parcels as I did, would have gone near
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 than to love him.
For what had he to do to chide at me?
He said mine eyes were black and my hair black,
And now I am remembered, scorned at me.
I marvel why I answered not again.
But that’s all one: omittance is no quittance.
I’ll write to him a very taunting letter,
And bear it. Wilt , Silvius?