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  • Title: As You Like It (Folio 1, 1623)
  • Editor: David Bevington

    • ISBN: 978-1-55058-369-4

    Copyright David Bevington. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: David Bevington
    Peer Reviewed

    As You Like It (Folio 1, 1623)

    Scena Tertia.
    Enter Orlando and Adam.
    Orl. Who's there?
    705Ad. What my yong Master, oh my gentle master,
    Oh my sweet master, O you memorie
    Of old Sir Rowland; why, what make you here?
    Why are you vertuous? Why do people loue you?
    And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?
    710Why would you be so fond to ouercome
    The bonnie priser of the humorous Duke?
    Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.
    Know you not Master, to seeme kinde of men,
    Their graces serue them but as enemies,
    715No more doe yours: your vertues gentle Master
    Are sanctified and holy traitors to you:
    Oh what a world is this, when what is comely
    Enuenoms him that beares it?
    Why, what's the matter?
    720Ad. O vnhappie youth,
    Come not within these doores: within this roofe
    The enemie of all your graces liues
    Your brother, no, no brother, yet the sonne
    (Yet not the son, I will not call him son)
    725Of him I was about to call his Father,
    Hath heard your praises, and this night he meanes,
    To burne the lodging where you vse to lye,
    And you within it: if he faile of that
    He will haue other meanes to cut you off;
    730I ouerheard him: and his practises:
    This is no place, this house is but a butcherie;
    Abhorre it, feare it, doe not enter it.
    Ad. Why whether Adam would'st thou haue me go?
    Ad. No matter whether, so you come not here.
    735Orl. What, would'st thou haue me go & beg my food,
    Or with a base and boistrous Sword enforce
    A theeuish liuing on the common rode?
    This I must do, or know not what to do:
    Yet this I will not do, do how I can,
    740I rather will subiect me to the malice
    Of a diuerted blood, and bloudie brother.
    Ad. But do not so: I haue fiue hundred Crownes,
    The thriftie hire I saued vnder your Father,
    Which I did store to be my foster Nurse,
    745When seruice should in my old limbs lie lame,
    And vnregarded age in corners throwne,
    Take that, and he that doth the Rauens feede,
    Yea prouidently caters for the Sparrow,
    Be comfort to my age: here is the gold,
    750All this I giue you, let me be your seruant,
    Though I looke old, yet I am strong and lustie;
    For in my youth I neuer did apply
    Hot, and rebellious liquors in my bloud,
    Nor did not with vnbashfull forehead woe,
    755The meanes of weaknesse and debilitie,
    Therefore my age is as a lustie winter,
    Frostie, but kindely; let me goe with you,
    Ile doe the seruice of a yonger man
    In all your businesse and necessities.
    760Orl. Oh good old man, how well in thee appeares
    The constant seruice of the antique world,
    When seruice sweate for dutie, not for meede:
    Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
    Where none will sweate, but for promotion,
    765And hauing that do choake their seruice vp,
    Euen with the hauing, it is not so with thee:
    But poore old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree,
    That cannot so much as a blossome yeelde,
    In lieu of all thy paines and husbandrie,
    770But come thy waies, weele goe along together,
    And ere we haue thy youthfull wages spent,
    Weele light vpon some setled low content.
    Ad. Master goe on, and I will follow thee
    To the last gaspe with truth and loyaltie,
    775From seauentie yeeres, till now almost fourescore
    Here liued I, but now liue here no more
    At seauenteene yeeres, many their fortunes seeke
    But at fourescore, it is too late a weeke,
    Yet fortune cannot recompence me better
    780Then to die well, and not my Masters debter. Exeunt.
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