Peer Reviewed
- Edition: As You Like It
Galathea (Modern)
- Introduction
- Texts of this edition
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How now? What new conceits, what strange contraries, breed in thy mind? Is 428thy Diana become a Venus, thy chaste thoughts turned to wanton looks, thy conquering modesty to a 429captive imagination? Beginnest thou with piralis to die in the air and live in the fire, to 430leave the sweet delight of hunting and to follow the hot desire of love? O Telusa, these 431words are unfit for thy sex, being a virgin, but apt for thy affections, being a lover. 432And can there in years so young, in education so precise, in vows so holy, and in 433a heart so chaste, enter either a strong desire or a wish or a wavering thought of 434love? Can Cupid's brands quench Vesta's flames, and his feeble shafts headed with feathers pierce deeper than 435Diana's arrows headed with steel? Break thy bow, Telusa, that seekest to break thy vow, and let 436those hands that aimed to hit the wild hart scratch out those eyes that have wounded thy 437tame heart. O vain and only naked name of chastity, that is made eternal and perisheth by 438time; holy, and is infected by fancy; divine, and is made mortal by folly! Virgins' hearts, I 439perceive, are not unlike cotton trees, whose fruit is so hard in the bud that it soundeth 440like steel, and, being ripe, poureth forth nothing but wool; and their thoughts like the leaves of 441lunary, which, the further they grow from the sun, the sooner they are scorched with his beams. 442O Melebeus, because thou art fair, must I be fickle and false my vow because I see 443thy virtue? Fond girl that I am, to think of love! Nay, vain profession that I follow, 444to disdain love! But here cometh Eurota. I must now put on a red mask and blush, lest she perceive my pale face and laugh.
Telusa, Diana bid me hunt you out, and saith that you care not 447to hunt with her; but if you follow any other game than she hath roused, your punishment 448shall be to bend all our bows and weave all our strings. Why look ye so pale, 449so sad, so wildly?
Eurota, the game I follow is the thing I fly: my strange disease, my chief desire.
I am no Oedipus to expound riddles, and I muse how thou canst 452be Sphinx to utter them. But I pray thee, Telusa, tell me what thou ailest. If thou 453be sick, this ground hath leaves to heal; if melancholy, here are pastimes to use; if peevish, 454wit must wean it, or time, or counsel. If thou be in love (for I have heard 455of such a beast called Love), it shall be cured. Why blushest thou, Telusa?
To hear thee in reckoning my pains to recite thine own. I saw, 457Eurota, how amorously you glanced your eye on the fair boy in the white coat, and how 458cunningly, now that you would have some talk of love, you hit me in the teeth with love.
I confess that I am in love, and yet swear that I know 460not what it is. I feel my thoughts unknit, mine eyes unstayed, my heart I know not 461how affected or infected, my sleeps broken and full of dreams, my wakeness sad and full of 462sighs, myself in all things unlike myself. If this be love, I would it had never been devised.
Thou hast told what I am in uttering what thyself is. These are 464my passions, Eurota, my unbridled passions, my intolerable passions, which I were as good acknowledge and crave 465counsel as to deny and endure peril.
How did it take you first, Telusa?
By the eyes, my wanton eyes, which conceived the picture of his face 468and hanged it on the very strings of my heart. O fair Melibeus! O fond Telusa! But 469how did it take you, Eurota?
By the ears, whose sweet words sunk so deep into my head that 471the remembrance of his wit hath bereaved me of my wisdom. O eloquent Tyterus! O credulous Eurota! 472But soft, here cometh Ramia. But let her not hear us talk. We will withdraw ourselves and 473hear her talk.
[They conceal themselves.]
I am sent to seek others, that have lost myself.
[Aside to Telusa] You shall see Ramia hath also bitten on a love-leaf.
[To herself] Can there be no heart so chaste but love can wound? 478Nor vows so holy but affection can violate? Vain art thou, virtue, and thou, chastity, but a byword, when you both are subject to love, of all things the most abject. If Love be 480a god, why should not lovers be virtuous? Love is a god, and lovers are virtuous.
[Coming forward with Telusa] Indeed, Ramia, if lovers were not virtuous, then wert thou vicious.
What, are you come so near me?
I think we came near you when we said you loved.
Tush, Ramia, 'tis too late to recall it; to repent it, a shame. Therefore, I pray thee, tell what is love?
If myself felt only this infection, I would then take upon me the 486definition, but, being incident to so many, I dare not myself describe it. But we will all 487talk of that in the woods. Diana stormeth that, sending one to seek another, she loseth all. 488Servia, of all the nymphs the coyest, loveth deadly, and exclaimeth against Diana, honoreth Venus, detesteth Vesta, 489and maketh a common scorn of virtue. Clymene, whose stately looks seemed to amaze the greatest lords, 490stoopeth, yieldeth, and fawneth on the strange boy in the woods. Myself (with blushing I speak it) 491am thrall to that boy, that fair boy, that beautiful boy!
What have we here, all in love? No other food than fancy? No, no, she shall not have the fair boy.
Nor you, Telusa.
Nor you, Eurota.
I love Melibeus, and my deserts shall be answerable to my desires. I will forsake Diana for him. I will die for him!
So saith Clymene, and she will have him. I care not. My sweet Tityrus, though he seem proud, I impute it to childishness, who, being yet scarce out of swath-clouts, 498cannot understand these deep conceits. I love him.
So do I, and I will have him!
Immodest all that we are, unfortunate all that we are like to be, 501shall virgins begin to wrangle for love and become wanton in their thoughts, in their words, in 502their actions? O divine Love, which art therefore called divine because thou overreachest the wisest, conquerest the 503chastest, and dost all things both unlikely and impossible, because thou art Love! Thou makest the bashful 504impudent, the wise fond, the chaste wanton, and workest contraries to our reach, because thyself is beyond reason.
Talk no more, Telusa; your words wound. Ah, would I were no woman!
Would Tityrus were no boy!
Would Telusa were nobody!
Exeunt.