AS YOU LIKE IT
Page: 13

DUKE FREDERICK.
Ay, Celia: we stay'd her for your sake,
Else had she with her father rang'd along.

CELIA.
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 FREDERICK.
She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,
Her very silence, and her patience
Speak to the people, and they pity her.
Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name;
And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
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.

CELIA.
Pronounce that sentence, then, on me, my liege:
I cannot live out of her company.

DUKE FREDERICK.
You are a fool.--You, niece, provide yourself:
If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,
And in the greatness of my word, you die.

[Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK and Lords.]

CELIA.
O my poor Rosalind! whither wilt thou go?
Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
I charge thee be not thou more griev'd than I am.

ROSALIND.
I have more cause.

CELIA.
Thou hast not, cousin;
Pr'ythee be cheerful: know'st thou not the duke
Hath banish'd me, his daughter?

ROSALIND.
That he hath not.

CELIA.
No! hath not? Rosalind lacks, then, the love
Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one:
Shall we be sund'red? shall we part, sweet girl?
No; let my father seek another heir.
Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
Whither to go, and what to bear with us:
And do not seek to take your charge upon you,
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.

ROSALIND.
Why, whither shall we go?

CELIA.
To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.

ROSALIND.
Alas! what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel forth so far?
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.