AS YOU LIKE IT
Page: 41

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.

[Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN.]

PHEBE.
Dead shepherd! now I find thy saw of might;
'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'

SILVIUS.
Sweet Phebe,--

PHEBE.
Ha! what say'st thou, Silvius?

SILVIUS.
Sweet Phebe, pity me.

PHEBE.
Why, I am sorry for thee, 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 extermin'd.

PHEBE.
Thou hast my love: is not that neighbourly?

SILVIUS.
I would have you.

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

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: lose now and then
A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon.

PHEBE.
Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?

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

PHEBE.
Think not I love him, though I ask for him;
'Tis 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 'tis well:
There was a pretty redness in his lip;
A little riper and more lusty red
Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference