AS YOU LIKE IT
Page: 47

[Enter JAQUES and Lords, in the habit of Foresters.]

JAQUES.
Which is he that killed the deer?

LORD.
Sir, it was I.

JAQUES.
Let's present him to the duke, like a Roman conqueror; and
it would do well to set the deer's horns upon his head for a
branch of victory.--Have you no song, forester, for this purpose?

LORD.
Yes, sir.

JAQUES.
Sing it; 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise
enough.

SONG.

1. What shall he have that kill'd the deer?
2. His leather skin and horns to wear.
1. Then sing him home:
[The rest shall bear this burden.]
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;
It was a crest ere thou wast born.
1. Thy father's father wore it;
2. And thy father bore it;
All. The horn, the horn, the lusty horn,
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.

[Exeunt.]



SCENE III. Another part of the Forest.

[Enter ROSALIND and CELIA.]

ROSALIND.
How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock?
And here much Orlando!

CELIA.
I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath
ta'en his bow and arrows, and is gone forth--to sleep. Look,
who comes here.

[Enter SILVIUS.]

SILVIUS.
My errand is to you, fair youth;--
My gentle Phebe did bid me give you this:

[Giving a letter.]

I know not the contents; but, as I guess
By the stern brow and waspish action
Which she did use as she was writing of it,
It bears an angry tenor: pardon me,
I am but as a guiltless messenger.

ROSALIND.
Patience herself would startle at this letter,
And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all:
She says I am not fair; that I lack manners;
She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
Were man as rare as Phoenix. Od's my will!
Her love is not the hare that I do hunt;
Why writes she so to me?--Well, shepherd, well,
This is a letter of your own device.

SILVIUS.
No, I protest, I know not the contents: Phebe did write it.

ROSALIND.
Come, come, you are a fool,
And turn'd into the extremity of love.
I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand,
A freestone-colour'd hand: I verily did think