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As You Like It: Act III, Scene 5

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As You Like It
Act III, Scene 5

Another part of the Forest of Arden.

Phebe

Phebe

Hugh Thomson, 1910

  1. Enter Silvius and Phebe.

Silvius

1 - 7
  1. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me, do not, Phebe;
  2. Say that you love me not, but say not so
  3. In bitterness. The common executioner,
  4. Whose heart th’ accustom’d sight of death makes hard,
  5. Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
  6. But first begs pardon. Will you sterner be
  7. Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?
  1. Enter, behind, Rosalind, Celia, and Corin.

Phebe

8 - 27
  1. I would not be thy executioner;
  2. I fly thee for I would not injure thee.
  3. Thou tell’st me there is murder in mine eye:
  4. ’Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,
  5. That eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things,
  6. Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
  7. Should be called tyrants, butchers, murderers!
  8. Now I do frown on thee with all my heart,
  9. And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.
  10. Now counterfeit to swound; why, now fall down,
  11. Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
  12. Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers!
  13. Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee;
  14. Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
  15. Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,
  16. The cicatrice and capable impressure
  17. Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,
  18. Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not,
  19. Nor I am sure there is no force in eyes
  20. That can do hurt.

Silvius

28 - 32
  1.                   O dear Phebe,
  2. If ever (as that ever may be near)
  3. You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
  4. Then shall you know the wounds invisible
  5. That love’s keen arrows make.

Phebe

33 - 36
  1.                               But till that time
  2. Come not thou near me; and when that time comes,
  3. Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not,
  4. As till that time I shall not pity thee.

Rosalind

37 - 65
  1. Advancing.
  2. And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother,
  3. That you insult, exult, and all at once,
  4. Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty—
  5. As, by my faith, I see no more in you
  6. Than without candle may go dark to bed—
  7. Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
  8. Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
  9. I see no more in you than in the ordinary
  10. Of nature’s sale-work. ’Od’s my little life,
  11. I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
  12. No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it.
  13. ’Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
  14. Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream
  15. That can entame my spirits to your worship.
  16. You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
  17. Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?
  18. You are a thousand times a properer man
  19. Than she a woman. ’Tis such fools as you
  20. That makes the world full of ill-favor’d children.
  21. ’Tis not her glass, but you that flatters her,
  22. And out of you she sees herself more proper
  23. Than any of her lineaments can show her.
  24. But, mistress, know yourself, down on your knees,
  25. And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love;
  26. For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
  27. Sell when you can, you are not for all markets.
  28. Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;
  29. Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
  30. So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.

Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me

Hugh Thomson, 1910

Phebe

66 - 67
  1. Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together,
  2. I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.

Rosalind

68 - 71
  1. He’s fall’n in love with your foulness— and she’ll fall in
  2. love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee
  3. with frowning looks, I’ll sauce her with bitter words.—Why
  4. look you so upon me?

Phebe

72
  1. For no ill will I bear you.

Rosalind

73 - 81
  1. I pray you do not fall in love with me,
  2. For I am falser than vows made in wine.
  3. Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,
  4. ’Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.
  5. Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.
  6. Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,
  7. And be not proud; though all the world could see,
  8. None could be so abus’d in sight as he.
  9. Come, to our flock.
  1. Exit with Celia and Corin.

Phebe

82 - 83
  1. Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,
  2. “Who ever lov’d that lov’d not at first sight?”

Silvius

84
  1. Sweet Phebe—

Phebe

85
  1.              Hah! What say’st thou, Silvius?

Silvius

86
  1. Sweet Phebe, pity me.

Phebe

87
  1. Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.

Silvius

88 - 91
  1. Where ever sorrow is, relief would be.
  2. If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
  3. By giving love, your sorrow and my grief
  4. Were both extermin’d.

Phebe

92
  1. Thou hast my love; is not that neighborly?

Silvius

93
  1. I would have you.

Phebe

94 - 101
  1.                   Why, that were covetousness.
  2. Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;
  3. And yet it is not that I bear thee love,
  4. But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
  5. Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,
  6. I will endure; and I’ll employ thee too.
  7. But do not look for further recompense
  8. Than thine own gladness that thou art employ’d.
Silvius and Phoebe

Silvius and Phoebe

John Pettie, 1872

Silvius

102 - 107
  1. So holy and so perfect is my love,
  2. And I in such a poverty of grace,
  3. That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
  4. To glean the broken ears after the man
  5. That the main harvest reaps. Loose now and then
  6. A scatt’red smile, and that I’ll live upon.

Phebe

108
  1. Know’st thou the youth that spoke to me yerwhile?

Silvius

109 - 111
  1. Not very well, but I have met him oft,
  2. And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds
  3. That the old carlot once was master of.

Phebe

112 - 138
  1. Think not I love him, though I ask for him;
  2. ’Tis but a peevish boy—yet he talks well—
  3. But what care I for words? Yet words do well
  4. When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
  5. It is a pretty youth—not very pretty—
  6. But sure he’s proud—and yet his pride becomes him.
  7. He’ll make a proper man. The best thing in him
  8. Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
  9. Did make offense, his eye did heal it up.
  10. He is not very tall—yet for his years he’s tall;
  11. His leg is but so so—and yet ’tis well;
  12. There was a pretty redness in his lip,
  13. A little riper and more lusty red
  14. Than that mix’d in his cheek; ’twas just the difference
  15. Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.
  16. There be some women, Silvius, had they mark’d him
  17. In parcels as I did, would have gone near
  18. To fall in love with him; but for my part
  19. I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet
  20. Have more cause to hate him than to love him,
  21. For what had he to do to chide at me?
  22. He said mine eyes were black and my hair black,
  23. And, now I am rememb’red, scorn’d at me.
  24. I marvel why I answer’d not again.
  25. But that’s all one; omittance is no quittance.
  26. I’ll write to him a very taunting letter,
  27. And thou shalt bear it; wilt thou, Silvius?

Silvius

139
  1. Phebe, with all my heart.

Phebe

140 - 143
  1.                           I’ll write it straight;
  2. The matter’s in my head and in my heart.
  3. I will be bitter with him and passing short.
  4. Go with me, Silvius.
  1. Exeunt.

Byam Shaw, 1901

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