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As You Like It, Act 1, Scene 3

William Shakespeare
Every note, for your class

The story so far

Earlier in the play

Duke Frederick has banished his elder brother, who now lives in the Forest of Arden. Rosalind remains at court with her cousin Celia. Orlando has demanded his inheritance or a gentleman’s education from Oliver, who has encouraged Charles the wrestler to injure him.

In the last scene: Act 1, Scene 2

Orlando defeats Charles, but Frederick objects to his being Sir Rowland’s son. Rosalind gives Orlando a chain; he finds himself unable to speak to her. Le Beau advises him to leave and tells him Frederick resents Rosalind because people praise and pity her. Orlando leaves, facing a return to his brother.

SCENE III. A Room in the Palace

Enter Celia and Rosalind.
CELIA
Why, cousin, why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! Not a word?
ROSALIND
Not one to throw at a dog.
CELIA
No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs. Throw some of them at me. Come, lame me with reasons.
ROSALIND
Then there were two cousins laid up, when the one should be lamed with reasons and the other mad without any.
CELIA
But is all this for your father?
ROSALIND
No, some of it is for my child’s father. O, how full of briers is this working-day world!
CELIA
They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery. If we walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats will catch them.
ROSALIND
I could shake them off my coat; these burs are in my heart.
CELIA
Hem them away.
ROSALIND
I would try, if I could cry “hem” and have him.
CELIA
Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.
ROSALIND
O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself.
CELIA
O, a good wish upon you! You will try in time, in despite of a fall. But turning these jests out of service, let us talk in good earnest. Is it possible on such a sudden you should fall into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?
ROSALIND
The Duke my father loved his father dearly.
CELIA
Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly? By this kind of chase I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate not Orlando.
ROSALIND
No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.
CELIA
Why should I not? Doth he not deserve well?
Enter Duke Frederick with Lords.
ROSALIND
Let me love him for that, and do you love him because I do.—Look, here comes the Duke.
CELIA
With his eyes full of anger.
DUKE FREDERICK
Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste,And get you from our court.
ROSALIND
Me, uncle?
DUKE FREDERICK
You, cousin.Within these ten days if that thou be’st foundSo near our public court as twenty miles,Thou diest for it.
ROSALIND
I do beseech your Grace,Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me.If with myself I hold intelligence,Or have acquaintance with mine own desires,If that I do not dream, or be not frantic—As I do trust I am not—then, dear uncle,Never so much as in a thought unbornDid I offend your Highness.
DUKE FREDERICK
Thus do all traitors.If their purgation did consist in words,They are as innocent as grace itself.Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.
ROSALIND
Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor.Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.
DUKE FREDERICK
Thou art thy father’s daughter, there’s enough.
ROSALIND
So was I when your highness took his dukedom;So was I when your highness banished him.Treason is not inherited, my lord,Or, if we did derive it from our friends,What’s that to me? My father was no traitor.Then, good my liege, mistake me not so muchTo think my poverty is treacherous.
CELIA
Dear sovereign, hear me speak.
DUKE FREDERICK
Ay, Celia, we stayed her for your sake,Else had she with her father ranged 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, learned, played, ate 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 patienceSpeak 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 virtuousWhen she is gone. Then open not thy lips.Firm and irrevocable is my doomWhich I have passed upon her. She is banished.
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 honourAnd 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 grieved than I am.
ROSALIND
I have more cause.
CELIA
Thou hast not, cousin.Prithee be cheerful. Know’st thou not the DukeHath banished me, his daughter?
ROSALIND
That he hath not.
CELIA
No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the loveWhich teacheth thee that thou and I am one.Shall we be sundered? 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 change 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.
CELIA
I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire,And with a kind of umber smirch my face.The like do you; so shall we pass alongAnd never stir assailants.
ROSALIND
Were it not better,Because that I am more than common tall,That I did suit me all points like a man?A gallant curtal-axe upon my thigh,A boar-spear in my hand, and in my heartLie there what hidden woman’s fear there will,We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside,As many other mannish cowards haveThat do outface it with their semblances.
CELIA
What shall I call thee when thou art a man?
ROSALIND
I’ll have no worse a name than Jove’s own page,And therefore look you call me Ganymede.But what will you be called?
CELIA
Something that hath a reference to my state:No longer Celia, but Aliena.
ROSALIND
But, cousin, what if we assayed to stealThe clownish fool out of your father’s court?Would he not be a comfort to our travel?
CELIA
He’ll go along o’er the wide world with me.Leave me alone to woo him. Let’s away,And get our jewels and our wealth together,Devise the fittest time and safest wayTo hide us from pursuit that will be madeAfter my flight. Now go we in contentTo liberty, and not to banishment.
Exeunt.

Characters

Speaking

  • 21 speeches
  • 20 speeches
  • 7 speeches

Mentioned

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Themes

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Questions on this scene

  • Reading

    Whom does Rosalind ask Celia not to hate?

Locations

  • Duke Frederick's court?Scene

    The unnamed court where Orlando defeats Charles in wrestling, meets Rosalind, and attracts her affection. Duke Frederick banishes Rosalind, prompting her flight with Celia and Touchstone.

    Set here · 11 quotes in this scene

Also mentioned

  • Forest of Arden?1 quote in this scene · characters travel here or from here