Left on your right hand, brings you to the place:
But at this hour the house doth keep itself;
There's none within.

Oli. If that an eye may profit by a tongue,
Then I should know you by description;

Such garments, and such years: The boy is fair,
Of female favor, and bestows himself

Like a ripe sister; but the woman low,
Are not you

And browner than her brother.'

The owner of the house I did inquire for?
Cel. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say, we are.
Oli. Orlando doth commend him to you both;
And to that youth, he calls his Rosalind,
He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?

Ros. I am what must we understand by this? Oli. Some of my shame, if you will know of me What man I am, and how, and why, and where This handkerchief was stain'd.

2

Within an hour; 1 and, pacing through the forest,
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
Lo, what befel! he threw his eye aside,
And, mark, what object did present itself!
Under an old oak, whose boughs were moss'd with
age,

Within a certain time.

2 Love.

And high top bald with dry antiquity,

A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,
Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck

A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself,
Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd
The opening of his mouth; but suddenly,
Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself,

And with indented glides did slip away
Into a bush; under which bush's shade
A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,

Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch,
When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis
The royal disposition of that beast

To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead:
This seen, Orlando did approach the man,

And found it was his brother, his elder brother.

Cel. O, I have heard him speak of that same

brother;

And he did render 1 him the most unnatural

That lived 'mongst men.

Oli.

And well he might so do,

For well I know he was unnatural.

Ros. But, to Orlando :-did he leave him there, Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness?

Oli. Twice did he turn his back, and purposed

80 :

But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,

And nature, stronger than his just occasion,

1 Describe.

West del.

4. AS YOU LIKE IT Orlando & Oliver

Act IV Sne I

Made him give battle to the lioness,

Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling1 From miserable slumber I awaked.

Cel. Are you his brother?

Ros.

Was it you he rescued?

Cel. Was 't you that did so oft contrive to kill

him?

Oli. 'Twas I; but 'tis not I: I do not shame To tell you what I was, since my conversion

So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.

Ros. But, for the bloody napkin ?

Oli.
By and by.
When from the first to last, betwixt us two,

Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed,
As, how I came into that desert place ;-
In brief, he led me to the gentle duke,
Who gave me fresh array and entertainment,
Committing me unto my brother's love;
Who led me instantly unto his cave;
There stripp'd himself, and here upon
The lioness had torn some flesh away,

his arm

Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted, And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind.

Brief, I recover'd him; bound up his wound;

And, after some small space, being strong at heart,

He sent me hither, stranger as I am,

To tell this story, that you might excuse

His broken promise, and to give this napkin,

1 Scuffle.