Enter CORIN.

Cor. Mistress, and master, you have oft inquired After the shepherd that complain'd of love;

Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
That was his mistress.

Cel.

Well, and what of him?

Cor. If you will see a pageant truly play'd, Between the pale complexion of true love And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain, Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you, you will mark it.

If

Ros.

O, come, let us remove;
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love:-
Bring us unto this sight, and you shall say
I'll prove a busy actor in their play.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V. Another part of the Forest.

Enter SILVIUS and PHEbe.

Sil. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe: Say, that you love me not; but say not so In bitterness. The common executioner, Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard,

Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck,

But first begs pardon; Will you sterner be
Than he that dies and lives 1 by bloody drops?

1

Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, at a
distance.

Phe. I would not be thy executioner:

I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.

1 i. e. he who, to the very end of life, continues a common executioner. So in the second Scene of Act v. of this play: live and die a shepherd.'

Thou tell'st me, there is murder in mine 'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,

eye:

That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies,—
Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!
Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
And, if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee;
Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down;
Or, if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.

Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee:
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush,

2

The cicatrice and palpable impressure

Thy palm some moment keeps: but now mine eyes, Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;

Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes

That can do hurt.

Sil.

O dear Phebe,

be near,)

If ever, (as that ever may

You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy3,

Then shall you know the wounds invisible

That love's keen arrows make.

Phe.

But, till that time,

Come not thou near me: and, when that time comes, Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;

As, till that time, I shall not pity thee.

Ros. And why, I pray you? [Advancing.] Who might be your mother,

That you insult, exult, and all at once,

2 The cicatrice and palpable impressure.' The old copy reads 'capable impressure.' I think it is evident we should read palpable. For no one can surely be satisfied with the strained explanations offered by Johnson and Malone. Cicatrice, however improperly, is used for skin mark, which is in fact a scar, though not an indelible one.

3 Love.

Over the wretched? What though? you have no beauty*,

(As, by my faith, I see no more in you
Than without candle may go dark to bed,)
Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
I see no more in you, than in the ordinary
Of nature's sale-work:-Od's my little life!
I think she means to tangle my eyes too:-
No, 'faith, proud mistress, hope not after it;
'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk-hair,
Your bugle eye-balls, nor your cheek of cream,
That can entame my spirits to your worship.-
You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?
You are a thousand times a properer man,
Than she a woman: 'Tis such fools as you,
That make the world full of ill-favour'd children:
'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;
And out of she sees herself more proper,
you

Than any of her lineaments can show her.
But, mistress, know yourself; down on your knees,
And thank heaven fasting, for a good man's love:

4 What though? you have no beauty.' This is the reading of the old copy, which Malone thought erroneous, and proposed to read mo' beauty; Steevens adopted his emendation, and reads more. This is certainly wrong; the whole of Rosalind's spirited address to Phebe tends to the disparagement of her beauty, and whoever reads it with attention will conclude with me that the

old copy is right. Some one suggested to Theobald that no should be omitted, and in this Mr. Douce concurs. It is true this omission would correct the redundancy in the line, and is altogether better than Malone's arbitrary change; yet upon the whole I am persuaded that the negative particle is Shakspeare's, and that it was intended to be emphatic. What though? is an elliptical interrogation, much in the spirit of Rosalind's railing, and is again used in A Midsummer Night's Dream :

'What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?

For I must tell you friendly in your ear,―
Sell when you can; you are not for all markets:
Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer;
Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer 5.
So take her to thee, shepherd:-fare you well.

Phe. Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together; I had rather hear you chide, than this man woo.

Ros. He's fallen in love with her foulness, and she'll fall in love with my anger: If it be so, as fast as she answers thee with frowning looks, I'll sauce her with bitter words.-Why look you so upon me? Phe. For no ill will I bear you.

Ros. I pray you, do not fall in love with me,
For I am falser than vows made in wine:
Besides, I like you not: If you will know my house,
'Tis at the tuft of olives, here hard by :-

Will you go, sister?-Shepherd, ply her hard:
Come, sister:-Shepherdess, look on him better,
And be not proud: though all the world could see,
None could be so abus'd in sight as heo.
Come, to our flock.

[Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN. Phe. Dead shepherd! now I find thy saw of might; Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight??

5 That is, says Johnson, The ugly seem most ugly, when though ugly they are scoffers.' This passage may be urged in confirmation of the reading' you have no beauty,' which I have contended for in a former page, together with that noticed in the succeeding note.

6 If all men could see you, none could be so deceived as to think you beautiful but he.

7 This line is from Marlowe's beautiful poem of Hero and Leander, left unfinished at his death in 1592, and first published in 1598, when it became very popular. It was continued and completed by George Chapman, and again printed in 1600. I am proud to have been the humble instrument of calling the attention of the present age to this neglected poem, and to the merits of the fine old version of Homer's Hymns, by George Chapman.

If

Ha! what say'st thou, Silvius?

Sil. Sweet Phebe, pity me.

Phe. Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius. Sil. Wherever sorrow is, relief would be;

you

do sorrow at my grief in love,

By giving love, your sorrow and my grief
Were both extermin'd.

Phe. Thou hast my love; is not that neighbourly?
Sil. I would have you.

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

Phe. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me ere while?

Sil. 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.

Phe. Think not I love him, though I ask for him; "Tis but a peevish9 boy:-yet he talks well;But what care I for words? yet words do well,

8 Carlot. This is printed in Italics as a proper name in the old edition. It is however apparently formed from carle a peasant. 9 i. e. weak, silly.