Duke F.
Mistress, dispatch you with your safest ^note haste
And get you from our court.

Ros.
Me, uncle?

Duke F.
You, cousin:
Within these ten ^note days if that thou be'st found
So near our public court as twenty miles,
Thou diest for it.

Ros.
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 ^note 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 unborn
Did I offend your Highness.

Duke F.
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.

Ros.
Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor:
Tell me whereon the likelihood ^note depends.

Duke F.
Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough.

Ros.
So was I when your Highness took his dukedom;
So was I when your Highness banish'd 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 much
To think my poverty is treacherous.

Cel.
Dear sovereign, hear me speak.

Duke F.
Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake,
Else had she with her father ranged along.

Cel.
I did not then entreat to have her stay;
It was your pleasure and your own remorse ^note:
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, learn'd, play'd, eat together,
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable ^note.

Duke F.
She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,
Her very silence and her patience
Speak 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 ^note more virtuous
When she is gone. Then open not thy lips:
Firm and irrevocable is my doom
Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd.

Cel.
Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege:
I cannot live out of her company.

Duke F.
You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself:
If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,
And in the greatness of my word, you die. [Exeunt Duke Frederick and Lords.

^note

Cel.
O my poor Rosalind, whither ^note wilt thou go?
Wilt thou change fathers ^note? I will give thee mine.
I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.

Ros.
I have more cause.

Cel.
Thou ^note hast not, cousin;
Prithee, be cheerful: know'st thou not, the Duke
Hath banish'd me, his daughter?

Ros.
That he hath not.

Cel.
No, hath not? ^note Rosalind lacks then the love
Which teacheth thee ^note that thou and I am ^note one:
Shall we be sunder'd? 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 ^note 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.

Ros.
Why, whither shall we go?

Cel.
To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden ^note.

Ros.
Alas, what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel forth so far ^note!
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

Cel.
I'll put myself in poor and mean attire
And with a kind of umber smirch ^note my face;
The like do you: so shall we pass along
And never stir assailants.

Ros.
Were it not better,
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?

A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
A boar-spear in my hand; and—in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will—
We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,
As many other mannish cowards have
That do outface it with their semblances.

Cel.
What shall I call thee when thou art a man?

Ros.
I'll have no worse a ^note name than Jove's own page;
And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
But what will you be ^note call'd?

Cel.
Something that hath a reference to my state;
No longer Celia, but Aliena.

Ros.
But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal
The clownish fool out of your father's court?
Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

Cel.
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 way
To hide us from pursuit that will be made
After my flight. Now go we in ^note content
To liberty and not to banishment. [Exeunt.

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