Public-domain ebook
As You Like It
Language: en12,966 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Romance·Plays/Films/Dramas·British Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #1523.
About this book
This work is a Shakespearean comedy that opens in an orchard near Oliver’s house, where the disgruntled younger brother Orlando vents his frustration at being kept “rustically at home” while his elder sibling enjoys a proper education. The dialogue quickly establishes a family dispute over inheritance, education, and status, as Orlando confronts Oliver about the will that left him a meager thousand crowns. The scene shifts to a conversation with the wrestler Charles, who brings news of the banished Duke and his daughter Rosalind, hinting at the pastoral exile that will frame much of the action. The opening therefore sets up themes of sibling rivalry, social mobility, and the contrast between courtly life and rustic freedom, all while introducing a cast of talkative servants and witty observers who foreshadow the play’s intertwining plots.
Shakespeare’s language here is richly Elizabethan, marked by rhythmic prose, word‑play, and a blend of lofty rhetoric with earthy humor. The characters speak in a formal, poetic register that nevertheless captures the everyday concerns of inheritance and love. Readers who enjoy lively repartee, clever misunderstandings, and a mix of romantic intrigue with satirical commentary on class will find this play rewarding. Its pastoral setting and focus on fathers, daughters, and exiles also appeal to those interested in early modern drama that balances heartfelt sentiment with comic invention.
Characters in As You Like It
- OrlandoYoung nobleman in fine Elizabethan doublet, ruffled collar, dark curls, confident posture
- AdamMiddle‑aged servant in plain brown doublet, modest cuffs, weather‑worn face, simple cap
- OliverElder gentleman, trimmed beard, velvet coat with embroidered cuffs, dignified bearing
The opening · free to read
ORLANDO. Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion have I spent that I should come to such penury?
OLIVER. Know you where you are, sir?
ORLANDO. O, sir, very well: here in your orchard.
OLIVER. Know you before whom, sir?
ORLANDO. Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are my eldest brother, and in the gentle condition of blood you should so know me. The courtesy of nations allows you my better in that you are the first-born, but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us. I have as much of my father in me as you, albeit I confess your coming before me is nearer to his reverence.
OLIVER. What, boy!
ORLANDO. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.
OLIVER. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?
ORLANDO. I am no villain. I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys; he was my father, and he is thrice a villain that says such a father begot villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy throat till this other had pulled out thy tongue for saying so. Thou has railed on thyself.
ADAM. [_Coming forward_.] Sweet masters, be patient. For your father’s remembrance, be at accord.
OLIVER. Let me go, I say.
ORLANDO. I will not till I please. You shall hear me. My father charged you in his will to give me good education. You have trained me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in me, and I will no longer endure it. Therefore allow me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or give me the poor allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes.
OLIVER. And what wilt thou do? Beg when that is spent? Well, sir, get you in. I will not long be troubled with you. You shall have some part of your will. I pray you leave me.
ORLANDO. I no further offend you than becomes me for my good.
OLIVER. Get you with him, you old dog.
ADAM. Is “old dog” my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in your service. God be with my old master. He would not have spoke such a word.
OLIVER. Is it even so? Begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla, Dennis!
Enter Dennis.
DENNIS Calls your worship?
OLIVER. Was not Charles, the Duke’s wrestler, here to speak with me?
DENNIS So please you, he is here at the door and importunes access to you.
OLIVER. Call him in.
CHARLES. There’s no news at the court, sir, but the old news. That is, the old Duke is banished by his younger brother the new Duke, and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new Duke; therefore he gives them good leave to wander.
OLIVER. Can you tell if Rosalind, the Duke’s daughter, be banished with her father?
CHARLES. O, no; for the Duke’s daughter, her cousin, so loves her, being ever from their cradles bred together, that she would have followed her exile or have died to stay behind her. She is at the court and no less beloved of her uncle than his own daughter, and never two ladies loved as they do.
OLIVER. Where will the old Duke live?
CHARLES. They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England. They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.
OLIVER. What, you wrestle tomorrow before the new Duke?
CHARLES. Marry, do I, sir, and I came to acquaint you with a matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand that your younger brother Orlando hath a disposition to come in disguised against me to try a fall. Tomorrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit, and he that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well. Your brother is but young and tender, and for your love I would be loath to foil him, as I must for my own honour if he come in. Therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint you withal, that either you might stay him from his intendment, or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is a thing of his own search and altogether against my will.
OLIVER. Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my brother’s purpose herein, and have by underhand means laboured to dissuade him from it; but he is resolute. I’ll tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full of ambition, an envious emulator of every man’s good parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me his natural brother. Therefore use thy discretion. I had as lief thou didst break his neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to’t; for if thou dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap thee by some treacherous device, and never leave thee till he hath ta’en thy life by some indirect means or other. For I assure thee (and almost with tears I speak it) there is not one so young and so villainous this day living. I speak but brotherly of him, but should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I must blush and weep, and thou must look pale and wonder.
CHARLES. I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come tomorrow I’ll give him his payment. If ever he go alone again I’ll never wrestle for prize more. And so, God keep your worship.
OLIVER. Farewell, good Charles. Now will I stir this gamester. I hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul—yet I know not why—hates nothing more than he. Yet he’s gentle, never schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am altogether misprized. But it shall not be so long; this wrestler shall clear all. Nothing remains but that I kindle the boy thither, which now I’ll go about.
ROSALIND. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of, and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.
CELIA. Herein I see thou lov’st me not with the full weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the Duke my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine. So wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously tempered as mine is to thee.
ROSALIND. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate to rejoice in yours.
CELIA. You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to have; and truly, when he dies thou shalt be his heir, for what he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee again in affection. By mine honour I will! And when I break that oath, let me turn monster. Therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.
ROSALIND. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let me see—what think you of falling in love?
CELIA. Marry, I prithee do, to make sport withal; but love no man in good earnest, nor no further in sport neither than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst in honour come off again.
ROSALIND. What shall be our sport, then?
CELIA. Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.
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