CELIA.
Something that hath a reference to my state:
No longer Celia, but Aliena.
ROSALIND.
But, cousin, what if we assayed to steal
The 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 way
To hide us from pursuit that will be made
After my flight. Now go we in content
To liberty, and not to banishment.
[Exeunt.]
ACT II
SCENE I. The Forest of Arden
Enter Duke Senior, Amiens and two or three Lords, dressed as foresters.
DUKE SENIOR.
Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say:
“This is no flattery. These are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.”
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
AMIENS.
I would not change it. Happy is your grace,
That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet and so sweet a style.
DUKE SENIOR.
Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should in their own confines with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored.