Rosalind, As You Like It: I.iii

Celia: “Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! not a word? Throw some of them at me; come, lame me iwth reasons.” Then there were two cousins laid up when the one should be lamed with reasons and the other mad without any.
Celia: “But it all this for your father?” No some of it is for my child’s father. O how full of briers is this working-day world!
Celia: “They are but burs, cousin. . .trodden paths our very petticoats will catch them.” I could shake them off my coat. These burs are in my heart.
Celia: “Hem them away.” I would try if I could cry hem and have him.
Celia: “O, a good wish upon you!. . .so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?” The duke my father loved his father dearly.
Celia: “Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son. . .yet I hate not Orlando.” No faith hate him not for my sake. Look here comes the duke.
Duke Frederick: “Mistress, dispatch you with your greatest haste and get you from our court.” Me uncle?
Duke Frederick: “You, cousin. . .Thou diest for it.” I do beseech your grace let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me. Dear uncle never so much as in a thought unborn did I offend your highness.
Duke Frederick: “Thus do all traitors: Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.” Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor. Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.
Duke Frederick: “Thou art thy father’s daughter; there’s enough.” So was I when you highness took his dukedom so was I when your highness banished 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.
Celia: “O my poor Rosalind. . .be not thou more grieved than I am.” I have more cause.
Celia: “Thou hast not, cousin. . .hath banished me, his daughter?” That he hath not.
Celia: “No, hath not?. . .Say what thou canst, I’ll go along with thee.” Why whither shall we go?
Celia: “To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.” Alas what danger it will be to us maids as we are to travel forth so far! Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
Celia: “I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire. . .and never stir assailants.” Were it not better 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.
Celia: “What shall I call thee when thou art a man?” I’ll have no worse a name than Jove’s own page and therefore look you call me Ganymede. But what will you be called?
Celia: “Something that hath a reference to my state no longer Celia, but Aliena.” 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?
July 7, 2019