Read The Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Plain and Simple English (Translated) Online
Authors: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Deadly divorce step between me and you!
O my dear mother, do I see you living?
If you can't understand and it's not true
then may we get divorced!
Oh my dear mother, are you alive?
LAFEU
Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon:
To PAROLLES
Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher: so,
I thank thee: wait on me home, I'll make sport with thee:
Let thy courtesies alone, they are scurvy ones.
My eyes feel like I've been chopping onions; I shall cry soon:
Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkerchief: good,
thank you: wait for me at home, we'll have some fun:
don't bother with your thanks, it's worthless.
KING
Let us from point to point this story know,
To make the even truth in pleasure flow.
To DIANA
If thou be'st yet a fresh uncropped flower,
Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;
For I can guess that by thy honest aid
Thou keep'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.
Of that and all the progress, more or less,
Resolvedly more leisure shall express:
All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.
Let me know this story from beginning to end,
let's enjoy the truth.
If you are in fact still a virgin,
choose yourself a husband, and I'll pay your dowry;
I can see that with your playful help
you have given a wife back her position, and stayed a virgin.
We'll learn all about this in good time:
Everything seems to have turned out for the best; and if it ends so well
the bitterness of the past makes this sweetness more welcome.
Flourish
EPILOGUE
KING
The king's a beggar, now the play is done:
All is well ended, if this suit be won,
That you express content; which we will pay,
With strife to please you, day exceeding day:
Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;
Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.
The play is over, now the King is a beggar:
Everything has ended well, if we have succeeded
in pleasing you; we make our best efforts
to do this, day after day:
now it's time for you to act for us;
give us your applause, and we will be grateful.
Exeunt
DUKE, living in exile
FREDERICK, Brother to the Duke, and Usurper of his Dominions
AMIENS, Lord attending on the Duke in his Banishment
JAQUES, Lord attending on the Duke in his Banishment
LE BEAU, a Courtier attending upon Frederick
CHARLES, his Wrestler
OLIVER, Son of Sir Rowland de Bois
JAQUES, Son of Sir Rowland de Bois
ORLANDO, Son of Sir Rowland de Bois
ADAM, Servant to Oliver
DENNIS, Servant to Oliver
TOUCHSTONE, a Clown
SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a Vicar
CORIN, Shepherd
SILVIUS, Shepherd
WILLIAM, a Country Fellow, in love with Audrey.
A person representing HYMEN.
ROSALIND, Daughter to the banished Duke
CELIA, Daughter to Frederick
PHEBE, a Shepherdess
AUDREY, a Country Wench
Lords belonging to the two Dukes; Pages, Foresters, and other Attendants.
Enter ORLANDO and ADAM
ORLANDO
As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion
bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns,
and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his
blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my
sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and
report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part,
he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more
properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you
that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that
differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses
are bred better; for, besides that they are fair
with their feeding, they are taught their manage,
and to that end riders dearly hired: but I, his
brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for the
which his animals on his dunghills are as much
bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so
plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave
me his countenance seems to take from me: he lets
me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a
brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my
gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that
grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I
think is within me, begins to mutiny against this
servitude: I will no longer endure it, though yet I
know no wise remedy how to avoid it.
Adam, I remember that this was why
my father left me only a thousand crowns in his will
and, like you said, tasked my brother,
while blessing him, to raise me. This began my
sad problems. My brother, Oliver, keeps my other brother, Jacques, at school,
where everyone says he is doing very well, but me
he keeps here at home in the country, or to be
more exact, cages me here. Do you think
that it is fitting for such a noble man as me
to be in the same situation as an ox? Oliver’s horses
are treated better than me:
they are fed well and they are trained
by well paid trainers. Meanwhile, I, his
own brother, get nothing from his care, unless you count growing and maturing naturally –
his animals, sitting on piles of dung and manure, get
as much from him and are just as tied to him. He gives me
a lot of nothing, and even my noble birthrights
he has taken away from me: he
makes me eat with his servants, doesn’t let me have what is rightfully mine as his
brother, and, as much as he can, ruins
my upbringing by refusing me a proper education. This, Adam,
is why I am sad. My father’s spirit – and I
think I share his independence – begs me to rebel against this
servanthood. I will stand for this no longer, even though
I am not sure how to put a stop to it.
ADAM
Yonder comes my master, your brother.
Here comes your brother, my master.
ORLANDO
Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will
shake me up.
Go hide, Adam, and you will hear how
poorly he treats me.
Enter OLIVER
OLIVER
Now, sir! what make you here?
Hello, you! What are you doing here?
ORLANDO
Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing.
Nothing – I was never taught how to do anything.
OLIVER
What mar you then, sir?
Then what are you destroying?
ORLANDO
Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God
made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.