he thought her-what she really is. He has come tardily, and she has roguishly kept him waiting some moments pretending not to see him while she talks to Jaques. Then she

turns:

Why, how now, Orlando! Where have you been all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more.

ORL. My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise. Ros. Break an hour's promise in love! He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapp'd him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant him heartwhole.

ORL. Pardon me, dear Rosalind.

Ros. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight. I had as lief be woo'd of a snail.

ORL. Of a snail?

Ros. Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head; a better jointure, I think, than you make a

woman. ...

Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind?

ORL. I would kiss before I spoke.

Ros. Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were gravell❜d for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.

...

ORL. I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her.

Ros. Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.
ORL. Then in mine own person I die.

Ros. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains dash'd out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have liv'd many a fair year though Hero had turn'd nun, if it had not been for a hot mid-summer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being taken with the cramp was drown'd; and the foolish chroniclers of that age found it was-Hero of Sestos. But these are all lies. Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

ORL. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I protest, her frown might kill me.

Ros. By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition; and ask me what you will, I will grant it.

ORL. Then love me, Rosalind.

Ros. Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all.

ORL. And wilt thou have me?

Ros. Ay, and twenty such.

ORL. What sayest thou?
Ros. Are you not good?

ORL. I hope so.

Ros. Why then, can one desire too much of Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us. hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?

CEL. I cannot say the words.

Ros. You must begin, "Will you, Orlando"

a good thing? Give me your

CEL. Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?

ORL. I will.

Ros. Ay, but when?

ORL. Why now; as fast as she can marry us.

Ros. Then you must say, "I take thee, Rosalind, for wife." ORL. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.

Ros. I might ask you for your commission; but I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband. There's a girl goes before the priest; and certainly a woman's thought runs before her actions.

ORL. So do all thoughts; they are wing'd.

Ros. Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possess'd her.

ORL. For ever and a day.

Ros. Say "a day," without the "ever." No, no, Orlando. Men are April when they woo, December when they wed; maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are dispos'd to be merry. I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou art inclin'd to sleep.

ORL. But will my Rosalind do so?
Ros. By my life, she will do as I do.
ORL. O, but she is wise.

Ros. Or else she could not have the wit to do this. The wiser, the waywarder. Make the doors upon a woman's wit and it will

out at the casement; shut that and 't will out at the key-hole; stop that, 't will fly with the smoke out at the chimney.

CEL. You have simply misus'd our sex in your love-prate.

Ros. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love!

Surely we can guess. You all remember that scene when Rosalind stands by to hear with trembling heart the story of Orlando's brotherly love and valor, as his brother tells it, until at the sight of the kerchief wet with blood her woman's nature can endure it no longer and she swoons, only to unclose her eyes again in a moment and call out with an attempt at the old saucy manner:

a body would think this was well counterfeited! I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited. Heighho!... But, i' faith, I should have been a woman by right.

Counterfeiting after that was impossible, and when next he meets her, I think Orlando has detected her disguise, though with manly dignity and tenderness he will not say so, nor urge any disclosure until she is pleased to make it. Where is there a more charming love story?

I have said nothing of Adam, the old servant, whose fidelity to Orlando is such a proof of Orlando's own goodness, or of Silvius, the type of rustic faith, and Phebe, the mincing, kittenish little rustic flirt, with the jet black hair and bugle-eyeballs, whose witless and heartless attempts at coquetry with Silvius serve to show the more admirably how much there is both of wit and heart in Rosalind.

But something of the charm of the play evaporates in any attempt to analyze its different characters. It is only when we think of it entire, as a picture of fresh woodland health and joy, that we feel its charm. To read it or to remember it is a true refreshment of soul, and brings not only lightsome thoughts but some of that

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness

of which Wordsworth sings.

Only I must remind you that at the close of the play, Shakespeare sends all his persons back into the world again. We cannot sever permanently our obligations to society, nor hope for very long to fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden age. Nor would we. No high culture of soul is possible unless we take up our duties in the thick of life, or even any high enjoyment. Delightful as is the Forest of Arden, to stay there always would not be As We Like It.

S

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

HAKESPEARE was not a man of many books. I sup

pose there was nothing at New Place that could by any stretch of logic have been called a library. Yet there were three or four books that he must have known thoroughly, and one of these, perhaps the best known of all, was one of the world's great books,-Plutarch's Lives. It is pleasant to be able to be sure that we know in just what translation he read it, and to see again and again not only the thought or the incident but even the language of that admirable old translation appearing in his plays. For I think there has never been a translation of Plutarch whose English can for a moment compare in vigor and dramatic raciness with that old one by Sir Thomas North, 1579, which Shakespeare must have used.

Shakespeare's play of Antony and Cleopatra is not merely based on Plutarch's Life of Mark Antony, but it follows Plutarch so closely that it might almost be called a poetic paraphrase. In no one of Shakespeare's plays does he keep so close to his original. In most cases, as you know, he has drawn from his authorities only names and the outline of a plot; here, however, not only the names but the essentials of the character of the Antony, the Cleopatra, the Octavius of the play are all to be found in Plutarch. Enobarbus is perhaps the only person of much importance in the play for whose character Shakespeare did not get many essential hints from Plutarch. And more than this, the events of the play, even the minor and incidental ones that seem as you read them almost certain to have been invented by Shakespeare are, in fact, almost all taken out of Plutarch; so that it is hardly too much to say that there is not a page of the drama in which you cannot find traces of Plutarch either in the incidents or the language.

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