The Shakespeare Story-Book

“A quarrel already? What’s the matter?” asked Portia.

“It’s about a paltry ring that Nerissa gave me, with a motto for all the world like cutlers’ poetry upon a knife, ‘Love me and leave me not,’” said Gratiano.

“Why do you talk of the motto or the value?” cried Nerissa. “You swore to me when I gave it you that you would wear it till the hour of death, and that it should lie with you in your grave. Even if not for my sake, yet because of your oath, you ought to have held it in respect, and kept it. Gave it to a judge’s clerk! No, indeed, the clerk that had it will never wear hair on his face!”

“Yes, he will, if he lives to be a man.”

“Ay, if a woman lives to be a man!” said Nerissa scornfully.

“Now, by this hand. I gave it to a youth,” protested the exasperated Gratiano; “a kind of boy – a little scrubby boy, no higher than yourself, the judge’s clerk, a prating boy that begged it as a fee. I could not find it in my heart to deny him.”

“You were to blame, Gratiano – I must be plain with you – to part so lightly with your wife’s first gift,” said Portia gravely. “I gave my love a ring, and made him swear never to part with it,” she added, looking tenderly at Bassanio. “Here he stands. I dare be sworn he would not give it from his finger for all the wealth contained in the world. Now, in faith, Gratiano, you have given your wife unkind cause for grief. If it were me, I should be mad about it.”

How pleasant for Bassanio to hear this!

“I were best to cut my left hand off, and swear I lost the ring defending it,” he thought ruefully.

“My lord Bassanio gave his ring to the judge, who indeed well deserved it,” said Gratiano, in self-excuse. “And then the boy, his clerk, who took some pains in writing, he begged mine. And neither man nor master would take anything else but the two rings.”

“What ring did you give, my lord?” asked Portia. “Not, I hope, the one you received from me.”

“If I could add a lie to the fault, I would deny it,” said Bassanio. “But, you see, my finger has not the ring upon it; it is gone.”

Portia, on hearing this, pretended to get very angry and jealous, and no excuses that Bassanio made could appease her.

“Sweet Portia,” he said, “if you knew to whom I gave the ring, if you knew for whom I gave the ring, and would understand for what I gave the ring, and how unwillingly I left the ring, when nothing would be accepted but the ring, you would abate the strength of your displeasure.”

“If you had known the virtue of the ring,” retorted Portia, “or half her worthiness that gave the ring, or your own honour to retain the ring, you would not then have parted with the ring.”

Portia thoroughly enjoyed the fun of teasing her husband, and she and Nerissa made the poor men quite unhappy before the secret was revealed. Finally Antonio, distressed at the discord which he imagined he had brought between husband and wife, interceded for Bassanio, and Portia allowed herself to be soothed.

“Since you will be surety for him,” she said to Antonio, “give him this ring, and bid him keep it better than the other.”

“By heaven it is the same I gave the doctor!” cried Bassanio.

So all ended happily. The mystery was explained, and Bassanio and Gratiano were duly forgiven. To add to the general pleasure, news reached Portia that three of Antonio’s argosies had come safely to harbour, so, after all, he was no longer a bankrupt, but once again a rich and prosperous merchant of Venice.

As You Like It

Oliver and Orlando

Deep in the Forest of Arden lived a merry company. The Duke of that country, banished by his usurping brother Frederick, had taken refuge among the green woods, and there, far from the pomp and envious clamour of Court, he lived happily with a few faithful followers. Custom had made this new life sweeter than the old one of showy state. Here were no fawning courtiers, no slander and intrigue; the only hardships were those of the changing seasons. Even when the keen winds of winter made the Duke shrink with cold, he would smile and say: “This is no flattery; these are counsellors that make me feel really what I am;” and the biting blast seemed to him less cruel than the falsehood and ingratitude of men.

Not far from the forest was the house that had formerly belonged to a good gentleman – Sir Rowland de Boys. Dying, Sir Rowland had left all his possessions to his eldest son, Oliver, excepting one thousand crowns, which was to go to the youngest son, Orlando. Sir Rowland, however, had charged Oliver to bring up his two brothers carefully. Oliver had sent the second son, Jaques, to school, where the boy did well; but his youngest brother, Orlando, he kept at home, leaving him utterly neglected and without any sort of training. Not only did Oliver do nothing at all for his brother, but he even tried to take away what advantages Orlando possessed by nature. He made him feed with the servants, debarred him his place as brother, and in every way possible seemed to aim at unfitting him for his position as a gentleman.

Orlando was indignant at such treatment, and at last he rebelled openly, declaring he would endure such servitude no longer. There was an angry dispute between the young men, in which Oliver, as usual, tried to bully his brother into submission. But Orlando’s spirit was up. Stung to fury by Oliver’s insults, he seized hold of him, and compelled him to listen to what he had to say. A faithful old servitor of their father’s interposed, and tried to make peace, but Orlando was determined not to yield.

“You shall hear me,” he said, as Oliver struggled to free himself. “My father charged you in his will to give me a good education. You have trained me like a peasant, 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 becomes a gentleman, or give me the poor portion my father left me in his will, and with that I will go seek my fortune.”

“And what will you do with it? Beg, when that is spent?” sneered Oliver. “Well, sir, get you in; I will not be troubled with you much longer. You shall have part of what you wish. I pray you, leave me.” And then, turning to the old servant Adam, he added savagely, “Get you with him, you old dog!”

“Is ‘old dog’ my reward?” said Adam sadly. “Most true, I have lost my teeth in your service. God be with my old master! He would not have spoken such a word.”

But Oliver had a plan for getting rid of this younger brother, and that without expending a thousand crowns. Charles, the wrestler of the usurping Duke, was to show his skill the following day at Court, and Oliver knew it was Orlando’s intention to try a match with this famous athlete. This report had also privately reached the ears of the wrestler. Charles was a most powerful opponent, deadly in skill and strength. Being a friend of Oliver’s, and not wishing to harm the young Orlando, he came to Oliver’s house to warn him to dissuade his brother from making the attempt, or at least to let him know, in the event of any injury happening to Orlando, that it would be entirely of the boy’s own seeking, and altogether against Charles’s will.

Oliver thanked Charles for his kind thought, and said he had himself tried by every means to dissuade Orlando, but that he was resolute.

“I tell you, Charles, he is the stubbornest young fellow in France,” Oliver said maliciously, “full of ambition, envious of every man’s good parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me, his own brother. Therefore use your discretion. I had as lief you broke his neck as his finger. And you had better be on your guard, for if you do him any slight disgrace, or if he fails to win glory for himself, he will practise against you by poison, entrap you by some treacherous device, and never leave you till he has taken your life by some indirect means or other. For I assure you – and I speak it almost with tears – there is no one living at this day so young and so villainous.”

Charles was naturally shocked to hear such a bad account of Orlando.

“I am heartily glad I came to you,” he said. “If he comes to-morrow I’ll give him his payment;” and away he went, vowing to punish Orlando.

“Now I’ll stir up the youngster,” thought Oliver. “I hope I shall soon see the end of him, for, though I don’t know why, I have an absolute hatred of the boy. Yet he is gentle; never schooled, and yet learned; full of noble device; enchantingly beloved by everyone – indeed, so much in the hearts of all, especially of my own people, that I am altogether thrown in the shade. But it shall not be so long; this wrestler will put all right. Nothing remains but to make the boy more eager for the wrestling, and that I’ll go and do at once.”

Rosalind and Celia

When the rightful Duke was sent into banishment, Frederick, the usurping Duke, allowed his daughter Rosalind to stay on at Court, to be a companion to his own young daughter Celia. The cousins had been brought up together from their cradles, and were so devoted to each other that if Rosalind had been sent into banishment Celia would either have followed her or died of grief at the separation. Celia strove by all the means in her power to cheer her cousin’s sorrow for the loss of her father, and assured her that when Duke Frederick died she would never consent to be his heir, but would immediately restore to Rosalind all that he had wrongfully taken away.

Rosalind’s own nature was too bright and happy to waste time in useless repining, and her deep affection for her cousin made her respond very willingly to Celia’s loving attempts at consolation. The girls’ gay wit and merry chatter never failed, and their leisure moments found additional food for entertainment in the whimsical utterances of the Court fool, or jester, Touchstone. Under his apparent nonsense often lay hidden much quaint philosophy, and Touchstone found his fool’s motley a convenient cloak for levelling many a sharp-edged shaft of truth at his hearers.

On the day appointed for the wrestling match, Rosalind and Celia were among the spectators. Charles had already shown his prowess by speedily overthrowing one after the other three goodly young men. Now they all lay on the ground with broken ribs, and their poor old father made such a doleful lament over his three sons that all the beholders took his part and wept in sympathy.

When Orlando appeared as the next champion, there was a general feeling of dismay and compassion. What chance had this slender lad against the doughty Charles? Duke Frederick, in pity for his youth, would fain have dissuaded him, but he would not be entreated. Rosalind and Celia then tried, but even they were not more successful. Orlando thanked them courteously, but refused to give up the attempt. Since their entreaties were of no avail, the only thing the ladies could do was to bestow on him their best wishes, and this they did most heartily.

The result was a surprise to all. Orlando was the victor, and this time it was the redoubtable Charles who was carried senseless from the field.

Duke Frederick was interested enough in the young wrestler to inquire who he was, but was far from pleased to learn he was a son of Sir Rowland de Boys. Sir Rowland was an honourable gentleman, but he had been no friend to the usurping Duke. Rosalind’s father, on the contrary, had loved Sir Rowland dearly, and by the rest of the world he had been equally esteemed. Celia was hurt by her father’s churlish remarks to Orlando, and tried to make up for them by some kind and gracious words. Rosalind, equally moved, took a chain from her neck and gave it to the young victor.

“Gentleman, wear this for me, one out of suit with fortune, who could give more but that her hand lacks means.”

Orlando would fain have expressed his thanks, but some strange feeling held him speechless. He had overcome the mighty Charles, but he could not master this stronger champion. He was still musing over what had passed, when one of the lords-in-waiting, Le Beau, came to him, and counselled him in friendship to leave the place at once. Duke Frederick had taken a prejudice against him, and was likely to resent everything he did.

“I thank you,” said Orlando. “Pray tell me one thing – which of those two ladies was daughter of the Duke who was here at the wrestling?”

Le Beau answered that it was the smaller of the two ladies. The other was the daughter of the banished Duke, detained by her usurping uncle to keep his own daughter company.

“But I can tell you,” continued Le Beau, “that lately this Duke Frederick has taken a violent displeasure against his gentle niece, for no other reason than that the people love her for her virtues, and pity her for her good father’s sake. I am quite sure his malice against the lady will suddenly break forth.”

Then Le Beau took a courteous farewell, and Orlando went his way, lost in a dream, and murmuring “Heavenly Rosalind!”

For her part, Rosalind had been equally attracted by the gallant young wrestler, and when Celia began to rally her about her pensive looks, she was quite ready to admit the truth.

“In good earnest,” said Celia, “is it possible that you should suddenly take so strong a liking for old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?”

“The Duke, my father, loved his father dearly,” urged Rosalind in self-excuse.

“Does it therefore follow that you should love his son dearly?” laughed Celia. “By this sort of reasoning I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly. And yet I do not hate Orlando.”

“No, faith, for my sake do not hate him!” said Rosalind. “Love him because I do.”

The cousins were interrupted by Duke Frederick, who entered hurriedly, his eyes full of anger. What Le Beau foretold had come to pass. The Duke’s displeasure against Rosalind had been growing for some time, for he was jealous at her being so universally beloved, and alarmed for the safety of his own position. Now, in a few curt words, he ordered her to leave the Court, saying that if in ten days’ time she were still found within twenty miles of it, she should be put to death. Rosalind was amazed and indignant, but all appeals were useless. Celia in vain tried to plead for her cousin. Duke Frederick would listen to no reason. He declared that Rosalind was a traitor, subtle enough to steal the affections of the people away from Celia herself, and that once she was gone Celia would shine to far greater advantage. The sentence he pronounced was irrevocable. Rosalind was banished.

“Pronounce that sentence, then, on me, my liege,” said Celia. “I cannot live out of her company.”

“You are a fool!” was the Duke’s contemptuous answer. Then to Rosalind he added: “You, niece, provide yourself; if you stay longer than the time, you die.”

When her father left them, Celia again strove to cheer her cousin. She utterly refused to be parted from her, insisted on sharing her griefs, and declared that, no matter what Rosalind said, she intended to go with her.

“Why, whither, shall we go?” asked Rosalind.

“To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden,” replied Celia.

This was a good suggestion, and in order to avoid the danger of two high-born and beautiful maidens travelling alone, it was further agreed that Celia should stain her face brown, and attire herself in mean apparel, while Rosalind, who was tall of stature, should for better security, disguise herself as a youth, armed with curtle-axe, and with a boar-spear in her hand.

“Let what fear there will, lie hidden in my woman’s heart,” she said gaily, “at least we’ll have a dashing and a martial outside!”

In their new guise Rosalind declared she would take no worse a name than Jove’s own page – Ganymede; while Celia, in reference to her own banished state, thought that Aliena would be a very suitable name for herself.

“Cousin,” said Rosalind, “what if we tried to steal the clownish fool out of your father’s Court? Would he not be a comfort to us in our travels?”

Celia was delighted with the suggestion.

“Touchstone would go with me all over the wide world,” she said. “Leave me alone to manage him. Now let us go and get our money and jewels together, and devise the fittest time and safest way to hide from the pursuit that will be made when my flight is known. Come! We go contentedly – to liberty, and not to banishment!”

In the Forest of Arden

On reaching home after the wrestling match, Orlando was met by the old retainer, Adam, who implored him to fly at once. The fame of his victory had already reached Oliver’s ears, and he was so incensed at the praises lavished on his brother that he was quite resolved to do away with him by some means or other. The faithful old man went on to say he had five hundred crowns, saved during his service with his late master, and he begged Orlando to take this money, and also to let him go with him as his servant. He was old, he said, but still strong and active, and could serve him as well as a younger man.

Orlando was deeply touched by the fidelity and devotion of this old retainer, and willingly agreed to his request, saying that before the money was spent they would doubtless have found some humble means of support. So the outcasts departed: the young man left the home of his father, and the old man the place where he had spent more than sixty years of faithful service.

They started not unhopefully, but matters did not go well with them. Scarcely knowing where to direct their steps, they plunged into the Forest of Arden, and there, in the depths of the greenwood, they lost their way. Worn out with fatigue, almost starving for food, they wandered on, till at last Adam’s strength failed, and he sank to the ground.

“Dear master, I can go no further. Oh, I die for food!” he gasped. “Farewell, kind master!”

With the tenderest words Orlando strove to cheer the poor old man, and, carefully placing him in a more sheltered spot, he dashed off almost desperate in his quest for food.

Not far off in the forest a very different scene was taking place. In the bright days of early summer the days slipped pleasantly past with the banished Duke and his little band of faithful followers. Clad in their foresters’ garb, and living the simple life of outlaws, they hunted, sang, laughed, and feasted under the greenwood tree. The most notable of the band was a certain lord called Jaques, who had been a brilliant and reckless courtier in his early days, but was now a cynic and philosopher, half sad, half satiric, whose moods seemed to vary between biting humour and pensive melancholy. He had a sharp tongue, and took no pains to make himself agreeable, but his quaint moralisings afforded much entertainment to his companions, and especially to the Duke.

On the day when Orlando and Adam were starving in one part of the forest, the Duke and his band were having a merry time in another part. One of the lords, by name Amiens, could sing very pleasingly, and he now led a ditty in praise of their woodland life, while the others joined in the chorus:

“Under the greenwood treeWho loves to lie with me,And turn his merry noteUnto the sweet bird’s throat,Come hither, come hither, come hither.Here shall he seeNo enemyBut winter and rough weather.“Who doth ambition shunAnd loves to live in the sun,Seeking the food he eatsAnd pleased with what he gets,Come hither, come hither, come hither:Here shall he seeNo enemyBut winter and rough weather.”

The banquet was spread, and the Duke had taken his place, when Jaques came up, apparently much diverted with something he had just seen.

“A fool! a fool!” he cried. “I met a fool in the forest!”

The cynical lord was amused to find a fellow-philosopher under the motley of a fool, and quoted the mangled scraps of moral wisdom he had let fall, with much enjoyment.

“‘Good-morrow, fool,’ quoth I. ‘No, sir,’ quoth he, ‘call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.’ Then he drew a dial from his pocket, and, looking at it with his dull eyes, said very wisely: ‘It is ten o’clock. Thus we may see how the world wags. An hour ago it was nine o’clock, and in another hour it will be eleven. And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, and so from hour to hour we rot and rot, and thereby hangs a tale.’”

Jaques was greatly diverted at the idea of a fool in motley moralising thus on the time, and declared that henceforth he intended to don a fool’s dress himself, in order that he might have the privilege that fools have, of speaking out his mind freely on all occasions.

“And those that are most hurt with my folly,” he said, “they most must laugh. Dress me in motley, and give me leave to speak my mind, and I will guarantee to cure the world of much evil.”

The Duke would not agree that Jaques’s plan for reforming the world was a good one, and reminded Jaques that he himself was anything but free from faults. Jaques still held to his opinion, and was arguing the matter, when their discussion was interrupted by the startling appearance of a haggard youth with a drawn sword, who demanded food in the most peremptory fashion, and threatened to kill anyone who attempted to eat until his wants were supplied.

“I almost die for food; let me have it!” he cried fiercely.

“Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table,” said the Duke kindly.

When Orlando saw the gentleness of the Duke, and that there was no occasion for such violence on his part, he softened at once, asked their pardon, and explained that he had only put on this stern manner of command because he expected to find everything in the forest rude and savage. He implored them, if ever they had led a gentle, civilised life, and knew what pity was, that they would refrain from eating till he had fetched a poor old man, who was spent with age and hunger. Till he was first satisfied, Orlando said, he would not touch a bit.

The Duke bade Orlando go and fetch Adam, and when they returned he made them sit down and eat before he troubled them with any questions. To give them time to recover, he called for some music, and bade Amiens sing.

“Blow, blow, thou winter wind,Thou art not so unkindAs man’s ingratitude;Thy tooth is not so keen,Because thou art not seen,Although thy breath be rude.“Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,That dost not bite so nighAs benefits forgot;Though thou the waters warp,Thy sting is not so sharpAs friend remembered not.”

While the song was being sung, Orlando was able to tell the Duke, in a low voice, a little of his story, and hearing that he was the son of his dear friend, Sir Rowland de Boys, the Duke gave him a hearty welcome, and carried him off to his own cave to hear the rest of his adventures. Old Adam, too, was made right welcome; and so, for the present, he and his master contentedly stayed on with the outlaws.

The fool whom Jaques had met in the forest was Touchstone. Like Orlando and Adam, the other party of wanderers were very weary before they found a resting-place. Rosalind and Celia, attended by the Court jester, had come in search of Rosalind’s father, but so far they had found no trace of the banished Duke. Celia was tired and Touchstone was cross, but Rosalind did her best to encourage her companions.

“Well, this is the Forest of Arden,” she said cheerfully.

“Ay, now I am in Arden,” grumbled Touchstone. “The more fool I! When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.”

“Ay, be so, good Touchstone,” counselled Rosalind. “Look you, who comes here; a young man and an old in solemn talk.”

The newcomers were two shepherds called Corin and Silvius. The young man, Silvius, soon went away, and then Rosalind appealed to the old shepherd, asking if he could direct them to any place where they could rest themselves and get something to eat.

Corin replied that he would gladly have helped them if he could, but his fortune was very humble; he was only shepherd to another man, and did not own the flocks he looked after. His master was very churlish and inhospitable, and, besides, at this moment his cottage and flocks were on sale, so there was no food at home that he could offer them. However, if they liked to come and rest in the cottage, they were heartily welcome.

Rosalind asked who was going to buy the flock and pasture. Corin replied that it was the young swain who had just left him, and who cared nothing at all about the matter.

“I pray you, if you can do so honestly, buy the cottage, pasture, and flock,” said Rosalind, “and we will give you the money to pay for them.”