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A ghastly smile of fell malignity

On his distorted face death has arrested.

(Enter a Soldier in haste.)

O, I have heard a voice, a dismal voice.
What voice?

Sold.

Elea.

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Elea. Where! lead us to the place.

Hugh. Haste, lead the way.

Glot. I am sick, and strangely dizzy grows my head,

And pains shoot from my wound.

But from a devil's fang.

(Exeunt all but Glottenbal.)

It is a scratch,

Enter Franko, Hugho

SCENE 2.-The Forest near a cavern.

bert, Hartmann, Eleanora, Alice, and Urston.

Elea. (To Franko.) She is not well, thou sayest, and from

her swoon

Imperfectly recovered.

Frank. When I left her,

She so appeared.--But enter not, I pray,
Till I give notice. (A shriek heard.)

Omnes. What shriek is that

Al. "Tis Orra's voice.

Elea. No, no! It cannot be! It is some wretch, In maniac's fetters bound.

Hart. The horrid thoughts that burst into my mind! Forbid it, righteous heaven!

(Runs into the cave, but Theobold rushes out.)

Theo. Hold, hold! no entry here but o'er my corse.

Hart. Dost thou not know thy friends?

Theo. Ha! thou, my Hartmann! Art thou come to me?

Hart. Yes, I am come.

She is not dead!

Theo. O, no! it is not death!

Hart.

What meanest thou? Is she well?

Theo. Her body is.

Hart. And not her mind?-O, direst wreck of all!
That noble mind!-But 'tis some passing seizure,
Some powerful movement of a transient nature;
It is not madness!

Theo. (Bursting into tears.) 'Tis heaven's infliction,
Let us call it so; give it no other name.

Elea. Nay, do not thus despair: when she beholds us
She'll know her friends, and, by our kindly soothing,
Be gradually restored.

Al. Let me go to her.

Theo, Nay, I will lead her forth. (He leads out Orra, who appears with disordered dress and countenance.)

Or. (Shrinking.) Come back! The fierce and fiery light!
Theo. Shrink not, dear love! it is the light of day.
Or. Have cocks crowed yet?

Theo. Yes; twice I've heard already

Their matin sound. Look up to the blue sky;
Is it not daylight there? And these green boughs
Are fresh and fragrant round thee! every sense
Tells thee it is the cheerful, early day.

Or. Aye, so it is; day takes his daily turn,
Rising between the gulfy dells of night,
Like whitened billows on a gloomy sea.

They will not come again.-Hark!-Aye! Hark!
They are all there: I hear their hollow sound

Full many a fathom down.

Theo. Be still, poor troubled soul! they'll ne'er return; They are forever gone; and thy own friends

Thy living, loving friends, still by thy side,

To speak to thee and cheer thee. See, my Orra!
They are beside thee now; dost thou not know them?
Or. No, no! athwart the wav'ring garish light,
Things move and seem to be, and yet are nothing.
Elea. My gentle Orra! Hast thou then forgot me ?
Dost thou not know my voice?

Or. 'Tis like an old tune to my ear returned.
For there be those who sit in cheerful halls,

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And breathe sweet air, and speak with pleasant sounds;
And once I lived with such; some years gone by;

I wot not now how long.

Hugh. Keen words that rend

Thou had'st a home,

my heart.

And one whose faith was pledged for thy protection.
Elea. Ah, Orra! do not look upon us thus !
These are the voices of thy loving friends,
'That speak to thee; this is a friendly hand
That presses thine. (Takes Orra's hand.)

Or. Take it away! It was the swathed dead:
I know its clammy, chill, and bony touch.
Come not again; I'm strong and terrible now:
Mine eyes have looked upon all dreadful things;
And when the earth yawns, and the hell blast sounds,

I'll 'bide the trooping of unearthly steps,
With stiff-clenched, terrible strength.

Hugh. A murderer is a guiltless wretch to me.
Hart. Be patient; 't is a momentary pitch;
Let me encounter it. (Fixing his eyes on her.)
Or. Take off from me thy strangely fastened eye:
I may not look upon thee-yet I must.

Unfix thy baleful glance: art thou a snake?
Something of horrid power within thee dwells.
Still, still that powerful eye doth suck me in,
Like a dark eddy to its wheeling core.
Spare me! O, spare me! being of strange power,
And at thy feet my subject head I'll lay. (Kneeling.)
Elea. Alas, the piteous sight! to see her thus ;
The noble, gen'rous, playful, stately Orra!

Theo. (To Hartmann.) Out on thy hateful guile!
'Think'st thou I'll suffer o'er her wretched state,
The slightest shadow of a base control?

No, rise thou stately flower with rude blasts rent;
As honored art thou with thy broken stem,
And leaflets strewed, as in thy summer's pride.
I've seen thee worshiped like a regal dame,
With every studied form of marked devotion,
Whilst I, in distant silence, scarcely proffered
Ev'n a plain soldier's courtesy; but now,
No liege man to his crowned mistress sworn,
Bound and devoted is as I to thee;

And he who offers to thy altered state

The slightest seeming of diminished rev'rence,

Must in my blood-(to Hart.)-O, pardon me, my friend! Thou'st wrung my heart.

Hart. Nay, do thou pardon me: I am to blame.
Thy noble heart shall not again be wrung.

But what can now be done? O'er such wild ravings
There must be some control.

Theo. O, none none! none, but gentle sympathy,
And watchfulness of love. My noble Orra!
Wander where'er thou wilt; thy vagrant steps
Shall followed be by one who shall not weary,
Nor e'er detach him from his hopeless task:
Bound to thee now as fairest, gentlest beauty
Could ne'er have bound him.

Al. See how she gazes on him with a look

Subsiding gradually to softer sadness;
Half saying that she knows him.

Elea. There is a kindness in her changing eye.
Yes, Orra, 't is the valiant Theobold,

Thy knight and champion, whom thou gazest on.

Or. The brave are like the brave; so should it be :
He was a goodly man-a noble knight.

What is thy name, young soldier?-Woe is me!
For prayers of grace are said o'er dying men,
Yet they have laid thy clay in unblest earth-
Shame! shame! not with the stilled and holy dead.
Oh, masses shall be said for thy repose.

Elea. 'Tis not the dead, 't is Theobold himself,
Alive and well, who standeth by thy side.
Or. Where, where?

round me;

All dreadful things are near me,

Let him begone! The place is horrible!
The hounds now yell below i' the center gulf;
They may not rise again till solemn bells
Have given the stroke that severs night from morn.
Elea. O, rave not hus! Dost thou not know us,
Or. I'll know you better in your winding sheets,
When the moon shines upon ye!

Orra ?

Theo. Give o'er, my friends; you see it is in vain; Her mind within itself holds a dark world

Of dismal phantasies and horrid forms!

Contend with her no more.

(Enter Attendant, and whispers to Eleanora.) Hugh. What did'st thou whisper there?

How is my son? What look is that thou wear'st?
He is not dead! Thou dost not speak! O, God!
I have no son. I am bereft! But this!

But only him! Heaven's vengeance deals the stroke;
I had no other hope.

Could this could this alone atone my crime?

Urst. Perhaps his life had blasted more thy hopes

Than ev'n his grievous end.

Hugh. He was not all a father's heart could wish,

But oh, he was my son!-my only son :

My child-the thing that from his cradle grew,

And was before me still. Oh, oh!

Or. Ha, dost thou groan, old man? Art thou in trouble? Out on it! though they lay him in the mold,

He's near thee still. I'll tell thee how it is:
The living and the dead, together are

In horrid neighborship. "T is but thin vapor,
Floating around thee, makes the wav'ring bound.
See! from all points they come; earth casts them up!
In grave-clothes swathed are those but new in death;
And there be some half bone, half cased in shreds
Of that which flesh hath been; and there be some
With wickered ribs, through which the darkness scowls.
Back, back! They close upon us. Oh, the void
Of hollow, unballed sockets staring grimly,
And lipless jaws, that move and clatter round us,
In mockery of speech. Back, back, I say!
Back, back. (Catching Theobold with frantic terror.)

COMEDY.

DUKE.

AS YOU LIKE IT.-SHAKSPEARE.

Persons Represented.

FREDERICK, brother to the Duke, and
Usurper.

AMIENS, Lords attending upon the
JAQUES, Duke in his banishment.
LE BEAU, a Courtier attending upon
Frederick.

OLIVER, eldest son to Sir Rowland de
Boys.
JAQUES,
ORLANDO,

younger brothers to
Oliver.

SCENE-Lies, first, near Oliver's house;

ADAM, an old servant of Sir Rowland
de Boys.
TOUCHSTONE, a Clown.
CORIN, a Shepherd.

CHARLES, wrestler to the usurping
Duke Frederick.
DENNIS, servant to Oliver.
ROSALIND, daughter to the Duke.
CELIA, daughter to Frederick.
Lords belonging to the two Dukes;
with pages, foresters, attendants, &c.

and, afterwards, partly in the Duke's

court, and partly in the forest of Arden.

ACT 1.-SCENE 1.-Oliver's Orchard. Enter Orlando and

Adam.

Orlando. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me:-By will, but a poor thousand crowns; and, as thou say'st, charged my brother on his blessing, to breed me well and there begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he

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