Page:As You Like It (1919) Yale.djvu/94

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Her love is not the hare that I do hunt:

Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,

This is a letter of your own device.

Sil. No, I protest, I know not the contents:

Phebe did write it.

Ros.Come, come, you are a fool,

And turn'd into the extremity of love.

I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand,

A freestone-colour'd hand; I verily did think

That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands:

She has a housewife's hand; but that's no matter:

I say she never did invent this letter;

This is a man's invention, and his hand.

Sil. Sure, it is hers.

Ros. Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style,

A style for challengers; why, she defies me,

Like Turk to Christian: woman's gentle brain

Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention,

Such Ethiop words, blacker in their effect

Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?

Sil. So please you, for I never heard it yet;

Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty.

Ros. She Phebes me. Mark how the tyrant writes. [Reads.]

'Art thou god to shepherd turn'd,

That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?'

Can a woman rail thus?

Sil. Call you this railing?

Ros. [reads.]

'Why, thy godhead laid apart,

Warr'st thou with a woman's heart?'

 25 hand: handwriting

26 freestone-colour'd: brick-colored

34 Turk to Christian; cf. n.

35 giant-rude: excessively rude

36 Ethiop: dark

45 laid apart: put away 