No Fear Shakespeare

As You Like It

William Shakespeare

Get this No Fear to go!

Act 3, Scene 5, Page 4

Original Text

Modern Text


SILVIUS
Sweet Phoebe—
SILVIUS
Sweet Phoebe—

PHOEBE
Ha, what sayst thou, Silvius?
PHOEBE
What? Did you say something, Silvius?

SILVIUS
Sweet Phoebe, pity me.
SILVIUS
Sweet Phoebe, have pity on me.

95
PHOEBE
Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.
PHOEBE
Well, I’m sorry for you, gentle Silvius.




SILVIUS
Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.
If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
By giving love your sorrow and my grief
Were both extermined.
SILVIUS
But if you’re really sorry for me, you can cure me. If you’re sorry for the grief I feel in loving you, you can love me back. Then both my grief and your sorrow will be cured.

100
PHOEBE
Thou hast my love. Is not that neighborly?
PHOEBE
You have my friendship. Isn’t that enough?

SILVIUS
I would have you.
SILVIUS
I want you.




105



PHOEBE
Why, that were covetousness.
Silvius, the time was that I hated thee,
And yet it is not that I bear thee love,
But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,
I will endure, and I’ll employ thee too.
But do not look for further recompense
Than thine own gladness that thou art employed.
PHOEBE
Well, that’s just greedy. Silvius, I used to hate you. I still don’t love you, but since you’re well-spoken when it comes to love, I’ll keep you around and make use of you. But don’t expect any more than that.

110




115
SILVIUS
So holy and so perfect is my love,
And I in such a poverty of grace,
That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
To glean the broken ears after the man
That the main harvest reaps. Loose now and then
A scattered smile, and that I’ll live upon.
SILVIUS
My love for you is so pure and perfect, and I’m in such a bad way, that I’ll be grateful for whatever leftover love you throw my way. Every once in a while, toss me a distracted smile, and I’ll live on that.

PHOEBE
Know’st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?
PHOEBE
Do you know the boy who was just speaking to me?

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