William Shakespeare: As You Like It

ACT I.
1. SCENE I. An Orchard near OLIVER'S house.

[Enter ORLANDO and ADAM.]

ORLANDO.
As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion,--bequeathed me by
will but poor a 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 keeps at school, and report speaks
goldenly of his profit: for my part, he keeps me rustically at
home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept:
for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth that
differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses are bred
better; for, besides that they are fair with their feeding, they
are taught their manage, and to that end riders dearly
hired; but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth;
for the which his animals on his dunghills are as much bound to
him as I. Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me,
the something that nature gave me, his countenance seems to take
from me: he lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a
brother, and as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with
my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and the spirit
of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny
against this servitude; I will no longer endure it, though yet I
know no wise remedy how to avoid it.

ADAM.
Yonder comes my master, your brother.

ORLANDO.
Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up.

[ADAM retires]

[Enter OLIVER.]

OLIVER.
Now, sir! what make you here?

ORLANDO.
Nothing: I am not taught to make anything.

OLIVER.
What mar you then, sir?

ORLANDO.
Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a
poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.

OLIVER.
Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile.

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