William Shakespeare: As You Like It

ACT III. 5. SCENE V. Another part of the forest. (continued)

[Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN.]

PHEBE.
Dead shepherd! now I find thy saw of might;
'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'

SILVIUS.
Sweet Phebe,--

PHEBE.
Ha! what say'st thou, Silvius?

SILVIUS.
Sweet Phebe, pity me.

PHEBE.
Why, I am sorry for thee, 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 extermin'd.

PHEBE.
Thou hast my love: is not that neighbourly?

SILVIUS.
I would have you.

PHEBE.
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 employ'd.

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: lose now and then
A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon.

PHEBE.
Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?

SILVIUS.
Not very well; but I have met him oft;
And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds
That the old carlot once was master of.