Enter Orlando and Adam, meeting. ORLANDO Who’s there? ADAM
What, my young master, O my gentle master,
O my sweet master, O you memory
Of old Sir Rowland! Why, what make you here?
Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you? 5
And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?
Why would you be so fond to overcome
The bonny prizer of the humorous duke?
Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.
Know you not, master, to some kind of men 10
Their graces serve them but as enemies?
No more do yours. Your virtues, gentle master,
Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.
O, what a world is this when what is comely
Envenoms him that bears it! 15 ORLANDO Why, what’s the matter? ADAM O unhappy youth,
Come not within these doors. Within this roof
The enemy of all your graces lives.
Your brother—no, no brother—yet the son— 20
Yet not the son, I will not call him son—
Of him I was about to call his father,
Hath heard your praises, and this night he means
To burn the lodging where you use to lie,
And you within it. If he fail of that, 25
He will have other means to cut you off.
I overheard him and his practices.
This is no place, this house is but a butchery.
Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it. ORLANDO
Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go? 30 ADAM
No matter whither, so you come not here. ORLANDO
What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food,
Or with a base and boist’rous sword enforce
A thievish living on the common road?
This I must do, or know not what to do; 35
Yet this I will not do, do how I can.
I rather will subject me to the malice
Of a diverted blood and bloody brother. | Orlando is on his way back to Oliver's house when he meets Adam, their old, family servant. Adam says Oliver has heard about Orlando's victory and is concerned about the effect that it's going to have on the ever-growing Orlando Fan Club. Oliver plans to burn down Orlando's house, which wouldn't be so bad if he didn't plan on Orlando being in it at the time. Orlando doesn't know where to go. Even if he ran away, he'd have to do something drastic—like become a highway robber—to support himself, which isn't appealing to him. |
ADAM
But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,
The thrifty hire I saved under your father, 40
Which I did store to be my foster nurse
When service should in my old limbs lie lame,
And unregarded age in corners thrown.
Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, 45
Be comfort to my age. Here is the gold.
All this I give you. Let me be your servant.
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty,
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, 50
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility.
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty but kindly. Let me go with you.
I’ll do the service of a younger man 55
In all your business and necessities. ORLANDO
O good old man, how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed.
Thou art not for the fashion of these times, 60
Where none will sweat but for promotion,
And having that do choke their service up
Even with the having. It is not so with thee.
But, poor old man, thou prun’st a rotten tree
That cannot so much as a blossom yield 65
In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry.
But come thy ways. We’ll go along together,
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent,
We’ll light upon some settled low content. ADAM
Master, go on, and I will follow thee 70
To the last gasp with truth and loyalty.
From seventeen years till now almost fourscore
Here livèd I, but now live here no more.
At seventeen years, many their fortunes seek,
But at fourscore, it is too late a week. 75
Yet fortune cannot recompense me better
Than to die well, and not my master’s debtor. They exit. | Adam, kind and elderly, has some money he's been stashing away for retirement (500 crowns) and he offers his life savings to Orlando, suggesting that they could live on it a while if they ran away together. Orlando tells us that Adam is an old-school servant, serving for duty and not money, which is a compliment. Orlando decides the two will leave together and settle for a simple life. Adam says he's lived at Sir Rowland's house from age seventeen to now, and he's almost 80. He'll be glad to leave and die well, without being indebted to any master. |