As You Like It - Act 2 Scene 2

As You Like It

The full text of Shakespeare's As You Like It : Act 2 Scene 2

A Room in the Palace.

Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, and Attendants.

Duke F. Can it be possible that no man saw them?

It cannot be: some villains of my court

Are of consent and sufferance in this.

First Lord. I cannot hear of any that did see her.

The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,

Saw her a-bed; and, in the morning early

They found the bed untreasur'd of their mistress.

Sec. Lord. My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft

Your Grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.

Hisperia, the princess' gentlewoman,

Confesses that she secretly o'erheard

Your daughter and her cousin much commend

The parts and graces of the wrestler

That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles;

And she believes, wherever they are gone,

That youth is surely in their company.

Duke F. Send to his brother; fetch that gallant hither;

If he be absent, bring his brother to me;

I'll make him find him. Do this suddenly,

And let not search and inquisition quail

To bring again these foolish runaways. [Exeunt.