SIR WALTER
Fair death shall be my doom,
and foul life his.
Till when, we’ll live
as free in this green forest
As yonder deer, who roam unfearing
treason:
Who seem the Aborigines of
this place,
Or Sherwood theirs by tenure.
SIMON
’Tis said, that Robert
Earl of Huntingdon,
Men call’d him Robin
Hood, an outlaw bold,
With a merry crew of hunters
here did haunt,
Not sparing the king’s
venison. May one believe
The antique tale?
SIR WALTER
There is much likelihood,
Such bandits did in England
erst abound,
When polity was young.
I have read of the pranks
Of that mad archer, and of
the tax he levied
On travellers, whatever their
degree,
Baron, or knight, whoever
pass’d these woods,
Layman, or priest, not sparing
the bishop’s mitre
For spiritual regards; nay,
once, ’tis said,
He robb’d the king himself.
SIMON
A perilous man. (Smiling.)
SIR WALTER
How quietly we live here,
Unread in the world’s
business,
And take no note of all its
slippery changes.
’Twere best we make
a world among ourselves,
A little world,
Without the ills and falsehoods
of the greater:
We two being all the inhabitants
of ours,
And kings and subjects both
in one.
SIMON
Only the dangerous errors,
fond conceits,
Which make the business of
that greater world,
Must have no place in ours:
As, namely, riches, honors,
birth, place, courtesy,
Good fame and bad, rumours
and popular noises,
Books, creeds, opinions, prejudices
national,
Humours particular,
Soul-killing lies, and truths
that work small good,
Feuds, factions, enmities,
relationships,
Loves, hatreds, sympathies,
antipathies,
And all the intricate stuff
quarrels are made of.
(Margaret enters in boy’s apparel.)
SIR WALTER
What pretty boy have we here?
MARGARET Bon jour, messieurs. Ye have handsome English faces, I should have ta’en you else for other two, I came to seek in the forest.
SIR WALTER
Who are they?
MARGARET
A gallant brace of Frenchmen,
curled monsieurs,
That, men say, haunt these
woods, affecting privacy,
More than the manner of their
countrymen.
SIMON
We have here a wonder.
The face is Margaret’s
face.
SIR WALTER
The face is Margaret’s,
but the dress the same
My Stephen sometimes wore.
(To Margaret)
Suppose us them; whom do men
say we are?
Or know you what you seek?