Excerpt from Act II, Scene II. The outlaw's camp in Barnsdale.

Little John leads Sabina off, but Robin remains with Marian.

MAR. I neither need thy guard nor company.

ROB. Then, shall I leave you?

MAR. Pray you, do.

ROB. I see:

We are not far, if you conceive a need—

MAR. I’ll call—but I shall not. Now leave me be.

[Robin starts to leave, then turns and slowly

unsheathes his sword. He crosses to Marian

and sets the sword on the ground beside her.]

ROB. At least, fair lady, keep my sword by thee.

If wolves come, but thy pride forbids thee shout,

Just rap them soundly, here, upon the snout.

[As he turns to go, Marian snatches up

the sword and points it at him.]

MAR. You are a fool to leave me armed thus:

For I am not afear’d to wield a blade.

ROB. I doubt it not: Your eye hath certainty,

And ready courage waits upon your tongue,

Entwining golden thread in silver song.

Yet, there’s no point to fear my back at thee.

Alas, sweet lady, ’tis too late for me:

You need no sudden sword to cleave my heart;

’Tis pierc’d already by a cherub’s dart.

[He begins again to leave. Marian lowers the sword.]

MAR. Wait, sir! I—

ROB. Yes?

MAR. Why—

ROB. What?

MAR. Speak you of love?

Toward the king, and still you break his law?

ROB. I’ve seen an humble hunter down a beast,

To quell the querulous belly of his young,

Who’s then reproach’d as poacher for his deed

Because the woods belongeth to the king.

MAR. Do you dispute it, sir?

ROB. Faith, I do not:

I say, what need of Doubled ownership?

For Every forest in the realm’s the king’s,

And Every creature in the forest hath

Protection of King Richard’s rule of laws—

Or should: Alas, that weighty word, which yet

Is lightly borne and quick displaced by those

Of sieved conscience.[1]

MAR. Who, to you, are those?

ROB. Those, since his absence, who’d uphold his law,

But bend its graces more to guard his game

Than those poor subjects who yet praise his name.

Such men must poach, for they are poached upon.

’Tis not a way a man elects to thrive:

By holy Mary, he must choose to do

So not so much to prosper, as survive.

MAR. Belongeth justice to the law, as doth

Belongeth charity unto the church,

That men may compass[2] good by lawful means.

ROB. ’Twas law that dispossess’d these of their goods;

The church that stript them of their mortgaged lands!

Where lies their hope of lawful reclamation?

MAR. Employing thievery for charity—

Is most uncommon.

ROB. These uncommon times

Make bedfellows of theft and recompense.

There are within this camp an hundred men

Or so, their wives and kinfolk, children too,

Convergent here by many errant ways

And froward,[3] crooked paths—for, as they say,

There’s mickle[4] more than one way to the wood.[5]

Here is a port, remote and peregrine,[6]

That welcomes those who wash upon its shore,

Adrift of hard-ship, cast off carelessly

Upon a bilging[7] raft, bounden[8] of woes.

Yet, here’s a haven turns them not away.

MAR. It is no wonder but for thee they stay.

Back to synopsis

[1] i.e., those whose conscience is like a sieve, which lets certain things go by unchecked

[5] “There be more ways to the wood than one” is an old saying. Here, Robin means there are many ways to end up destitute.