Celia
I would sing my song without a burden: thou bringest me out of tune.
Rosalind
Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on.
Celia
You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here?
Enter Orlando and Jaques
Rosalind
’Tis he: slink by, and note him.
Jaques
I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.
Orlando
And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for your society.
Jaques
God be wi’ you: let’s meet as little as we can.
Orlando
I do desire we may be better strangers.
Jaques
I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks.
Orlando
I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.
Jaques
Rosalind is your love’s name?
Orlando
Yes, just.
Jaques
I do not like her name.
Orlando
There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.
Jaques
What stature is she of?
Orlando
Just as high as my heart.
Jaques
You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings?
Orlando
Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions.
Jaques
You have a nimble wit: I think ’twas made of Atalanta’s heels. Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world and all our misery.
Orlando
I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.
Jaques
The worst fault you have is to be in love.
Orlando
’Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.
Jaques
By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you.
Orlando
He is drowned in the brook: look but in, and you shall see him.
Jaques
There I shall see mine own figure.
Orlando
Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.
Jaques
I’ll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good Signior Love.
Orlando
I am glad of your departure: adieu, good Monsieur Melancholy.
Exit Jaques
Rosalind
[Aside to Celia] I will speak to him, like a saucy lackey and under that habit play the knave with him. Do you hear, forester?
Orlando
Very well: what would you?
Rosalind
I pray you, what is’t o’clock?
Orlando
You should ask me what time o’ day: there’s no clock in the forest.
Rosalind
Then there is no true lover in the forest; else sighing every minute and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a clock.
Orlando
And why not the swift foot of Time? had not that been as proper?
Rosalind
By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I’ll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal and who he stands still withal.
Orlando
I prithee, who doth he trot withal?
Rosalind
Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized: if the interim be but a se’nnight, Time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year.
Orlando
Who ambles Time withal?
Rosalind
With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout, for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain, the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury; these Time ambles withal.
Orlando
Who doth he gallop withal?
Rosalind
With a thief to the gallows, for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.
Orlando
Who stays it still withal?
Rosalind
With lawyers in the vacation, for they sleep between term and term and then they perceive not how Time moves.
Orlando
Where dwell you, pretty youth?
Rosalind
With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.
Orlando
Are you native of this place?
Rosalind
As the cony that you see dwell where she is kindled.
Orlando
Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.
Rosalind
I have been told so of many: but indeed an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it, and I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal.
Orlando
Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of women?
Rosalind
There were none principal; they were all like one another as half-pence are, every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it.
Orlando
I prithee, recount some of them.
Rosalind
No, I will not cast away my physic but on those that are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that abuses our young plants with carving ‘Rosalind’ on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles, all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind: if I could meet that fancy-monger I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.
Orlando
I am he that is so love-shaked: I pray you tell me your remedy.
Rosalind
There is none of my uncle’s marks upon you: he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner.
Orlando
What were his marks?
Rosalind
A lean cheek, which you have not, a blue eye and sunken, which you have not, an unquestionable spirit, which you have not, a beard neglected, which you have not; but I pardon you for that, for simply your having in beard is a younger brother’s revenue: then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation; but you are no such man; you are rather point-device in your accoutrements as loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other.
Orlando
Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.
Rosalind
Me believe it! you may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do than to confess she does: that is one of the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired?
Orlando
I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he.
Rosalind
But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?
Orlando
Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.
Rosalind
Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the
whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel.
Orlando
Did you ever cure any so?
Rosalind
Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me: at which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles, for every passion something and for no passion truly any thing, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour; would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness; which was, to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep’s heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in’t.
Orlando
I would not be cured, youth.
Rosalind
I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day to my cote and woo me.
Orlando
Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me where it is.
Rosalind
Go with me to it and I’ll show it you and by the way you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go?
Orlando
With all my heart, good youth.
Rosalind
Nay you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go?
Exeunt
SCENE III. THE FOREST.
Enter Touchstone and Audrey; Jaques behind
Touchstone
Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? doth my simple feature content you?
Audrey
Your features! Lord warrant us! what features!
Touchstone
I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.
Jaques
[Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched house!
Touchstone
When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a man’s good wit seconded with the forward child Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.
Audrey
I do not know what ‘poetical’ is: is it honest in deed and word? is it a true thing?
Touchstone
No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign.
Audrey
Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?
Touchstone
I do, truly; for thou swearest to me thou art honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign.
Audrey
Would you not have me honest?
Touchstone
No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.
Jaques
[Aside] A material fool!
Audrey
Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest.
Touchstone
Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish.
Audrey
I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
Touchstone
Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee, and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next village, who hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest and to couple us.
Jaques
[Aside] I would fain see this meeting.
Audrey
Well, the gods give us joy!
Touchstone
Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? C ourage! As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is said, ‘many a man knows no end of his goods:’ right; many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; ’tis none of his own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man therefore blessed? No: as a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to want. Here comes Sir Oliver.
Enter Sir Oliver Martext
Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met: will you dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel?
Sir Oliver Martext
Is there none here to give the woman?
Touchstone
I will not take her on gift of any man.
Sir Oliver Martext
Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.
Jaques
[Advancing] Proceed, proceed I’ll give her.
Touchstone
Good even, good Master What-ye-call’t: how do you, sir? You are very well met: God ’ild you for your last company: I am very glad to see you: even a toy in hand here, sir: nay, pray be covered.
Jaques
Will you be married, motley?
Touchstone
As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.
Jaques
And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is: this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel and, like green timber, warp, warp.
Touchstone
[Aside] I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of another: for he is not like to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife.
Jaques
Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.
Touchstone
‘Come, sweet Audrey:
We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.
Farewell, good Master Oliver: not,—
O sweet Oliver,
O brave Oliver,
Leave me not behind thee: but,—
Wind away,
Begone, I say,
I will not to wedding with thee.
Exeunt Jaques, Touchstone and Audrey
Sir Oliver Martext
’Tis no matter: ne’er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling.
Exit
SCENE IV. THE FOREST.
Enter Rosalind and Celia
Rosalind
Never talk to me; I will weep.
Celia
Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider that tears do not become a man.
Rosalind
But have I not cause to weep?
Celia
As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.
Rosalind
His very hair is of the dissembling colour.
Celia
Something browner than Judas’s marry, his kisses are Judas’s own children.
Rosalind
I’ faith, his hair is of a good colour.
Celia
An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour.
Rosalind
And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.
Celia
He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana: a nun of winter’s sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them.
Rosalind
But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not?
Celia
Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.
Rosalind
Do you think so?
Celia
Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer, but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet or a worm-eaten nut.
Rosalind
Not true in love?
Celia
Yes, when he is in; but I think he is not in.
Rosalind
You have heard him swear downright he was.
Celia
‘Was’ is not ‘is:’ besides, the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmer of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest on the duke your father.
Rosalind
I met the duke yesterday and had much question with him: he asked me of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as he; so he laughed and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando?
Celia
O, that’s a brave man! he writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; as a puisny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose: but all’s brave that youth mounts and folly guides. Who comes here?
Enter Corin
Corin
Mistress and master, you have oft inquired
After the shepherd that complain’d of love,
Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
That was his mistress.
Celia
Well, and what of him?
Corin
If you will see a pageant truly play’d,
Between the pale complexion of true love
And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,
Go hence a little and I shall conduct you,
If you will mark it.
Rosalind
O, come, let us remove:
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
I’ll prove a busy actor in their play.
Exeunt
SCENE V. ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST.
Enter Silvius and Phebe
Silvius
Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe;
Say that you love me not, but say not so
In bitterness. The common executioner,
Whose heart the accustom’d sight of death makes hard,
Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
But first begs pardon: will you sterner be
Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?
Enter Rosalind, Celia, and Corin, behind
Complete Plays, The Page 263