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 buy 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
christen'd.
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 conn'd 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 drown'd 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 solemniz'd; 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
wastefullearning, the other
knowing no burden of heavy
tedious penury. These Time ambles
withal.
ORLANDO. Who doth he
gallopwithal?
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 coney 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 touch'd with so many giddy offences as he
hath generally tax'd 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 halfpence are; every one fault
seemingmonstrous 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-shak'd; 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 ungarter'd, your
bonnet unbanded, your
sleeve unbutton'd, your shoe untied, and every thing about you
demonstrating a
carelessdesolation. 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 punish'd 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 anything, 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 cur'd 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
thatch'd 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 swear'st 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-favour'd; for
honestycoupled 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 promis'd 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? Courage! 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