Enter ROSALIND and CELIA and JAQUES.
JAQUES
1 I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted 2 with thee. ROSALIND
3 They say you are a melancholy fellow. JAQUES
4 I am so; I do love it better than laughing. ROSALIND
5 Those that are in extremity of either are abominable 6 fellows and betray themselves to every modern 7 censure worse than drunkards. JAQUES
8 Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing. ROSALIND
9 Why then, 'tis good to be a post. JAQUES
10 I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is 11 emulation, nor the musician's, which is fantastical, 12 nor the courtier's, which is proud, nor the 13 soldier's, which is ambitious, nor the lawyer's, 14 which is politic, nor the lady's, which is nice, nor 15 the lover's, which is all these: but it is a 16 melancholy of mine own, compounded of many 17 simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed 18 the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which 19 my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous 20 sadness. ROSALIND
21 A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason 22 to be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands 23 to see other men's; then, to have seen much and 24 to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor 25 hands. JAQUES
26 Yes, I have gained my experience. ROSALIND
27 And your experience makes you sad: I had 28 rather have a fool to make me merry than 29 experience to make me sad; and to travel for it too! Enter ORLANDO.
ORLANDO
30 Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!
JAQUES
31 Nay, then, God buy you, and you talk in blank
32 verse.
ROSALIND
33 Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and
34 wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your
35 own country, be out of love with your nativity and
36 almost chide God for making you that countenance
37 you are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a
38 gundella.
[Exit Jaques.]
39 Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been
40 all this while? You a lover! And you serve me such
41 another trick, never come in my sight more.
ORLANDO
42 My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my
43 promise.
ROSALIND
44 Break an hour's promise in love! He that will
45 divide a minute into a thousand parts and break
46 but a part of the thousandth part of a minute in
47 the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid
48 hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant
49 him heart-whole.
ORLANDO
50 Pardon me, dear Rosalind.
ROSALIND
51 Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight.
52 I had as lief be wooed of a snail.
ORLANDO
53 Of a snail?
ROSALIND
54 Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he
55 carries his house on his head; a better jointure,
56 I think, than you make a woman. Besides he
57 brings his destiny with him.
ORLANDO
58 What's that?
ROSALIND
59 Why, horns, which such as you are fain to
60 be beholding to your wives for: but he comes
61 arm'd in his fortune and prevents the slander
62 of his wife.
ORLANDO
63 Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is
64 virtuous.
ROSALIND
65 And I am your Rosalind.
CELIA
66 It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a
67 Rosalind of a better leer than you.
ROSALIND
68 Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a
69 holiday humour and like enough to consent.
70 What would you say to me now, an I were
71 your very very Rosalind?
ORLANDO
72 I would kiss before I spoke.
ROSALIND
73 Nay, you were better speak first, and when you
74 were gravelled for lack of matter, you might take
75 occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are
76 out, they will spit; and for lovers lacking—God
77 warn us!—matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.
ORLANDO
78 How if the kiss be denied?
ROSALIND
79 Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins
80 new matter.
ORLANDO
81 Who could be out, being before his beloved
82 mistress?
ROSALIND
83 Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress,
84 or I should think my honesty ranker than my
85 wit.
ORLANDO
86 What, of my suit?
ROSALIND
87 Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your
88 suit. Am not I your Rosalind?
ORLANDO
89 I take some joy to say you are, because I
90 would be talking of her.
ROSALIND
91 Well, in her person, I say I will not have
92 you.
ORLANDO
93 Then in mine own person I die.
ROSALIND
94 No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is
95 almost six thousand years old, and in all this
96 time there was not any man died in his own
97 person, videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had
98 his brains dashed out with a Grecian club; yet
99 he did what he could to die before, and he is one
100 of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have
101 lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned
102 nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night;
103 for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in
104 the Hellespont and being taken with the cramp was
105 drowned and the foolish chroniclers of that age found
106 it was 'Hero of Sestos.' But these are all lies: men have
107 died from time to time and worms have eaten them,
108 but not for love.
ORLANDO
109 I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind,
110 for, I protest, her frown might kill me.
ROSALIND
111 By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come,
112 now I will be your Rosalind in a more
113 coming-on disposition, and ask me what you
114 will. I will grant it.
ORLANDO
115 Then love me, Rosalind.
ROSALIND
116 Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and
117 all.
ORLANDO
118 And wilt thou have me?
ROSALIND
119 Ay, and twenty such.
ORLANDO
120 What sayest thou?
ROSALIND
121 Are you not good?
ORLANDO
122 I hope so.
ROSALIND
123 Why then, can one desire too much of a good
124 thing? Come, sister, you shall be the priest and
125 marry us. Give me your hand, Orlando. What
126 do you say, sister?
ORLANDO
127 Pray thee, marry us.
CELIA
128 I cannot say the words.
ROSALIND
129 You must begin, 'Will you, Orlando—'
CELIA
130 Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this
131 Rosalind?
ORLANDO
132 I will.
ROSALIND
133 Ay, but when?
ORLANDO
134 Why now; as fast as she can marry us.
ROSALIND
135 Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind,
136 for wife.'
ORLANDO
137 I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.
ROSALIND
138 I might ask you for your commission; but I do
139 take thee, Orlando, for my husband: there's a
140 girl goes before the priest; and certainly a
141 woman's thought runs before her actions.
ORLANDO
142 So do all thoughts; they are winged.
ROSALIND
143 Now tell me how long you would have her
144 after you have possessed her.
ORLANDO
145 For ever and a day.
ROSALIND
146 Say 'a day,' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando; men
147 are April when they woo, December when they wed:
148 maids are May when they are maids, but the sky
149 changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous
150 of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen,
151 more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more
152 new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires
153 than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana
154 in the fountain, and I will do that when you are
155 disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and
156 that when thou art inclined to sleep.
ORLANDO
157 But will my Rosalind do so?
ROSALIND
158 By my life, she will do as I do.
ORLANDO
159 O, but she is wise.
ROSALIND
160 Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the
161 wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a
162 woman's wit and it will out at the casement; shut
163 that and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill
164 fly with the smoke out at the chimney.
ORLANDO
165 A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might
166 say 'Wit, whither wilt?'
ROSALIND
167 Nay, you might keep that cheque for it till you
168 met your wife's wit going to your neighbour's
169 bed.
ORLANDO
170 And what wit could wit have to excuse that?
ROSALIND
171 Marry, to say she came to seek you there.
172 You shall never take her without her answer,
173 unless you take her without her tongue. O,
174 that woman that cannot make her fault her
175 husband's occasion, let her never nurse her
176 child herself, for she will breed it like a fool!
ORLANDO
177 For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave
178 thee.
ROSALIND
179 Alas! dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.
ORLANDO
180 I must attend the duke at dinner: by two o'clock
181 I will be with thee again.
ROSALIND
182 Ay, go your ways, go your ways; I knew what you
183 would prove: my friends told me as much, and I
184 thought no less: that flattering tongue of yours
185 won me: 'tis but one cast away, and so, come,
186 death! Two o'clock is your hour?
ORLANDO
187 Ay, sweet Rosalind.
ROSALIND
188 By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend
189 me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous,
190 if you break one jot of your promise or come one
191 minute behind your hour, I will think you the most
192 pathetical break-promise and the most hollow lover
193 and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind that
194 may be chosen out of the gross band of the
195 unfaithful: therefore beware my censure and keep
196 your promise.
ORLANDO
197 With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my
198 Rosalind: so adieu.
ROSALIND
199 Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such
200 offenders, and let Time try: adieu.
Exit [ORLANDO].
CELIA
201 You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate:
202 we must have your doublet and hose plucked over
203 your head, and show the world what the bird hath
204 done to her own nest.
ROSALIND
205 O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou
206 didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But
207 it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown
208 bottom, like the bay of Portugal.
CELIA
209 Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour
210 affection in, it runs out.
ROSALIND
211 No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot
212 of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness,
213 that blind rascally boy that abuses every one's eyes
214 because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I
215 am in love. I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out
216 of the sight of Orlando: I'll go find a shadow and
217 sigh till he come.
CELIA
218 And I'll sleep.
Exeunt.