As You Like It: Epilogue
* [Enter ROSALIND.]
ROSALIND
1 It is not the fashion to see the lady the
2 epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome
3 than to see the lord the prologue. If it be
4 true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true
5 that a good play needs no epilogue; yet to
6 good wine they do use good bushes, and good
7 plays prove the better by the help of good
8 epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am
9 neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate
10 with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not
11 furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not
12 become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin
13 with the women. I charge you, O women, for the
14 love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as
15 please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love you
16 bear to women—as I perceive by your simp'ring, none
17 of you hates them—that between you and the women
18 the play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss
19 as many of you as had beards that pleased me,
20 complexions that lik'd me and breaths that I defied
21 not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards or
22 good faces or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer,
23 when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.
Exit.
