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The forest.
[Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES]
JAQUES
I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.
ROSALIND
They say you are a melancholy fellow.
JAQUES
I am so: I do love it better than laughing.
ROSALIND
Those that are in extremity of either, are abominable fellows, and betray
themselves to every modern censure, worse than drunkards.
JAQUES
Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.
ROSALIND
Why then 'tis good to be a post.
JAQUES
I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation: nor the
musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud: nor
the soldier's, which is ambitious: nor the lawyer's, which is politic: nor
the lady's, which is nice: nor the lover's, which is all these: but it is a
melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many
objects, and indeed the sundry's contemplation of my travels, in which my
often rumination, wraps me in a most humorous sadness.
ROSALIND
A traveller: by my faith you have great reason to be sad: I fear you have
sold your own lands, to see other men's; then, to have seen much, and to
have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.
JAQUES
Yes, I have gained my experience.
ROSALIND
And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me
merry, than experience to make me sad, and to travel for it too.
[Enter ORLANDO]
ORLANDO
Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind.
JAQUES
Nay then God be with you, and you talk in blank verse.
[Exit]
ROSALIND
Farewell Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp, and wear strange suits; disable
all the benefits of your own country: be out of love with your nativity, and
almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce
think you have swam in a gondola. Why how now Orlando, where have you been
all this while? You a lover? And you serve me such another trick, never come
in my sight more.
ORLANDO
My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.
ROSALIND
Break an hour's promise in love? He that will divide a minute into a
thousand parts, and break but a part of the thousandth part of a minute in
the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapped him of
the shoulder, but I'll warrant him heart-whole.
ORLANDO
Pardon me dear Rosalind.
ROSALIND
Nay, and you be so tardy, come no more in my sight, I had as lief be wooed
of a snail.
ORLANDO
Of a snail?
ROSALIND
Aye, of a snail: for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his
head; a better jointure I think than you make a woman: besides, he brings
his destiny with him.
ORLANDO
What's that?
ROSALIND
Why horns: which such as you are fain to be beholding to your wives for: but
he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents the slander of his wife.
ORLANDO
Virtue is no horn-maker: and my Rosalind is virtuous.
ROSALIND
And I am your Rosalind.
CELIA
It pleases him to call you so: but he hath a Rosalind of a better leer than
you.
ROSALIND
Come, woo me, woo me: for now I am in a holiday humor, and like enough to
consent: What would you say to me now, an I were your very, very Rosalind?
ORLANDO
I would kiss before I spoke.
ROSALIND
Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were gravelled, for lack of
matter, you might take occasion to kiss: Very good orators when they are
out, they will spit, and for lovers lacking (God warn us) matter, the
cleanliest shift is to kiss.
ORLANDO
How if the kiss be denied?
ROSALIND
Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.
ORLANDO
Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?
ROSALIND
Marry that should you if I were your mistress, or I should think my honesty
ranker than my wit.
ORLANDO
What of my suit?
ROSALIND
Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit:
Am not I your Rosalind?
ORLANDO
I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her.
ROSALIND
Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.
ORLANDO
Then in mine own person, I die.
ROSALIND
No faith, die by attorney: The poor world is almost six thousand years old,
and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person
(videlicit) in a love-cause: Troilus had his brains dashed out with a
Grecian club, yet he did what he could to die before, and he is one of the
patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year though Hero
had turned nun; if it had not been for a hot midsummer night, for (good
youth) he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and being taken with
the cramp, was drowned, and the foolish coroners of that age, found it was
Hero of Sestos. But these are all lies, men have died from time to time, and
worms have eaten them, but not for love.
ORLANDO
I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind, for I protest her frown
might kill me.
ROSALIND
By this hand, it will not kill a fly: but come, now I will be your Rosalind
in a more coming-on disposition: and ask me what you will, I will grant it.
ORLANDO
Then love me Rosalind.
ROSALIND
Yes faith will I, Fridays and Saturdays, and all.
ORLANDO
And wilt thou have me?
ROSALIND
Aye, and twenty such.
ORLANDO
What sayest thou?
ROSALIND
Are you not good?
ORLANDO
I hope so.
ROSALIND
Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing: Come sister, you shall be
the priest, and marry us: Give me your hand Orlando: What do you say sister?
ORLANDO
Pray thee marry us.
CELIA
I cannot say the words.
ROSALIND
You must begin, will you Orlando.
CELIA
Go to: Will you Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?
ORLANDO
I will.
ROSALIND
Aye, but when?
ORLANDO
Why now, as fast as she can marry us.
ROSALIND
Then you must say, I take thee Rosalind for wife.
ORLANDO
I take thee Rosalind for wife.
ROSALIND
I might ask you for your commission, but I do take thee Orlando for my
husband: there's a girl goes before the priest, and certainly a woman's
thought runs before her actions.
ORLANDO
So do all thoughts, they are winged.
ROSALIND
Now tell me how long you would have her, after you have possessed her?
ORLANDO
Forever, and a day.
ROSALIND
Say a day, without the ever: No, no Orlando, men are April when they woo,
December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky
changes when they are wives: I will be more jealous of thee, than a Barbary
cock-pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more
new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires, than a monkey: I will
weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you
are disposed to be merry: I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou art
inclined to sleep.
ORLANDO
But will my Rosalind do so?
ROSALIND
By my life, she will do as I do.
ORLANDO
O but she is wise.
ROSALIND
Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the wiser, the waywarder:
make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out at the casement: shut
that, and 'twill out at the key-hole: stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke
out at the chimney.
ORLANDO
A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say, wit whither wilt?
ROSALIND
Nay, you might keep that check for it, till you met your wife's wit going to
your neighbor's bed.
ORLANDO
And what wit could wit have, to excuse that?
ROSALIND
Marry to say, she came to seek you there: You shall never take her without
her answer, unless you take her without her tongue: O that woman that cannot
make her fault her husband's occasion, let her never nurse her child
herself, for she will breed it like a fool.
ORLANDO
For these two hours Rosalind, I will leave thee.
ROSALIND
Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.
ORLANDO
I must attend the duke at dinner, by two o'clock I will be with thee again.
ROSALIND
Aye, go your ways, go your ways: I knew what you would prove, my friends
told me as much, and I thought no less: that flattering tongue of yours won
me: 'tis but one cast away, and so come death: two o'clock is your hour.
ORLANDO
Aye, sweet Rosalind.
ROSALIND
By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and by all pretty
oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot of your promise, or come
one minute behind your hour, I will think you the most pathetical
break-promise, and the most hollow lover, and the most unworthy of her you
call Rosalind, that may be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful:
therefore beware my censure, and keep your promise.
ORLANDO
With no less religion, than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind: so adieu.
ROSALIND
Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time
try: adieu.
[Exit ORLANDO]
CELIA
You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate: we must have your
doublet and hose plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird
hath done to her own nest.
ROSALIND
O coz, coz, coz: my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom
deep I am in love: But it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown
bottom, like the bay of Portugal.
CELIA
Or rather bottomless, that as fast as you pour affection in, in runs out.
ROSALIND
No, that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of thought, conceived
of spleen, and born of madness, that blind rascally boy, that abuses every
one's eyes, because his own are out, let him be judge, how deep I am in
love: I'll tell thee Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando: I'll
go find a shadow, and sigh till he come.
CELIA
And I'll sleep.
[Exeunt]