| Rosalind, dressed as Ganymede, meets with Jaques for the first time. He explains that he prefers to be melancholy because he has seen the world and his ruminations on what he has seen make him sad. Rosalind tells him that she prefers a fool to keep her merry than experience (from traveling) to make her sad. Orlando arrives and Rosalind says goodbye to Jaques. |
Forest of Arden
[Enter ROSALIND,
CELIA, and JAQUES.]
JAQUES I pr’ythee, 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
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 wi’ you, an you talk
in blank verse.
ROSALIND Farewell, monsieur traveller!
[Exit JAQUES]
Why, how now, Orlando!
where have you been all this while?
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 Ay, 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.
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, videlicet, 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 chroniclers 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 Ay, 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 Ay, 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…
Now tell me how long you would have her,
after you have possessed her.
ORLANDO For ever 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 are 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.
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 Ay, 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 Ay, 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 misus’d 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, it 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.
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