The forest.
CORIN Here comes young Master Ganymede,
my new mistress’s brother.
[Enter ROSALIND,
with a paper, reading]
ROSALIND From the east to western Ind,
No jewel is like Rosalind.
Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
Through all the world bears Rosalind.
All the pictures fairest lined
Are but black to Rosalind.
Let no fair be kept in mind
But the fair of Rosalind.
TOUCHSTONE I’ll rhyme you so eight years together,
dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted.
ROSALIND Out, fool!
TOUCHSTONE For a taste:
If a hart do lack a hind,
Let him seek out Rosalind.
If the cat will after kind,
So be sure will Rosalind.
Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
Such a nut is Rosalind.
He that sweetest rose will find
Must find love’s prick and Rosalind.
This is the very false gallop of verses:
why do you infect yourself with them?
ROSALIND Peace, you dull fool!
I found them on a tree.
TOUCHSTONE Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.
[Enter CELIA, with a writing]
ROSALIND Peace! Here comes my sister, reading:
stand aside.
CELIA [Reads]
Helen’s cheek, but not her heart,
Cleopatra’s majesty,
Atalanta’s better part,
Sad Lucretia’s modesty.
Thus Rosalind of many parts
By heavenly synod was devised,
Of many faces, eyes and hearts,
To have the touches dearest prized.
Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
And I to live and die her slave.
ROSALIND O most gentle pulpiter!
what tedious homily of love have you wearied your
parishioners withal, and never cried ‘Have patience,
good people!’
CELIA How now! back, friends!
Shepherd, go off a little.
Go with him, sirrah.
TOUCHSTONE Come, shepherd,
let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag
and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.
[Exeunt CORIN
and TOUCHSTONE]
CELIA Didst thou hear these verses?
without wondering how thy name should be
hanged and carved upon these trees?
ROSALIND I was seven of the nine days out of
the wonder before you came; for look here what
I found on a palm-tree.
CELIA Trow you who hath done this?
ROSALIND Is it a man?
CELIA And a chain,
that you once wore, about his neck.
Change you colour?
ROSALIND I prithee, who?
CELIA O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for friends
to meet; but mountains may be removed with
earthquakes and so encounter.
ROSALIND Nay, but who is it?
CELIA Is it possible?
ROSALIND Nay, I prithee now with most petitionary
vehemence, tell me who it is.
CELIA O wonderful, wonderful, and most
wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful,
and after that, out of all hooping!
ROSALIND Good my complexion! dost thou think,
though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet
and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is
a South-sea of discovery; I prithee, tell me who is it
quickly, and speak apace.
CELIA It is young Orlando, that tripped up the
wrestler’s heels and your heart both in an instant.
ROSALIND Nay, but the devil take mocking: speak,
sad brow and true maid.
CELIA I’ faith, coz, ’tis he.
ROSALIND Orlando?
CELIA Orlando.
ROSALIND Alas the day! what shall I do with my
doublet and hose? What did he when thou sawest him?
What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he?
What makes him here? Did he ask for me?
Where remains he? How parted he with thee?
and when shalt thou see him again?
Answer me in one word.
CELIA You must borrow me Gargantua’s mouth first:
’tis a word too great for any mouth of this age’s size.
ROSALIND But doth he know that I am in this forest
and in man’s apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the
day he wrestled?
CELIA It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the
propositions of a lover; I found him under a tree,
like a dropped acorn.
ROSALIND It may well be called Jove’s tree,
when it drops forth such fruit.
CELIA Give me audience, good madam.
ROSALIND Proceed.
CELIA There lay he, stretched along,
like a wounded knight.
ROSALIND Though it be pity to see such a sight,
it well becomes the ground.
CELIA Cry ‘holla’ to thy tongue, I prithee;
it curvets unseasonably. He was furnished like a hunter.
ROSALIND O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart.
CELIA I would sing my song without a burden:
thou bringest me out of tune.
ROSALIND Do you not know I am a woman?
when I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on.
CELIA You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here?
[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 be wi’ 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 christened.
JAQUES What stature is she of?
ORLANDO Just as high as my heart.
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 drowned 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
solemnized: if the interim be but a se’nnight,
Time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of
seven year.
ORLANDO Who doth he gallop withal?
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 cony 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 touched with so many
giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their
whole sex withal.
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; 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-shaked:
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 ungartered, your
bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe
untied and every thing about you demonstrating a
careless desolation; but you are no such man.
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,
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 any thing,
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 cured 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?
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