But the fair of Rosalind.
TOUCHSTONE I’ll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and
suppers and sleeping-hours excepted: it is the
right butter-women’s rank to market.
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.
Winter garments must be lined,
So must slender Rosalind.
They that reap must sheaf and bind;
Then to cart with 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.
ROSALIND I’ll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it
with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit
i’ the country; for you’ll be rotten ere you be half
ripe, and that’s the right virtue of the medlar.
TOUCHSTONE You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the
forest judge.
Enter CELIA, with a writing
ROSALIND Peace! Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside.
CELIA [Reads]
Why should this a desert be?
For it is unpeopled? No:
Tongues I’ll hang on every tree,
That shall civil sayings show:
Some, how brief the life of man
Runs his erring pilgrimage,
That the stretching of a span
Buckles in his sum of age;
Some, of violated vows
‘Twixt the souls of friend and friend:
But upon the fairest boughs,
Or at every sentence end,
Will I Rosalinda write,
Teaching all that read to know
The quintessence of every sprite
Heaven would in little show.
Therefore Heaven Nature charged
That one body should be fill’d
With all graces wide-enlarged:
Nature presently distill’d
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?
ROSALIND O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of
them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.
CELIA That’s no matter: the feet might bear the verses.
ROSALIND Ay, but the feet were lame and could not bear
themselves without the verse and therefore stood
lamely in the verse.
CELIA But didst thou hear 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. I was never so be-rhymed since
Pythagoras’ time, that I was an Irish rat, which I
can hardly remember.
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. I would thou couldst
stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man
out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-
mouthed bottle, either too much at once, or none at
all. I prithee, take the cork out of thy mouth that
may drink thy tidings.
CELIA So you may put a man in your belly.
ROSALIND Is he of God’s making? What manner of man? Is his
head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard?
CELIA Nay, he hath but a little beard.
ROSALIND Why, God will send more, if the man will be
thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if
thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin.
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. To
say ay and no to these particulars is more than to
answer in a catechism.
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; but take a taste of my
finding him, and relish it with good observance.
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 are full of pretty answers. Have you not been
acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them
out of rings?
ORLANDO Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from
whence you have studied your questions.
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