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 ambles Time withal?
ROSALIND With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that
hath not the gout, for the one sleeps easily because
he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because
he feels no pain, the one lacking the burden of lean
and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden
of heavy tedious penury; these Time ambles withal.
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 Can you remember any of the principal evils that he
laid to the charge of women?
ROSALIND There were none principal; they were all like one
another as half-pence are, every one fault seeming
monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it.
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; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies
on brambles, all, forsooth, deifying the name of
Rosalind: 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; you
are rather point-device in your accoutrements as
loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other.
ORLANDO Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.
ROSALIND Me believe it! you may as soon make her that you
love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to
do than to confess she does: that is one of the
points in the which women still give the lie to
their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he
that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind
is so admired?
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, and, I tell you, deserves
as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and
the reason why they are not so punished and cured
is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers
are in love too. 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?
Exeunt
Scene 3
The forest.
Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES behind
TOUCHSTONE Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your
goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet?
doth my simple feature content you?
AUDREY Your features! Lord warrant us! what features!
TOUCHSTONE I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most
capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.
JAQUES [Aside]
O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove
in a thatched house!
TOUCHSTONE When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a
man’s good wit seconded with the forward child
Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a
great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would
the gods had made thee poetical.
AUDREY I do not know what ‘poetical’ is: is it honest in
deed and word? is it a true thing?
TOUCHSTONE No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most
feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what
they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign.
AUDREY Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?
TOUCHSTONE I do, truly; for thou swearest to me thou art
honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some
hope thou didst feign.
AUDREY Would you not have me honest?
TOUCHSTONE No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for
honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.
JAQUES [Aside]
A material fool!
AUDREY Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods
make me honest.
TOUCHSTONE Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut
were to put good meat into an unclean dish.
AUDREY I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
TOUCHSTONE Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness!
sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may
be, I will marry thee, and to that end I have been
with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next
village, who hath promised to meet me in this place
of the forest and to couple us.
JAQUES [Aside]
I would fain see this meeting.
AUDREY Well, the gods give us joy!
TOUCHSTONE Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart,
stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple
but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what
though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are
necessary. It is said, ‘many a man knows no end of
his goods:’ right; many a man has good horns, and
knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of