William Shakespeare : Complete Collection. William Shakespeare
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Ros. 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 burthen of lean and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burthen of heavy tedious penury. These Time ambles withal.
Orl. Who doth he gallop withal?
Ros. With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.
Orl. Who stays it still withal?
Ros. With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves.
Orl. Where dwell you, pretty youth?
Ros. With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.
Orl. Are you native of this place?
Ros. As the cony that you see dwell where she is kindled.
Orl. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so remov’d a dwelling.
Ros. 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 touch’d with so many giddy offenses as he hath generally tax’d their whole sex withal.
Orl. Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of women?
Ros. There were none principal, they were all like one another as halfpence are, every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow-fault came to match it.
Orl. I prithee recount some of them.
Ros. 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.
Orl. I am he that is so love-shak’d, I pray you tell me your remedy.
Ros. 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.
Orl. What were his marks?
Ros. 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 ungarter’d, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbutton’d, 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 accoustrements, as loving yourself, than seeming the lover of any other.
Orl. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.
Ros. 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 admir’d?
Orl. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he.
Ros. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?
Orl. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.
Ros. 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 punish’d and cur’d is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel.
Orl. Did you ever cure any so?
Ros. 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 color; 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 humor of love to a living humor of madness, which was, to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cur’d 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.
Orl. I would not be cur’d, youth.
Ros. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cote and woo me.
Orl. Now, by the faith of my love, I will. Tell me where it is.
Ros. 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?
Orl. With all my heart, good youth.
Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go?
Exeunt.
¶
Scene III
Enter Clown [Touchstone], Audrey; and Jaques [behind].
Touch. 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?
Aud. Your features, Lord warrant us! what features?
Touch. I am here with thee and thy goats as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.
Jaq. [Aside.] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatch’d house!
Touch. 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.
Aud. I do not know what ‘poetical’ is. Is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true thing?
Touch. 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.
Aud. Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?
Touch. I do, truly; for thou swear’st to me thou art honest. Now if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign.
Aud. Would you not have me honest?
Touch. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favor’d; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.
Jaq. [Aside.] A material fool!
Aud. Well, I am not fair, and therefore I pray the gods make me honest.
Touch. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish.
Aud. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
Touch. Well, prais’d 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 promis’d to meet me in this place of the forest and to couple us.
Jaq. [Aside.] I would