As You Like It

1 Enter Orlando with a paper.
2 ORLANDO.
3 Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love.
4 And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey
5 With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
6 Thy huntress’ name that my full life doth sway.
7 O Rosalind, these trees shall be my books,
8 And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character,
9 That every eye which in this forest looks
10 Shall see thy virtue witnessed everywhere.
11 Run, run, Orlando, carve on every tree
12 The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.
13 [_Exit._]
14 Enter Corin and Touchstone.
15 CORIN.
16 And how like you this shepherd’s life, Master Touchstone?
17 TOUCHSTONE.
18 Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life; but in
19 respect that it is a shepherd’s life, it is naught. In respect that it
20 is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it
21 is a very vile life. Now in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me
22 well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a
23 spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more
24 plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in
25 thee, shepherd?
26 CORIN.
27 No more but that I know the more one sickens, the worse at ease he is;
28 and that he that wants money, means, and content is without three good
29 friends; that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that
30 good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a great cause of the night is
31 lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may
32 complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.
33 TOUCHSTONE.
34 Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd?
35 CORIN.
36 No, truly.
37 TOUCHSTONE.
38 Then thou art damned.
39 CORIN.
40 Nay, I hope.
41 TOUCHSTONE.
42 Truly, thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.
43 CORIN.
44 For not being at court? Your reason.
45 TOUCHSTONE.
46 Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never saw’st good manners; if
47 thou never saw’st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked, and
48 wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state,
49 shepherd.
50 CORIN.
51 Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the court are as
52 ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the country is most
53 mockable at the court. You told me you salute not at the court but you
54 kiss your hands. That courtesy would be uncleanly if courtiers were
55 shepherds.
56 TOUCHSTONE.
57 Instance, briefly. Come, instance.
58 CORIN.
59 Why, we are still handling our ewes, and their fells, you know, are
60 greasy.
61 TOUCHSTONE.
62 Why, do not your courtier’s hands sweat? And is not the grease of a
63 mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow. A better
64 instance, I say. Come.
65 CORIN.
66 Besides, our hands are hard.
67 TOUCHSTONE.
68 Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again. A more sounder
69 instance, come.
70 CORIN.
71 And they are often tarred over with the surgery of our sheep; and would
72 you have us kiss tar? The courtier’s hands are perfumed with civet.
73 TOUCHSTONE.
74 Most shallow man! Thou worm’s meat in respect of a good piece of flesh
75 indeed! Learn of the wise and perpend. Civet is of a baser birth than
76 tar, the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd.
77 CORIN.
78 You have too courtly a wit for me. I’ll rest.
79 TOUCHSTONE.
80 Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man! God make incision in
81 thee, thou art raw.
82 CORIN.
83 Sir, I am a true labourer. I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no
84 man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good, content
85 with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and
86 my lambs suck.
87 TOUCHSTONE.
88 That is another simple sin in you, to bring the ewes and the rams
89 together and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle;
90 to be bawd to a bell-wether and to betray a she-lamb of a twelvemonth
91 to crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If
92 thou be’st not damned for this, the devil himself will have no
93 shepherds. I cannot see else how thou shouldst ’scape.
94 Enter Rosalind as Ganymede.
95 CORIN.
96 Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress’s brother.
97 ROSALIND.
98 [_Reads_.]
99 _From the east to western Inde
100 No jewel is like Rosalind.
101 Her worth being mounted on the wind,
102 Through all the world bears Rosalind.
103 All the pictures fairest lined
104 Are but black to Rosalind.
105 Let no face be kept in mind
106 But the fair of Rosalind._
107 TOUCHSTONE.
108 I’ll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and suppers and
109 sleeping hours excepted. It is the right butter-women’s rank to market.
110 ROSALIND.
111 Out, fool!
112 TOUCHSTONE.
113 For a taste:
114 If a hart do lack a hind,
115 Let him seek out Rosalind.
116 If the cat will after kind,
117 So be sure will Rosalind.
118 Winter garments must be lined,
119 So must slender Rosalind.
120 They that reap must sheaf and bind,
121 Then to cart with Rosalind.
122 Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
123 Such a nut is Rosalind.
124 He that sweetest rose will find
125 Must find love’s prick, and Rosalind.
126 This is the very false gallop of verses. Why do you infect yourself
127 with them?
128 ROSALIND.
129 Peace, you dull fool, I found them on a tree.
130 TOUCHSTONE.
131 Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.
132 ROSALIND.
133 I’ll graft it with you, and then I shall graft it with a medlar. Then
134 it will be the earliest fruit i’ th’ country, for you’ll be rotten ere
135 you be half ripe, and that’s the right virtue of the medlar.
136 TOUCHSTONE.
137 You have said, but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge.
138 Enter Celia as Aliena, reading a paper.
139 ROSALIND.
140 Peace, here comes my sister, reading. Stand aside.
141 CELIA.
142 [_Reads_.]
143 _Why should this a desert be?
144 For it is unpeopled? No!
145 Tongues I’ll hang on every tree
146 That shall civil sayings show.
147 Some, how brief the life of man
148 Runs his erring pilgrimage,
149 That the streching of a span
150 Buckles in his sum of age;
151 Some, of violated vows
152 ’Twixt the souls of friend and friend.
153 But upon the fairest boughs,
154 Or at every sentence’ end,
155 Will I “Rosalinda” write,
156 Teaching all that read to know
157 The quintessence of every sprite
158 Heaven would in little show.
159 Therefore heaven nature charged
160 That one body should be filled
161 With all graces wide-enlarged.
162 Nature presently distilled
163 Helen’s cheek, but not her heart,
164 Cleopatra’s majesty;
165 Atalanta’s better part,
166 Sad Lucretia’s modesty.
167 Thus Rosalind of many parts
168 By heavenly synod was devised,
169 Of many faces, eyes, and hearts
170 To have the touches dearest prized.
171 Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
172 And I to live and die her slave._
173 ROSALIND.
174 O most gentle Jupiter, what tedious homily of love have you wearied
175 your parishioners withal, and never cried “Have patience, good people!”
176 CELIA.
177 How now! Back, friends. Shepherd, go off a little. Go with him, sirrah.
178 TOUCHSTONE.
179 Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat, though not with bag
180 and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.
181 [_Exeunt Corin and Touchstone._]
182 CELIA.
183 Didst thou hear these verses?
184 ROSALIND.
185 O yes, I heard them all, and more too, for some of them had in them
186 more feet than the verses would bear.
187 CELIA.
188 That’s no matter. The feet might bear the verses.
189 ROSALIND.
190 Ay, but the feet were lame and could not bear themselves without the
191 verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.
192 CELIA.
193 But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be hanged and
194 carved upon these trees?
195 ROSALIND.
196 I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder before you came; for
197 look here what I found on a palm-tree. I was never so berhymed since
198 Pythagoras’ time that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember.
199 CELIA.
200 Trow you who hath done this?
201 ROSALIND.
202 Is it a man?
203 CELIA.
204 And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck. Change you colour?
205 ROSALIND.
206 I prithee, who?
207 CELIA.
208 O Lord, Lord, it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains
209 may be removed with earthquakes and so encounter.
210 ROSALIND.
211 Nay, but who is it?
212 CELIA.
213 Is it possible?
214 ROSALIND.
215 Nay, I prithee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is.
216 CELIA.
217 O wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful wonderful, and yet again
218 wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!
219 ROSALIND.
220 Good my complexion! Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a
221 man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay
222 more is a South Sea of discovery. I prithee tell me who is it quickly,
223 and speak apace. I would thou couldst stammer, that thou mightst pour
224 this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of
225 narrow-mouthed bottle—either too much at once or none at all. I prithee
226 take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.
227 CELIA.
228 So you may put a man in your belly.
229 ROSALIND.
230 Is he of God’s making? What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat, or
231 his chin worth a beard?
232 CELIA.
233 Nay, he hath but a little beard.
234 ROSALIND.
235 Why, God will send more if the man will be thankful. Let me stay the
236 growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin.
237 CELIA.
238 It is young Orlando, that tripped up the wrestler’s heels and your
239 heart both in an instant.
240 ROSALIND.
241 Nay, but the devil take mocking! Speak sad brow and true maid.
242 CELIA.
243 I’ faith, coz, ’tis he.
244 ROSALIND.
245 Orlando?
246 CELIA.
247 Orlando.
248 ROSALIND.
249 Alas the day, what shall I do with my doublet and hose? What did he
250 when thou saw’st him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he?
251 What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he
252 with thee? And when shalt thou see him again? Answer me in one word.
253 CELIA.
254 You must borrow me Gargantua’s mouth first. ’Tis a word too great for
255 any mouth of this age’s size. To say ay and no to these particulars is
256 more than to answer in a catechism.
257 ROSALIND.
258 But doth he know that I am in this forest and in man’s apparel? Looks
259 he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled?
260 CELIA.
261 It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a
262 lover. But take a taste of my finding him, and relish it with good
263 observance. I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn.
264 ROSALIND.
265 It may well be called Jove’s tree when it drops forth such fruit.
266 CELIA.
267 Give me audience, good madam.
268 ROSALIND.
269 Proceed.
270 CELIA.
271 There lay he, stretched along like a wounded knight.
272 ROSALIND.
273 Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground.
274 CELIA.
275 Cry “holla!” to thy tongue, I prithee. It curvets unseasonably. He was
276 furnished like a hunter.
277 ROSALIND.
278 O, ominous! He comes to kill my heart.
279 CELIA.
280 I would sing my song without a burden. Thou bring’st me out of tune.
281 ROSALIND.
282 Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak. Sweet, say
283 on.
284 Enter Orlando and Jaques.
285 CELIA.
286 You bring me out. Soft, comes he not here?
287 ROSALIND.
288 ’Tis he! Slink by, and note him.
289 [_Rosalind and Celia step aside._]
290 JAQUES.
291 I thank you for your company but, good faith, I had as lief have been
292 myself alone.
293 ORLANDO.
294 And so had I, but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for your
295 society.
296 JAQUES.
297 God be wi’ you, let’s meet as little as we can.
298 ORLANDO.
299 I do desire we may be better strangers.
300 JAQUES.
301 I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love songs in their barks.
302 ORLANDO.
303 I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.
304 JAQUES.
305 Rosalind is your love’s name?
306 ORLANDO.
307 Yes, just.
308 JAQUES.
309 I do not like her name.
310 ORLANDO.
311 There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.
312 JAQUES.
313 What stature is she of?
314 ORLANDO.
315 Just as high as my heart.
316 JAQUES.
317 You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with
318 goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings?
319 ORLANDO.
320 Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have
321 studied your questions.
322 JAQUES.
323 You have a nimble wit. I think ’twas made of Atalanta’s heels. Will you
324 sit down with me? And we two will rail against our mistress the world
325 and all our misery.
326 ORLANDO.
327 I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know
328 most faults.
329 JAQUES.
330 The worst fault you have is to be in love.
331 ORLANDO.
332 ’Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.
333 JAQUES.
334 By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you.
335 ORLANDO.
336 He is drowned in the brook. Look but in, and you shall see him.
337 JAQUES.
338 There I shall see mine own figure.
339 ORLANDO.
340 Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.
341 JAQUES.
342 I’ll tarry no longer with you. Farewell, good Signior Love.
343 ORLANDO.
344 I am glad of your departure. Adieu, good Monsieur Melancholy.
345 [_Exit Jaques.—Celia and Rosalind come forward._]
346 ROSALIND.
347 I will speak to him like a saucy lackey, and under that habit play the
348 knave with him.
349 Do you hear, forester?
350 ORLANDO.
351 Very well. What would you?
352 ROSALIND.
353 I pray you, what is’t o’clock?
354 ORLANDO.
355 You should ask me what time o’ day. There’s no clock in the forest.
356 ROSALIND.
357 Then there is no true lover in the forest, else sighing every minute
358 and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of time as well as a
359 clock.
360 ORLANDO.
361 And why not the swift foot of time? Had not that been as proper?
362 ROSALIND.
363 By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
364 I’ll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time
365 gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.
366 ORLANDO.
367 I prithee, who doth he trot withal?
368 ROSALIND.
369 Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her
370 marriage and the day it is solemnized. If the interim be but a
371 se’nnight, time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven
372 year.
373 ORLANDO.
374 Who ambles time withal?
375 ROSALIND.
376 With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout;
377 for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives
378 merrily because he feels no pain; the one lacking the burden of lean
379 and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious
380 penury. These time ambles withal.
381 ORLANDO.
382 Who doth he gallop withal?
383 ROSALIND.
384 With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly as foot can
385 fall, he thinks himself too soon there.
386 ORLANDO.
387 Who stays it still withal?
388 ROSALIND.
389 With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and
390 then they perceive not how time moves.
391 ORLANDO.
392 Where dwell you, pretty youth?
393 ROSALIND.
394 With this shepherdess, my sister, here in the skirts of the forest,
395 like fringe upon a petticoat.
396 ORLANDO.
397 Are you native of this place?
398 ROSALIND.
399 As the coney that you see dwell where she is kindled.
400 ORLANDO.
401 Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a
402 dwelling.
403 ROSALIND.
404 I have been told so of many. But indeed an old religious uncle of mine
405 taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man, one that knew
406 courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read
407 many lectures against it, and I thank God I am not a woman, to be
408 touched with so many giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their
409 whole sex withal.
410 ORLANDO.
411 Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge
412 of women?
413 ROSALIND.
414 There were none principal. They were all like one another as halfpence
415 are, every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow fault came to
416 match it.
417 ORLANDO.
418 I prithee recount some of them.
419 ROSALIND.
420 No. I will not cast away my physic but on those that are sick. There is
421 a man haunts the forest that abuses our young plants with carving
422 “Rosalind” on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on
423 brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind. If I could meet
424 that fancy-monger, I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to
425 have the quotidian of love upon him.
426 ORLANDO.
427 I am he that is so love-shaked. I pray you tell me your remedy.
428 ROSALIND.
429 There is none of my uncle’s marks upon you. He taught me how to know a
430 man in love, in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner.
431 ORLANDO.
432 What were his marks?
433 ROSALIND.
434 A lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye and sunken, which you have
435 not; an unquestionable spirit, which you have not; a beard neglected,
436 which you have not—but I pardon you for that, for simply your having in
437 beard is a younger brother’s revenue. Then your hose should be
438 ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe
439 untied, and everything about you demonstrating a careless desolation.
440 But you are no such man. You are rather point-device in your
441 accoutrements, as loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other.
442 ORLANDO.
443 Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.
444 ROSALIND.
445 Me believe it? You may as soon make her that you love believe it, which
446 I warrant she is apter to do than to confess she does. That is one of
447 the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences.
448 But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees,
449 wherein Rosalind is so admired?
450 ORLANDO.
451 I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he,
452 that unfortunate he.
453 ROSALIND.
454 But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?
455 ORLANDO.
456 Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.
457 ROSALIND.
458 Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark
459 house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so
460 punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers
461 are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel.
462 ORLANDO.
463 Did you ever cure any so?
464 ROSALIND.
465 Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his
466 mistress, and I set him every day to woo me; at which time would I,
467 being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing
468 and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of
469 tears, full of smiles; for every passion something and for no passion
470 truly anything, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this
471 colour; would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then
472 forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my
473 suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness, which
474 was to forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a nook
475 merely monastic. And thus I cured him, and this way will I take upon me
476 to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep’s heart, that there shall
477 not be one spot of love in ’t.
478 ORLANDO.
479 I would not be cured, youth.
480 ROSALIND.
481 I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day
482 to my cote and woo me.
483 ORLANDO.
484 Now, by the faith of my love, I will. Tell me where it is.
485 ROSALIND.
486 Go with me to it, and I’ll show it you; and by the way you shall tell
487 me where in the forest you live. Will you go?
488 ORLANDO.
489 With all my heart, good youth.
490 ROSALIND.
491 Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go?
492 [_Exeunt._]