As You Like It (13 page)

JAQUES
    I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted

with thee.

ROSALIND
    They say you are a melancholy fellow.

JAQUES
    I am so. I do love it better than laughing.

ROSALIND
    Those that are in extremity of either are abominable

fellows, and
betray
themselves to every
modern censure
⁶

worse than drunkards.

JAQUES
    Why, ’tis good to be
sad
⁸
and say nothing.

ROSALIND
    Why then, ’tis good to be a
post
⁹
.

JAQUES
    I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is

emulation
, nor the musician’s, which is
fantastical
¹¹
, nor the

courtier’s, which is proud, nor the soldier’s, which is

ambitious, nor the lawyer’s, which is
politic
¹³
, nor the lady’s,

which is
nice
¹⁴
, nor the lover’s, which is all these: but it is a

melancholy of mine own, compounded of many
simples
¹⁵
,

extracted from many objects, and indeed the
sundry
¹⁶

contemplation of my travels, in which my
often
¹⁷
rumination

wraps me in a most
humorous
¹⁸
sadness.

ROSALIND
    A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be

sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men’s;

then to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich

eyes and poor hands.

JAQUES
    Yes, I have gained my experience.

ROSALIND
    And your experience makes you sad: I had rather

have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me

sad, and to
travel
²⁶
for it too.

ORLANDO
    Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!

JAQUES
    Nay, then, God buy you,
an
²⁸
you talk in blank verse.

ROSALIND
    Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you
lisp
²⁹
and wear

strange suits
,
disable
³⁰
all the benefits of your own country, be

out of love with your
nativity
³¹
, and almost chide God for

making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think

you have
swam
³³
in a gondola. Why, how now, Orlando, where

have you been all this while? You a lover? An you serve me

such another trick, never come in my sight more.

ORLANDO
    My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my

promise.

ROSALIND
    Break an hour’s promise in love? He that will divide

a minute into a thousand parts and break but a part of the

thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be

said of him that Cupid hath
clapped him o’th’shoulder
⁴¹
, but

I’ll warrant him
heart-whole
⁴²
.

ORLANDO
    Pardon me, dear Rosalind.

ROSALIND
    Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight. I

had as lief be wooed of a snail.

ORLANDO
    Of a snail?

ROSALIND
    Ay, of a snail, for though he comes slowly, he carries

his house on his head; a better
jointure
⁴⁸
, I think, than you

make a woman. Besides, he brings his destiny with him.

ORLANDO
    What’s that?

ROSALIND
    Why,
horns
, which such as you are
fain
⁵¹
to be

beholding
to your wives for: but he comes
armed in his
⁵²

fortune
and
prevents the slander
⁵³
of his wife.

ORLANDO
    Virtue is no horn-maker, and my Rosalind is

virtuous.

ROSALIND
    And I am your Rosalind.

CELIA
    It pleases him to call you so, but he hath a Rosalind

of a better
leer
⁵⁸
than you.

ROSALIND
    Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a
holiday
⁵⁹

humour
and like enough to consent. What would you say to

me now, an I were your
very
⁶¹
very Rosalind?

ORLANDO
    I would kiss before I spoke.

ROSALIND
    Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were

gravelled
⁶⁴
for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.

Very good orators, when they are
out
⁶⁵
, they will spit. And for

lovers lacking — God
warn
us! — matter, the
cleanliest shift
⁶⁶

is to kiss.

ORLANDO
    How if the kiss be denied?

ROSALIND
    Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new

matter.

ORLANDO
    
Who could be out
⁷¹
, being before his beloved mistress?

ROSALIND
    Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or I

should think my
honesty
ranker
⁷³
than my wit.

ORLANDO
    What,
of my suit
⁷⁴
?

ROSALIND
    Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit.

Am not I your Rosalind?

ORLANDO
    I take some joy to say you are, because I would be

talking of her.

ROSALIND
    Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.

ORLANDO
    Then, in mine own person, I die.

ROSALIND
    No, faith, die
by attorney
⁸¹
. The poor world is almost

six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any

man died in his own person,
videlicet
, in a love-cause.
Troilus
⁸³

had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club, yet he did

what he could to
die
before, and he is one of the
patterns
⁸⁵
of

love.
Leander
, he would have lived many a fair year
though
⁸⁶

Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot mid-

summer night, for, good youth, he went but forth to wash

him in the Hellespont and being taken with the cramp was

drowned. And the foolish chroniclers of that age
found it
⁹⁰

was ‘Hero of Sestos’. But these are all lies: men have died

from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for

love.

ORLANDO
    I would not have my
right
⁹⁴
Rosalind of this mind, for

I protest her frown might kill me.

ROSALIND
    By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I

will be your Rosalind in a more
coming-on
⁹⁷
disposition. And

ask me what you will, I will grant it.

ORLANDO
    Then love me, Rosalind.

ROSALIND
    Yes, faith, will I,
Fridays and Saturdays
¹⁰⁰
and all.

ORLANDO
    And wilt thou have me?

ROSALIND
    Ay, and
twenty
¹⁰²
such.

ORLANDO
    What sayest thou?

ROSALIND
    Are you not good?

ORLANDO
    I hope so.

ROSALIND
    Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?

Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us. Give me

your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?

ORLANDO
    Pray thee marry us.

CELIA
    I cannot say the words.

ROSALIND
    You must begin, ‘Will you, Orlando —’

CELIA
    
Go to
¹¹²
. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?

ORLANDO
    I will.

ROSALIND
    Ay, but when?

ORLANDO
    Why now, as
fast
¹¹⁵
as she can marry us.

ROSALIND
    Then you must say ‘I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.’

ORLANDO
    I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.

ROSALIND
    I might ask you for your
commission
¹¹⁸
, but I do take

thee, Orlando, for my husband. There’s a girl
goes before the
¹¹⁹

priest
, and certainly a woman’s thought runs before her

actions.

ORLANDO
    So do all thoughts: they are winged.

ROSALIND
    Now tell me how long you would have her after you

have
possessed
¹²⁴
her.

ORLANDO
    Forever and a day.

ROSALIND
    Say ‘a day’, without the ‘ever’. No, no, Orlando.

Men are April when they woo, December when they wed.

Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes

when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a

Barbary cock-pigeon
¹³⁰
over his hen, more clamorous than a

parrot
against
rain, more
new-fangled
¹³¹
than an ape, more

giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for nothing,

like
Diana in the fountain
¹³³
, and I will do that when you are

disposed to be merry. I will laugh like a hyena, and that when

thou art inclined to sleep.

ORLANDO
    But will my Rosalind do so?

ROSALIND
    By my life, she will do as I do.

ORLANDO
    O, but she is wise.

ROSALIND
    Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the

wiser, the
waywarder
.
Make
the doors upon a woman’s
wit
¹⁴⁰

and it will out at the
casement
¹⁴¹
. Shut that and ’twill out at the

key-hole. Stop that, ’twill fly with the smoke out at the

chimney.

ORLANDO
    A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say

‘Wit, whither wilt?’
¹⁴⁵

ROSALIND
    Nay, you might keep that
check
¹⁴⁶
for it till you met

your wife’s wit going to your neighbour’s bed.

ORLANDO
    And what wit could wit have to excuse that?

ROSALIND
    Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall

never
take
¹⁵⁰
her without her answer, unless you take her

without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her

fault
her
husband’s occasion
, let her never
nurse
¹⁵²
her child

herself, for she will breed it like a fool.

ORLANDO
    For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.

ROSALIND
    Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.

ORLANDO
    I must attend the duke at dinner. By two o’clock I

will be with thee again.

ROSALIND
    Ay, go your ways, go your ways. I knew what you

would prove: my friends told me as much, and I thought no

less. That flattering tongue of yours won me. ’Tis
but one
¹⁶⁰

cast away, and so, come, death! Two o’clock is your hour?

ORLANDO
    Ay, sweet Rosalind.

ROSALIND
    By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend

me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you

break one jot of your promise or come one minute
behind
¹⁶⁵

your hour
, I will think you the most
pathetical
¹⁶⁶
break-

promise and the most hollow lover and the most unworthy of

her you call Rosalind that may be chosen out of the
gross
¹⁶⁸

band of the unfaithful: therefore beware my
censure
¹⁶⁹
and

keep your promise.

ORLANDO
    With no less
religion
¹⁷¹
than if thou wert indeed my

Rosalind: so adieu.

ROSALIND
    Well, time is the old justice that examines all such

offenders, and let time
try
¹⁷⁴
. Adieu.