As You Like It (11 page)

ROSALIND
    I will speak to him like a
saucy lackey
²⁷⁴
,

and under that
habit
play the knave
²⁷⁵
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 sighing

every minute and groaning every hour would
detect
²⁸²
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
²⁸⁶
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
²⁹¹
with a young maid between

the
contract of her marriage
²⁹²
and the day it is solemnized. If

the interim be but a
se’nnight
²⁹³
, 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
²⁹⁹

learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy
tedious
³⁰⁰

penury. These time ambles withal.

ORLANDO
    Who doth he gallop withal?

ROSALIND
    With a thief to the gallows, for though he go as

softly
³⁰⁴
as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.

ORLANDO
    Who stays it still withal?

ROSALIND
    With lawyers in the
vacation
³⁰⁶
, for they sleep between

term
³⁰⁷
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
³⁰⁹
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
³¹²
.

ORLANDO
    Your accent is something finer than you could

purchase
in so
removed
³¹⁴
a dwelling.

ROSALIND
    I have been told so of many: but indeed an old

religious
³¹⁶
uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his

youth an
inland
man, one that knew
courtship
³¹⁷
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
³¹⁹

with so many giddy offences as he hath
generally
³²⁰
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
³²⁶
fellow fault came to match it.

ORLANDO
    I prithee recount some of them.

ROSALIND
    No, I will not cast away my
physic
³²⁸
but on those that

are sick. There is a man
haunts
³²⁹
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-
³³²

monger
, I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to

have the
quotidian
³³⁴
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
³³⁷
upon you: he

taught me how to know a man in love, in which
cage of
³³⁸

rushes
I am sure you are not prisoner.

ORLANDO
    What were his marks?

ROSALIND
    A lean cheek, which you have not: a
blue
³⁴¹
eye and

sunken, which you have not: an
unquestionable
³⁴²
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
³⁴⁴

a younger brother’s revenue
. Then your hose should be

ungartered
, your bonnet
unbanded
³⁴⁶
, your sleeve unbuttoned,

your shoe untied and everything about you demonstrating a

careless desolation: but you are no such man: you are rather

point-device
in your
accoutrements
,
as
³⁴⁹
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
³⁵³
to do than to

confess she does: that is one of the points in the which

women
still
³⁵⁵
give the lie to their consciences. But, in good

sooth
³⁵⁶
, 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
³⁶²
a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as

well a
dark house and a whip as madmen do
³⁶³
: 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
³⁶⁵

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
³⁷⁰
youth, grieve, be

effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud,
fantastical
³⁷¹
,

apish
³⁷²
, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles, for

every passion something and for no passion truly anything,

as boys and women are for the most part
cattle of this colour
³⁷⁴
:

would now like him, now loathe him: then
entertain
³⁷⁵
him,

then
forswear
him: now weep for him, then spit at him;
that
³⁷⁶

I
drave
my suitor from his mad humour of love to a
living
³⁷⁷

humour of madness, which was, to forswear the full stream

of the world, and to live in a nook
merely
³⁷⁹
monastic. And thus

I cured him, and this way will I take upon me to wash your

liver
as clean as a
sound
³⁸¹
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
³⁸⁵
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
³⁸⁷
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?

TOUCHSTONE
    Come
apace
¹
, good Audrey. I will fetch up your

goats, Audrey. And
how
²
, Audrey, am I the man yet? Doth my

simple feature
³
content you?

AUDREY
    Your features? Lord
warrant
⁴
us! What features?

TOUCHSTONE
    I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most

capricious
poet, honest
Ovid, was among the Goths.
⁶

JAQUES
    O, knowledge
ill-inhabited
, worse than
Jove
⁷

in a thatched house
.

TOUCHSTONE
    When a man’s verses cannot be understood,

nor a man’s good wit
seconded
with the
forward
¹⁰
child,

understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a
great
¹¹

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
¹⁴
in deed

and word? Is it a true thing?

TOUCHSTONE
    No, truly, for the truest poetry is the most

feigning
¹⁷
, 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 swear’st to me thou art
honest
²¹
.

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
²⁵
, for

honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.

JAQUES
    A
material
²⁷
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
³⁰

were to put good
meat
into an unclean
dish
³¹
.

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
³⁵

Martext
, the vicar of the
next
³⁶
village, who hath promised to

meet me in this place of the forest and to
couple
³⁷
us.

JAQUES
    I would
fain
see this
meeting
³⁸
.

AUDREY
    Well, the gods give us joy!

TOUCHSTONE
    Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart,

stagger
⁴¹
in this attempt, for here we have no temple but the

wood, no
assembly
but
horn-beasts
. But
what though
⁴²
?

Courage! As horns are odious, they are
necessary
⁴³
. It is said,

‘many a man
knows no end of his goods
⁴⁴
’. Right. Many a

man has good horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that

is the dowry of his wife: ’tis none of his own getting. Horns?

Even so. Poor men alone? No, no: the noblest
deer
⁴⁷
hath them

as huge as the
rascal
⁴⁸
. Is the single man therefore blessed?

No: as a
walled
⁴⁹
town is more worthier than a village, so is

the forehead of a married man more honourable than the

bare brow of a bachelor. And by how much
defence
⁵¹
is better

than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than
to
⁵²

want
.