As You Like It
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 halfpence
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 everything 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 anything, 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 III. Another part of the Forest
Enter Touchstone and Audrey; Jaques at a distance observing them.
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 swear’st 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 his wife; ’tis none of his own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor
men alone? No, no, the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is
the single man therefore blessed? No. As a walled 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 is better
than no skill, by so much is horn more precious than to want.
Enter Sir Oliver Martext.
Here comes Sir Oliver. Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met. Will you
dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your
chapel?
MARTEXT.
Is there none here to give the woman?
TOUCHSTONE.
I will not take her on gift of any man.
MARTEXT.
Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.
JAQUES.
[_Coming forward_.] Proceed, proceed. I’ll give her.
TOUCHSTONE.
Good even, good Master What-ye-call’t, how do you, sir? You are very
well met. God ’ild you for your last company. I am very glad to see
you. Even a toy in hand here, sir. Nay, pray be covered.
JAQUES.
Will you be married, motley?
TOUCHSTONE.
As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her
bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would
be nibbling.
JAQUES.
And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush
like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell
you what marriage is. This fellow will but join you together as they
join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel, and like
green timber, warp, warp.
TOUCHSTONE.
[_Aside_.] I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him
than of another, for he is not like to marry me well, and not being
well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my
wife.
JAQUES.
Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.
TOUCHSTONE.
Come, sweet Audrey. We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.
Farewell, good Master Oliver. Not
_O sweet Oliver,
O brave Oliver,
Leave me not behind thee._
But
_Wind away,—
Begone, I say,
I will not to wedding with thee._
[_Exeunt Touchstone, Audrey and Jaques._]
MARTEXT.
’Tis no matter. Ne’er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me
out of my calling.
[_Exit._]
SCENE IV. Another part of the Forest. Before a Cottage
Enter Rosalind and Celia.
ROSALIND.
Never talk to me, I will weep.
CELIA.
Do, I prithee, but yet have the grace to consider that tears do not
become a man.
ROSALIND.
But have I not cause to weep?
CELIA.
As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.
ROSALIND.
His very hair is of the dissembling colour.
CELIA.
Something browner than Judas’s. Marry, his kisses are Judas’s own
children.
ROSALIND.
I’ faith, his hair is of a good colour.
CELIA.
An excellent colour. Your chestnut was ever the only colour.
ROSALIND.
And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.
CELIA.
He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana. A nun of winter’s
sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in
them.
ROSALIND.
But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not?
CELIA.
Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.
ROSALIND.
Do you think so?
CELIA.
Yes. I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer, but for his
verity in love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet or a
worm-eaten nut.
ROSALIND.
Not true in love?
CELIA.
Yes, when he is in, but I think he is not in.
ROSALIND.
You have heard him swear downright he was.
CELIA.
“Was” is not “is”. Besides, the oath of a lover is no stronger than the
word of a tapster. They are both the confirmer of false reckonings. He
attends here in the forest on the Duke your father.
ROSALIND.
I met the Duke yesterday, and had much question with him. He asked me
of what parentage I was. I told him, of as good as he, so he laughed
and let me go. But what talk we of fathers when there is such a man as
Orlando?
CELIA.
O, that’s a brave man! He writes brave verses, speaks brave words,
swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart
the heart of his lover, as a puny tilter, that spurs his horse but on
one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose. But all’s brave that
youth mounts and folly guides. Who comes here?
Enter Corin.
CORIN.
Mistress and master, you have oft enquired
After the shepherd that complained of love,
Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
That was his mistress.
CELIA.
Well, and what of him?
CORIN.
If you will see a pageant truly played
Between the pale complexion of true love
And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,
Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you,
If you will mark it.
ROSALIND.
O, come, let us remove.
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
I’ll prove a busy actor in their play.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE V. Another part of the Forest
Enter Silvius and Phoebe.
SILVIUS.
Sweet Phoebe, do not scorn me, do not, Phoebe.
Say that you love me not, but say not so
In bitterness. The common executioner,