As You Like It

As You Like It

ACT IV SCENE I	The forest.
	Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES
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.	5
ROSALIND	Those that are in extremity of either are abominable
	fellows and betray themselves to every modern
	censure worse than drunkards.
JAQUES	Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.
ROSALIND	Why then, 'tis good to be a post.	10
JAQUES	I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is
	emulation, nor the musician's, which is fantastical,
	nor the courtier's, which is proud, nor the
	soldier's, which is ambitious, nor the lawyer's,
	which is politic, nor the lady's, which is nice, nor	15
	the lover's, which is all these: but it is a
	melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples,
	extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry's
	contemplation of my travels, in which my often
	rumination wraps me m a most humorous sadness.	20
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.	25
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 for it too!
	Enter ORLANDO
ORLANDO	Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!
JAQUES	Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse.	30
	Exit
ROSALIND	Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and
	wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your
	own country, be out of love with your nativity and
	almost chide God for making you that countenance you
	are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a	35
	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	40
	divide a minute into a thousand parts and break but
	a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the
	affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid
	hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant
	him heart-whole.	45
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	50
	carries his house on his head; a better jointure,
	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 to be	55
	beholding to your wives for: but he comes armed in
	his fortune and prevents the slander 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	60
	Rosalind of a better leer than you.
ROSALIND	Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday
	humour and like enough to consent. What would you
	say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind?
ORLANDO	I would kiss before I spoke.	65
ROSALIND	Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were
	gravelled for lack of matter, you might take
	occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are
	out, they will spit; and for lovers lacking--God
	warn us!--matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.	70
ORLANDO	How if the kiss be denied?
ROSALIND	Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.
ORLANDO	Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?
ROSALIND	Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or
	I should think my honesty ranker than my wit.	75
ORLANDO	What, of my suit?
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.	80
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. The poor world is
	almost six thousand years old, and in all this time
	there was not any man died in his own person,	85
	videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus 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
	of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair
	year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been	90
	for a hot midsummer 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
	coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.'
	But these are all lies: men have died from time to	95
	time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
ORLANDO	I would not have my right 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	100
	disposition, and ask me what you will. I will grant
	it.
ORLANDO	Then love me, Rosalind.
ROSALIND	Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all.
ORLANDO	And wilt thou have me?	105
ROSALIND	Ay, and twenty 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?	110
	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--'	115
CELIA	Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?
ORLANDO	I will.
ROSALIND	Ay, but when?
ORLANDO	Why now; as fast as she can marry us.
ROSALIND	Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.'	120
ORLANDO	I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.
ROSALIND	I might ask you for your commission; but I do take
	thee, Orlando, for my husband: there's a girl goes
	before the priest; and certainly a woman's thought
	runs before her actions.	125
ORLANDO	So do all thoughts; they are winged.
ROSALIND	Now tell me how long you would have her after you
	have possessed her.
ORLANDO	For ever and a day.
ROSALIND	Say 'a day,' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando;	130
	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 over his hen,
	more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more	135
	new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires
	than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana
	in the fountain, and I will do that when you are
	disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and
	that when thou art inclined to sleep.	140
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	145
	wit and it will out at the casement; 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?'	150
ROSALIND	Nay, you might keep that cheque 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 her without her answer, unless you take	155
	her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot
	make her fault her husband's occasion, let her
	never nurse her child herself, for she will breed
	it like a fool!
ORLANDO	For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.	160
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	165
	thought no less: that flattering tongue of yours
	won me: 'tis but one 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	170
	me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous,
	if you break one jot of your promise or come one
	minute behind your hour, I will think you the most
	pathetical break-promise and the most hollow lover
	and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind that	175
	may be chosen out of the gross band of the
	unfaithful: therefore beware my censure and keep
	your promise.
ORLANDO	With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my
	Rosalind: so adieu.	180
ROSALIND	Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such
	offenders, and let Time try: adieu.
	Exit ORLANDO
CELIA	You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate:
	we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your
	head, and show the world what the bird hath done to	185
	her own nest.
ROSALIND	O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou
	didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But
	it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown
	bottom, like the bay of Portugal.	190
CELIA	Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour
	affection in, it runs out.
ROSALIND	No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot
	of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness,
	that blind rascally boy that abuses every one's eyes	195
	because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I
	am in love. I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out
	of the sight of Orlando: I'll go find a shadow and
	sigh till he come.
CELIA	And I'll sleep.	200
	Exeunt