PHOEBE Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.
SILVIUS Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.
If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
By giving love your sorrow and my grief
Were both extermined91.
PHOEBE Thou hast my love. Is not that neighbourly92?
SILVIUS I would have you.
PHOEBE Why, that were covetousness94.
Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;
And yet it is not that I bear thee love,
But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
Thy company, which erst98 was irksome to me,
I will endure; and I’ll employ thee too.
But do not look for further recompense
Than thine own gladness that thou art employed.
SILVIUS So holy and so perfect is my love,
And I in such a poverty103 of grace,
That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
To glean the broken ears105 after the man
That the main harvest reaps. Loose now and then
A scattered smile, and that I’ll live upon.
PHOEBE Know’st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile108?
SILVIUS Not very well, but I have met him oft,
And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds110
That the old carlot111 once was master of.
PHOEBE Think not I love him, though I ask for him:
’Tis but a peevish113 boy, yet he talks well.
But what care I for words? Yet words do well
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
It is a pretty youth, not very pretty.
But sure he’s proud, and yet his pride becomes him;
He’ll make a proper man. The best thing in him
Is his complexion119. And faster than his tongue
Did make offence his eye did heal it up.
He is not very tall, yet for his years he’s tall.
His leg is but so-so, and yet ’tis well.
There was a pretty redness in his lip,
A little riper and more lusty124 red
Than that mixed in his cheek. ’Twas just the difference
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask126.
There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him
In parcels128 as I did, would have gone near
To fall in love with him. But, for my part,
I love him not nor hate him not. And yet
Have more cause to hate him than to love him:
For what had he to do to chide at me?
He said mine eyes were black and my hair black,
And, now I am remembered134, scorned at me.
I marvel why I answered not again135.
But that’s all one: omittance is no quittance136.
I’ll write to him a very taunting letter,
And thou shalt bear it. Wilt thou, Silvius?
SILVIUS Phoebe, with all my heart.
PHOEBE I’ll write it straight140:
The matter’s in my head and in my heart.
I will be bitter with him and passing142 short.
Go with me, Silvius.
Exeunt
Act 4 Scene 1
running scene 9 continues
Enter Rosalind, and 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.
ROSALIND Those that are in extremity of either are abominable
fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure6
worse than drunkards.
JAQUES Why, ’tis good to be sad8 and say nothing.
ROSALIND Why then, ’tis good to be a post9.
JAQUES I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is
emulation, nor the musician’s, which is fantastical11, nor the
courtier’s, which is proud, nor the soldier’s, which is
ambitious, nor the lawyer’s, which is politic13, nor the lady’s,
which is nice14, nor the lover’s, which is all these: but it is a
melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples15,
extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry16
contemplation of my travels, in which my often17 rumination
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.
Enter Orlando
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 travel26 for it too.
ORLANDO Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!
JAQUES Nay, then, God buy you, an28 you talk in blank verse.
[Exit]
ROSALIND Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp29 and wear
strange suits, disable30 all the benefits of your own country, be
out of love with your nativity31, and almost chide God for
making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think
you have swam33 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’shoulder41, but
I’ll warrant him heart-whole42.
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 jointure48, 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 fain51 to be
beholding to your wives for: but he comes armed in his52
fortune and prevents the slander53 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 leer58 than you.
ROSALIND Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday59
humour and like enough to consent. What would you say to
me now, an I were your very61 very Rosalind?
ORLANDO I would kiss before I spoke.
ROSALIND Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were
gravelled64 for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.
Very good orators, when they are out65, they will spit. And for
lovers lacking — God warn us! — matter, the cleanliest shift66
is to kiss.
ORLANDO How if the kiss be denied?
ROSALIND Then she puts you to entreaty, and there b
egins new
matter.
ORLANDO Who could be out71, being before his beloved mistress?
ROSALIND Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or I
should think my honesty ranker73 than my wit.
ORLANDO What, of my suit74?
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 attorney81. 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. Troilus83
had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club, yet he did
what he could to die before, and he is one of the patterns85 of
love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year though86
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 it90
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 right94 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-on97 disposition. And
ask me what you will, I will grant it.
ORLANDO Then love me, Rosalind.
ROSALIND Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays100 and all.
ORLANDO And wilt thou have me?
ROSALIND Ay, and twenty102 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 to112. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?
ORLANDO I will.
ROSALIND Ay, but when?
ORLANDO Why now, as fast115 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 commission118, but I do take
thee, Orlando, for my husband. There’s a girl goes before the119
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 possessed124 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-pigeon130 over his hen, more clamorous than a
parrot against rain, more new-fangled131 than an ape, more
giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for nothing,
like Diana in the fountain133, 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 wit140
and it will out at the casement141. 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 check146 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 take150 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 nurse152 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 one160
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 behind165
your hour, I will think you the most pathetical166 break-
promise and the most hollow lover and the most unworthy of
her you call Rosalind that may be chosen out of the gross168
band of the unfaithful: therefore beware my censure169 and
keep your promise.
ORLANDO With no less religion171 than if thou wert indeed my
Rosalind: so adieu.
ROSALIND Well, time is the old justice that examines all such
offenders, and let time try174. Adieu.
Exit [Orlando]
CELIA You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate175:
we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head,
and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest177.
ROSALIND O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst
know how many fathom179 deep I am in love! But it cannot be
sounded180: my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the
Bay of Portugal.
CELIA Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour
affection in, it runs out.
ROSALIND No, that same wicked bastard of Venus184 that was
begot of thought, conceived of spleen185 and born of madness,
that blind rascally boy that abuses186 everyone’s eyes 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 shadow189 and sigh till he come.
CELIA And I’ll sleep.
Exeunt
Act 4 Scene 2
running scene 10
Enter Jaques and Lords [as] foresters
JAQUES Which is he that killed the deer?
FIRST LORD Sir, it was I.
JAQUES Let’s present him to the duke like a Roman
conqueror. And it would do well to set the deer’s horns upon
his head for a branch5 of victory. Have you no song, forester,
for this purpose?
SECOND LORD Yes, sir.
JAQUES Sing it: ’tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make
noise enough.
Music, song
LORDS What shall he have that killed the deer?
His leather skin and horns to wear.
Then sing him home,
The rest shall bear this burden13:
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn,
It was a crest ere thou wast born,
Thy father’s father wore it,
And thy father bore it.
The horn, the horn, the lusty18 horn,
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.
Exeunt
Act 4 Scene 3
running scene 11
Enter Rosalind and Celia
ROSALIND How say you now? Is it not past two o’clock? And
here much Orlando2!
CELIA I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he
hath ta’en his bow and arrows and is gone forth to sleep.
With a letter
Enter Silvius
Look, who comes here.
To Rosalind
SILVIUS My errand is to you, fair youth.
My gentle Phoebe bid me give you this:
I know not the contents, but — as I guess
By the stern brow and waspish9 action
Which she did use10 as she was writing of it —
It bears an angry tenor; pardon me,
I am but as a guiltless messenger.
Reads letter
ROSALIND Patience herself would startle at this letter
And play the swaggerer14. Bear this, bear all:
She says I am not fair, that I lack manners.
She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
Were man as rare as phoenix. ’Od’s17 my will!
Her love is not the hare that I do hunt.
Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,
This is a letter of your own device20.
SILVIUS No, I protest21, I know not the contents.
Phoebe did write it.
ROSALIND Come, come, you are a fool