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Ros. Do you not know, I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on.

Cel. You bring me out :—Soft! comes he not here? Ros. 'Tis he; slink by, and note him.

[Celia and Rosalind retire.

Enter Jaques, and Orlando.

Jaq. I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.

Orl. And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for your society.

Jaq. Heaven be with you; let's meet as little as

we can.

Orl. I do desire we may be better strangers.

Jaq. I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks.

Orl. I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.

Jaq. Rosalind is your love's name?

Orl. Yes, just.

Jaq. I do not like her name.

Orl. There was no thought of pleasing you, when she was christen'd.

Jaq. What stature is she of?

Orl. Just as high as my heart.

Jaq. You are full of pretty answers: Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conn'd them out of rings? Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all our misery.

Orl. I will chide no breather in the world, but myself; against whom I know most faults.

Jaq. The worst fault you have, is to be in love. Orl. 'T is a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.

Jaq. By my troth, I was seeking for a fool, when I found you..

Orl. He is drown'd in the brook; look but in, and you shall see him.

Jaq. There shall I see mine own figure.

Orl. Which I take to be either a fool, or a cypher. Jaq. I'll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good signior love.

Orl. I am glad of your departure; adieu, good monsieur melancholy.

[Exit Jaques.

Celia and Rosalind come forward.

Ros. I will speak to him like a saucy lacquey, and under that habit play the knave with him.—Do you hear, forester ?

Orl. Very well; What would you?

Ros. I pray you, what is 't a-clock?

Orl. You should ask me, what time o' day; there's no clock in the forest.

Ros. Then there is no true lover in the forest; else, sighing every minute, and groaning every hour, would detect the lazy foot of time, as well as a clock. Orl. And why not the swift foot of time? had not that been as proper?

Ros. By no means, sir: Time travels in divers 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.

Orl. I pr'ythee, who doth he trot withal?

Ros. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the contract of her marriage, and the day it is solemniz'd: if the interim be but a se'nnight, time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven years, Orl. Who ambles time withal?

Ros. 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. These time ambles withal, Orl. Who doth he gallop withal?

Ros. With a thief to the gallows: for, though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.

Orl. Who stays it still withal?

Ros. With lawyers in the vacation: for they sleep

between term and term, and then they perceive not how time moves.

Orl. Where dwell you, pretty youth?

Ros. With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.

Orl. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so remov'd a dwelling.

Ros. 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 heaven, I am not a woman, to be touch'd with so many giddy offences as he hath generally tax'd their whole sex withal.

Orl. Can you remember any of the principal evils, that he laid to the charge of women?

Ros. There were none principal; they were all like one another, as half-pence are: every one fault seeming monstrous, till his fellow fault came to match it. Orl. I pr'ythee, recount some of them.

Ros. No; I will not cast away my physick, 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, would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.

I

Orl. I am he that is so love-shak'd; I pray you, tell me your remedy.

Ros. 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.

Orl. What were his marks?

Ros. A lean cheek; which you have not: a blue eye, and sunken; which you have not: an unquestionable spirits 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 ungar

ter'd, your bonnet unhanded, your sleeve unbutton'd, your shoe untied, and every thing 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.

Orl. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.

Ros. 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 admir'd?

Orl. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he. Ros. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?

Orl. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how

much.

Ros. 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 punish'd and cur'd, is, that the lunacy is so ordinary, that the whippers are in love too: Yet I profess curing it by counsel.

Orl. Did you ever cure any so?

Ros. 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 any thing, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour: would now like him, now loath 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 hu

stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastick: And thus I cur'd 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.

Orl. I would not be cur'd, youth.

Ros. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cote, and woo

me.

Orl. Now, by the faith of my love, I will; tell me where it is.

Ros. 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?

Orl. With all my heart, good youth.

Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind:—Come, sister, will you go?

Enter TOUCHSTONE, and Audrey.

[Exeunt.

Touch. 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?

And. Your features! Lord warrant us! what features?

Touch. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths. 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.

Aud. I do not know what poetical is: Is it honest in deed, and word? Is it a true thing?

Touch. 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.

And. Do you wish then, that the gods had made me poetical?

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