bring the ewes and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle: to be bawd to a bell-wether; and to betray a shelamb of a twelvemonth, to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou be'st not damn'd for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst 'scape. COR. Here comes young master Ganymede, my new mistress' brother. Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper. Ros. From the east to western Ind, Her worth, being mounted on the wind, Are but black to Rosalind. Let no face be kept in mind, TOUCH. I'll rhyme you so, eight years together; dinners, and suppers, and sleeping hours excepted: it is the right butter-woman's rank to market.112) Ros. Out, fool! TOUCH. For a taste: If a hart do lack a hind, bell-wether] Wether and ram had anciently the same meaning. JOHNSON. All the pictures, fairest lin'd] Delineated with the most elegant touches of art. 1 Winter-garments must be lin❜d, They that reap, must sheaf and bind ; Such a nut is Rosalind. He that sweetest rose will find, Must find love's prick and Rosalind.• This is the very false gallop of verses: (13) Why do you infect yourself with them? Ros. Peace, you dull fool; I found them on a tree. TOUCH. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit. Ros. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit in the country: for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar. TOUCH. You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge. Enter CELIA, reading a paper. Ros. Peace! Here comes my sister, reading; stand aside. CEL. Why should this [a] desert be? • Must find love's prick, &c.] See Warton's Hist. of Poetry, I. 117. b Why should this [a] desert be? For, &c.] i. e. shall this forest be pronounced desert, because," &c. Mr. Pope inserted the article. Some, how brief the life of man 'Twixt the souls of friend and frien: But Or at every sentence' end, Teaching all that read, to know Sad Lucretia's modesty.(18) By heavenly synod was devis'd; Of many faces, eyes, and hearts, To have the touches dearest priz'd. Heaven would that she these gifts should have, And I to live and die her slave. Ros. O most gentle Jupiter! what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cry'd, Have patience, good people. CEL. How now! back friends;-Shepherd, go off a little: Go with him, sirrah. TOUCH. Come, shepherd, let us make an honour in little] Small compass, miniature. See Haml. II. 3. Haml., and Tw. N. III. 4. Sir Tob. b touches] Points, traits. able retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage. [Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE. CEL. Didst thou hear these verses? Ros. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear." CEL. That's no matter; the feet might bear the verses. Ros. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse. CEL. But didst thou hear, without wondering how thy name should be hang'd and carved upon these trees? Ros. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder, before you came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree: I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat," which I can hardly remember. · CEL. Trow you, who hath done this? Ros. Is it a man? (19) CEL. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck: Change you colour? Ros. I pr'ythee, who? CEL. O lord, lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; (20) but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and so encounter.(21) Ros. Nay, but who is it? · CEL. Is it possible? Ros. Nay, I pray thee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is. the verses would bear] Their metre would allow. CEL. O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all whooping! (22) Ros. Good my complexion ?(23) dost thou think, though I am caparison'd like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South-sea-off discovery. (2) I pr'ythee, tell me, who is it? quickly, and speak apace: I would thou couldst stammer, that thou might'st pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-mouth'd bottle; either too much at once, or none at all. I pr'ythee take the cork out of thy mouth, that I may drink thy tidings. CEL. So you may put a man in your belly. Ros. Is he of God's making? What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard? CEL. Nay, he hath but a little beard. Ros. Why, God will send more, if the man will be thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin." CEL. It is young Orlando; that tripp'd up the wrestler's heels, and your heart, both in an in stant. Ros. Nay, but the devil take mocking; speak sad brow, and true maid." CEL. I'faith, coz, 'tis he. Ros. Orlando? CEL. Orlando. Ros. Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose?-What did he, when thou saw'st if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin] If you let me but know who he is, whose face it is, if herein you torment me with no more delays, I am content to wait the growth of his beard. b sad brow, and true maid] Seriously and honestly. |