As You Like It (13 page)
Authors: William Shakespeare
Exeunt
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 censure
6
worse than drunkards.
JAQUES
Why, ’tis good to be
sad
8
and say nothing.
ROSALIND
Why then, ’tis good to be a
post
9
.
JAQUES
I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is
emulation
, nor the musician’s, which is
fantastical
11
, nor the
courtier’s, which is proud, nor the soldier’s, which is
ambitious, nor the lawyer’s, which is
politic
13
, nor the lady’s,
which is
nice
14
, nor the lover’s, which is all these: but it is a
melancholy of mine own, compounded of many
simples
15
,
extracted from many objects, and indeed the
sundry
16
contemplation of my travels, in which my
often
17
rumination
wraps me in a most
humorous
18
sadness.
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
travel
26
for it too.
ORLANDO
Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!
JAQUES
Nay, then, God buy you,
an
28
you talk in blank verse.
[
Exit
]
ROSALIND
Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you
lisp
29
and wear
strange suits
,
disable
30
all the benefits of your own country, be
out of love with your
nativity
31
, and almost chide God for
making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think
you have
swam
33
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’shoulder
41
, but
I’ll warrant him
heart-whole
42
.
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
jointure
48
, 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
51
to be
beholding
to your wives for: but he comes
armed in his
52
fortune
and
prevents the slander
53
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
leer
58
than you.
ROSALIND
Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a
holiday
59
humour
and like enough to consent. What would you say to
me now, an I were your
very
61
very Rosalind?
ORLANDO
I would kiss before I spoke.
ROSALIND
Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were
gravelled
64
for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.
Very good orators, when they are
out
65
, they will spit. And for
lovers lacking — God
warn
us! — matter, the
cleanliest shift
66
is to kiss.
ORLANDO
How if the kiss be denied?
ROSALIND
Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new
matter.
ORLANDO
Who could be out
71
, being before his beloved mistress?
ROSALIND
Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or I
should think my
honesty
ranker
73
than my wit.
ORLANDO
What,
of my suit
74
?
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 attorney
81
. 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.
Troilus
83
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
85
of
love.
Leander
, he would have lived many a fair year
though
86
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 it
90
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
right
94
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
97
disposition. And
ask me what you will, I will grant it.
ORLANDO
Then love me, Rosalind.
ROSALIND
Yes, faith, will I,
Fridays and Saturdays
100
and all.
ORLANDO
And wilt thou have me?
ROSALIND
Ay, and
twenty
102
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 to
112
. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?
ORLANDO
I will.
ROSALIND
Ay, but when?
ORLANDO
Why now, as
fast
115
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
commission
118
, but I do take
thee, Orlando, for my husband. There’s a girl
goes before the
119
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
possessed
124
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-pigeon
130
over his hen, more clamorous than a
parrot
against
rain, more
new-fangled
131
than an ape, more
giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for nothing,
like
Diana in the fountain
133
, 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
wit
140
and it will out at the
casement
141
. 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
ROSALIND
Nay, you might keep that
check
146
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
150
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
nurse
152
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 one
160
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
behind
165
your hour
, I will think you the most
pathetical
166
break-
promise and the most hollow lover and the most unworthy of
her you call Rosalind that may be chosen out of the
gross
168
band of the unfaithful: therefore beware my
censure
169
and
keep your promise.
ORLANDO
With no less
religion
171
than if thou wert indeed my
Rosalind: so adieu.
ROSALIND
Well, time is the old justice that examines all such
offenders, and let time
try
174
. Adieu.