The Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Plain and Simple English (Translated) (366 page)

From the east, to the western Indies,

no jewel compares to Rosalind.

Her worth is carried by the wind

that tells the whole world of Rosalind.

All of the most beautifully drawn pictures

look like black marks next to Rosalind.

Let nothing valuable be in one’s mind

except the beauty of Rosalind.

TOUCHSTONE

I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and

suppers and sleeping-hours excepted: it is the

right butter-women's rank to market.

I can rhyme like that for eight years straight, dinners,

other meals, and time for sleep excepted: it is as bad

and easy as a common-woman’s path to the market.

ROSALIND

Out, fool!

Get out, fool!

TOUCHSTONE

For a taste:

If a hart do lack a hind,

Let him seek out Rosalind.

If the cat will after kind,

So be sure will Rosalind.

Winter garments must be lined,

So must slender Rosalind.

They that reap must sheaf and bind;

Then to cart with Rosalind.

Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,

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: why do you

infect yourself with them?

I’ll show you:

If a buck lacks a doe,

let him look for Rosalind.

If the cat goes after its own kind,

so too does Rosalind.

Winter clothes must be lined for warmth,

and Rosalind needs something around her, too.

Farmers that reap must then sheaf and bind the crops,

So add Rosalind to the harvest cart.

The sweetest nut has the sourest rind,

Just like Rosalind.

He who finds the sweetest rose,

will also be pricked by thorns of love and Rosalind.

This is how poor and simple the meter of these verses are – why are you

infecting yourself by repeating them?

ROSALIND

Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.

Be quiet, you dumb fool! I found them written on a tree.

TOUCHSTONE

Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.

Then such a tree is giving off bad fruit.

ROSALIND

I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it

with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit

i' the country; for you'll be rotten ere you be half

ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar.

I will graft you onto it, and then it will be grafted

with fruit that is ripe after it becomes rotten. You will be the first fruit

to ripen in the country because you will be rotten before you ever get half

ripe – and that’s the way medlar fruits grow.

TOUCHSTONE

You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the

forest judge.

So you say, but the forest will judge whether you are right or not.

Enter CELIA, with a writing

ROSALIND

Peace! Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside.

Be quiet! Here comes my sister, reading.

CELIA

[Reads]

Why should this a desert be?

For it is unpeopled? No:

Tongues I'll hang on every tree,

That shall civil sayings show:

Some, how brief the life of man

Runs his erring pilgrimage,

That the stretching of a span

Buckles in his sum of age;

Some, of violated vows

'Twixt the souls of friend and friend:

But upon the fairest boughs,

Or at every sentence end,

Will I Rosalinda write,

Teaching all that read to know

The quintessence of every sprite

Heaven would in little show.

Therefore Heaven Nature charged

That one body should be fill'd

With all graces wide-enlarged:

Nature presently distill'd

Helen's cheek, but not her heart,

Cleopatra's majesty,

Atalanta's better part,

Sad Lucretia's modesty.

Thus Rosalind of many parts

By heavenly synod was devised,

Of many faces, eyes and hearts,

To have the touches dearest prized.

Heaven would that she these gifts should have,

And I to live and die her slave.

Should this be a desert just

because there are no people? No,

for I will give tongues to every tree

so they will speak civilized things.

Some will be about the brief life of man

and how it is spent in a wrong journey,

how his stretched out hand

holds all of his years of life.

Some will be about broken promises

between friends.

But on the best branches

or at the end of every sentence

I will write “Rosalinda”

to teach everyone who reads the trees to know

what the essence of every angel

heaven shows in her.

Heaven tasked Nature

to make one person filled

with all the beauties of womankind,

so Nature combined

Helen of Troy’s cheek, but not her unfaithful heart,

Cleopatra’s majesty,

the best parts of Atalanta,

and sad Lucretia’s modesty and purity.

Thus, Rosalind was from many perfect parts

by Heaven’s order made:

made from many faces, eyes, and hearts

in order to have the most beautiful parts of all of them.

Heaven decided that she should have these gifts

and that I should live and die as her servant.

ROSALIND

O most gentle pulpiter! what tedious homily of love

have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never

cried 'Have patience, good people!'

O good preacher! What tiresome sermon of love

you have been exhausting your congregation with, without

warning them by saying, “Be patient!”?

CELIA

How now! back, friends! Shepherd, go off a little.

Go with him, sirrah.

What is that? Go back, friends! Shepherd, move away a little,

and go with him, Touchstone.

TOUCHSTONE

Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat;

though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.

Come, shepherd, let’s retreat honorably and leave –

not with a the baggage of an army, but with your shepherd’s bag and what little we have.

Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE

CELIA

Didst thou hear these verses?

Did you hear the verses I read?

ROSALIND

O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of

them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.

Yes, I heard all of them – even more than them. In fact,

some of the verses had too many syllables and feet for the rhyme scheme.

CELIA

That's no matter: the feet might bear the verses.

That’s not important: extra feet can hold the verses better then.

ROSALIND

Ay, but the feet were lame and could not bear

themselves without the verse and therefore stood

lamely in the verse.

Yes, but the feet were lame – they were made of bad poetry – and could not hold

themselves without the rhyme scheme; therefore they read

weakly within the verse.

CELIA

But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name

should be hanged and carved upon these trees?

But did you listen to all of that without thinking about why your name

should be written on all of the trees?

ROSALIND

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.

I was already mostly through my thinking of them

before you came. Look, I found others on a

palm-tree. I wasn’t rhymed about like this since

a past life of mine when I was an Irish rat and poets thought they could rid me through verse,

and I don’t remember that.

CELIA

Trow you who hath done this?

Do you know who wrote all of this?

ROSALIND

Is it a man?

Is it a man?

CELIA

And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck.

Change you colour?

Yes, one who has a chain, which you once wore, around his neck.

Are you blushing?

ROSALIND

I prithee, who?

Tell me, who?

CELIA

O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for friends to

meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes

and so encounter.

O God! It is hard enough for two friends to

meet – but even mountains can be moved by earthquakes

and forced into each other.

ROSALIND

Nay, but who is it?

No, who is it?

CELIA

Is it possible?

Is it possible?

ROSALIND

Nay, I prithee now with most petitionary vehemence,

tell me who it is.

No, please, I’m begging you as strongly as I can,

tell me who it is.

CELIA

O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful

wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that,

out of all hooping!

O wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!

Yet again, wonderful, and even now,

when you are out of the hoop-skirts and dressed like a man!

ROSALIND

Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am

caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in

my disposition? One inch of delay more is a

South-sea of discovery; I prithee, tell me who is it

quickly, and speak apace. I would thou couldst

stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man

out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-

mouthed bottle, either too much at once, or none at

all. I prithee, take the cork out of thy mouth that

may drink thy tidings.

Good heavens! Do you think that since I am

dressed like a man, manly attitudes carry over

to my character? One more second of delay is as arduous

as journeying through the South Seas. Please, tell me who it is

quickly, and speak to me. I wish that you could