AS YOU LIKE IT. Sidney Lee

I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?

       CORIN

       No more but that I know the more one sickens, the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding, or comes of a very dull kindred.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd?

       CORIN

       No, truly.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Then thou art damned.

       CORIN

       Nay, I hope,—

       TOUCHSTONE

       Truly, thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.

       CORIN

       For not being at court? Your reason.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never saw’st good manners; if thou never saw’st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.

       CORIN

       Not a whit, Touchstone; those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not at the court, but you kiss your hands; that courtesy would be uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Instance, briefly; come, instance.

       CORIN

       Why, we are still handling our ewes; and their fells, you know, are greasy.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Why, do not your courtier’s hands sweat? and is not the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow: a better instance, I say; come.

       CORIN

       Besides, our hands are hard.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again: a more sounder instance; come.

       CORIN

       And they are often tarred over with the surgery of our sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier’s hands are perfumed with civet.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Most shallow man! thou worm’s-meat in respect of a good piece of flesh indeed!—Learn of the wise, and perpend: civet is of a baser birth than tar,—the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd.

       CORIN

       You have too courtly a wit for me: I’ll rest.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man! God make incision in thee! thou art raw.

       CORIN

       Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.

       TOUCHSTONE

       That is another simple sin in you: to 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 she-lamb of a twelvemonth to crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou be’st not damned for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst ‘scape.

       CORIN

       Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress’s brother.

       [Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper.]

       ROSALIND

       “From the east to western Ind,

       No jewel is like Rosalind.

       Her worth, being mounted on the wind,

       Through all the world bears Rosalind.

       All the pictures fairest lin’d

       Are but black to Rosalind.

       Let no face be kept in mind

       But the fair 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.

       ROSALIND

       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 lin’d,

       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?

       ROSALIND

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

       TOUCHSTONE

       Truly, the tree yields 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 in the country: for you’ll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that’s the right virtue of the medlar.

       TOUCHSTONE

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

       [Enter CELIA, reading a paper.]

       ROSALIND

       Peace!

       Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside.

       CELIA

       “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 streching 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 charg’d

       That one body should be fill’d

       With all graces wide-enlarg’d: