AS YOU LIKE IT. Sidney Lee

more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.

       JAQUES

       Rosalind is your love’s name?

       ORLANDO

       Yes, just.

       JAQUES

       I do not like her name.

       ORLANDO

       There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.

       JAQUES

       What stature is she of?

       ORLANDO

       Just as high as my heart.

       JAQUES

       You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings?

       ORLANDO

       Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions.

       JAQUES

       You have a nimble wit: I think ‘twas made of Atalanta’s heels. Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all our misery.

       ORLANDO

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

       JAQUES

       The worst fault you have is to be in love.

       ORLANDO

       ‘Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.

       JAQUES

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

       ORLANDO

       He is drowned in the brook; look but in, and you shall see him.

       JAQUES.

       There I shall see mine own figure.

       ORLANDO

       Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.

       JAQUES

       I’ll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good Signior Love.

       ORLANDO

       I am glad of your departure: adieu, good Monsieur Melancholy.

       [Exit JAQUES.—CELIA and ROSALIND come forward.]

       ROSALIND

       I will speak to him like a saucy lacquey, and under that habit play the knave with him.—

       Do you hear, forester?

       ORLANDO

       Very well: what would you?

       ROSALIND

       I pray you, what is’t o’clock?

       ORLANDO

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

       ROSALIND

       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.

       ORLANDO

       And why not the swift foot of time? had not that been as proper?

       ROSALIND

       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.

       ORLANDO

       I pr’ythee, who doth he trot withal?

       ROSALIND

       Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized; if the interim be but a se’nnight, time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year.

       ORLANDO

       Who ambles time withal?

       ROSALIND

       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; the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury. These time ambles withal.

       ORLANDO

       Who doth he gallop withal?

       ROSALIND

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

       ORLANDO

       Who stays it still withal?

       ROSALIND

       With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how time moves.

       ORLANDO

       Where dwell you, pretty youth?

       ROSALIND

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

       ORLANDO

       Are you native of this place?

       ROSALIND

       As the coney, that you see dwell where she is kindled.

       ORLANDO

       Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.

       ROSALIND

       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 God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal.

       ORLANDO

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

       ROSALIND

       There were none principal; they were all like one another as halfpence are; every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it.

       ORLANDO

       I pr’ythee recount some of them.

       ROSALIND

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

       ORLANDO

       I am he that is so love-shaked: I pray you tell me your remedy.

       ROSALIND

       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.

       ORLANDO

       What were his marks?

       ROSALIND

       A lean cheek; which you have not: a blue eye and sunken; which you have not: an unquestionable spirit; 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 ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, 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.

       ORLANDO

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

       ROSALIND

       Me believe it! you may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant,