AS YOU LIKE IT. Sidney Lee

that is one of the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired?

       ORLANDO

       I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he.

       ROSALIND

       But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?

       ORLANDO

       Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.

       ROSALIND

       Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel.

       ORLANDO

       Did you ever cure any so?

       ROSALIND

       Yes, one; and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me: at which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking; proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every passion something and for no passion truly anything, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour; would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness; which was, to forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep’s heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in ‘t.

       ORLANDO

       I would not be cured, youth.

       ROSALIND

       I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cote and woo me.

       ORLANDO

       Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me where it is.

       ROSALIND

       Go with me to it, and I’ll show it you: and, by the way, you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go?

       ORLANDO

       With all my heart, good youth.

       ROSALIND

       Nay, you must call me Rosalind.—Come, sister, will you go?

       [Exeunt.]

      SCENE III. Another part of the Forest

       [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES at a distance observing them.]

       TOUCHSTONE

       Come apace, good Audrey; I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature content you?

       AUDREY

       Your features! Lord warrant us! what features?

       TOUCHSTONE

       I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.

       JAQUES

       [Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited! worse than Jove in a thatch’d house!

       TOUCHSTONE

       When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a man’s good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.—Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.

       AUDREY

       I do not know what “poetical” is: is it honest in deed and word? is it a true thing?

       TOUCHSTONE

       No, truly: for the truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to poetry; and what they swear in poetry may be said, as lovers, they do feign.

       AUDREY

       Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical?

       TOUCHSTONE

       I do, truly, for thou swear’st to me thou art honest; now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign.

       AUDREY

       Would you not have me honest?

       TOUCHSTONE

       No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.

       JAQUES

       [Aside] A material fool!

       AUDREY

       Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest!

       TOUCHSTONE

       Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish.

       AUDREY

       I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee: and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next village; who hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest, and to couple us.

       JAQUES

       [Aside] I would fain see this meeting.

       AUDREY

       Well, the gods give us joy!

       TOUCHSTONE

       Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is said,—“Many a man knows no end of his goods;” right! many a man has good horns and knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; ‘tis none of his own getting. Horns? Ever to poor men alone?—No, no; the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man therefore blessed? No: as a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor: and by how much defence is better than no skill, by so much is horn more precious than to want. Here comes Sir Oliver.

       [Enter SIR OLIVER MARTEXT.]

       Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met. Will you despatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel?

       MARTEXT

       Is there none here to give the woman?

       TOUCHSTONE

       I will not take her on gift of any man.

       MARTEXT

       Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.

       JAQUES

       [Discovering himself.] Proceed, proceed; I’ll give her.

       TOUCHSTONE

       Good even, good Master “What-ye-call’t”: how do you, sir? You are very well met: God ‘ild you for your last company: I am very glad to see you:—even a toy in hand here, sir:—nay; pray be covered.

       JAQUES

       Will you be married, motley?

       TOUCHSTONE

       As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.

       JAQUES

       And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush, like a beggar? Get you to church and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is: this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel, and like green timber, warp, warp.

       TOUCHSTONE

       [Aside] I am not