AS YOU LIKE IT. Sidney Lee

coming-on disposition; and ask me what you will, I will grant it.

       ORLANDO

       Then love me, Rosalind.

       ROSALIND

       Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays, and all.

       ORLANDO

       And wilt thou have me?

       ROSALIND

       Ay, and twenty 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:—Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?

       ORLANDO

       I will.

       ROSALIND

       Ay, but when?

       ORLANDO

       Why, now; as fast 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; but,—I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband:—there’s a girl goes before the 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 her.

       ORLANDO

       For ever 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 over his hen; more clamorous than a parrot against rain; more newfangled than an ape; more giddy in my desires than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou are 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, and it will out at the casement; shut that, and it will out at the keyhole; 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,—“Wit, whither wilt?”

       ROSALIND

       Nay, you might keep that check 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 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 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 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 your hour, I will think you the most pathetical break-promise, and the most hollow lover, and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind, that may be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful: therefore beware my censure, and keep your promise.

       ORLANDO

       With no less religion 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: adieu!

       [Exit ORLANDO.]

       CELIA

       You have simply misus’d our sex in your love-prate: we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest.

       ROSALIND

       O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal.

       CELIA

       Or rather, bottomless; that as fast as you pour affection in, it runs out.

       ROSALIND

       No; that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of thought, conceived of spleen, and born of madness; that blind rascally boy, that abuses every one’s eyes, because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I am in love.—I’ll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando: I’ll go find a shadow, and sigh till he come.

       CELIA

       And I’ll sleep.

       [Exeunt.]

      SCENE II. Another part of the Forest

       [Enter JAQUES and Lords, in the habit of Foresters.]

       JAQUES

       Which is he that killed the deer?

       LORD

       Sir, it was I.

       JAQUES

       Let’s present him to the duke, like a Roman conqueror; and it would do well to set the deer’s horns upon his head for a branch of victory.—Have you no song, forester, for this purpose?

       LORD

       Yes, sir.

       JAQUES

       Sing it; ‘tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough.

       SONG

       1. What shall he have that kill’d the deer?