ROSALIND [Aside to CELIA] I will spea...

ROSALIND

[Aside to CELIA] I will speak to him, like a saucy

lackey 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 prithee, 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 cony 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 half-pence are, every one fault seeming

monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it.

ORLANDO

I prithee, 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, she is apter to

do than to confess she does: 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 any

thing, 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?