William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Come to our flock.

[Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN.]

PHEBE

Dead shepherd! now I find thy saw of might;

“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”

SILVIUS

Sweet Phebe,—

PHEBE

Ha! what say’st thou, Silvius?

SILVIUS

Sweet Phebe, pity me.

PHEBE

Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.

SILVIUS

Wherever sorrow is, relief would be:

If you do sorrow at my grief in love,

By giving love, your sorrow and my grief

Were both extermin’d.

PHEBE

Thou hast my love: is not that neighbourly?

SILVIUS

I would have you.

PHEBE

Why, that were covetousness.

Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;

And yet it is not that I bear thee love:

But since that thou canst talk of love so well,

Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,

I will endure; and I’ll employ thee too:

But do not look for further recompense

Than thine own gladness that thou art employ’d.

SILVIUS

So holy and so perfect is my love,

And I in such a poverty of grace,

That I shall think it a most plenteous crop

To glean the broken ears after the man

That the main harvest reaps: lose now and then

A scatter’d smile, and that I’ll live upon.

PHEBE

Know’st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?

SILVIUS

Not very well; but I have met him oft;

And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds

That the old carlot once was master of.

PHEBE

Think not I love him, though I ask for him;

‘Tis but a peevish boy:—yet he talks well;—

But what care I for words? yet words do well

When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.

It is a pretty youth:—not very pretty:—

But, sure, he’s proud; and yet his pride becomes him:

He’ll make a proper man: the best thing in him

Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue

Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.

He is not very tall; yet for his years he’s tall;

His leg is but so-so; and yet ‘tis well:

There was a pretty redness in his lip;

A little riper and more lusty red

Than that mix’d in his cheek; ‘twas just the difference

Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.

There be some women, Silvius, had they mark’d him

In parcels as I did, would have gone near

To fall in love with him: but, for my part,

I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet

I have more cause to hate him than to love him:

For what had he to do to chide at me?

He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black;

And, now I am remember’d, scorn’d at me:

I marvel why I answer’d not again:

But that’s all one; omittance is no quittance.

I’ll write to him a very taunting letter,

And thou shalt bear it: wilt thou, Silvius?

SILVIUS

Phebe, with all my heart.

PHEBE

I’ll write it straight,

The matter’s in my head and in my heart:

I will be bitter with him and passing short:

Go with me, Silvius.

[Exeunt.]

ACT IV

SCENE I. The Forest of Arden

[Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES.]

JAQUES

I pr’ythee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.

ROSALIND

They say you are a melancholy fellow.

JAQUES

I am so; I do love it better than laughing.

ROSALIND

Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than drunkards.

JAQUES

Why, ‘tis good to be sad and say nothing.

ROSALIND

Why then, ‘tis good to be a post.

JAQUES

I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician’s, which is fantastical; nor the courtier’s, which is proud; nor the soldier’s, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer’s, which is politic; nor the lady’s, which is nice; nor the lover’s, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects: and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.

ROSALIND

A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men’s; then to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

JAQUES

Yes, I have gained my experience.

ROSALIND

And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad; and to travel for it too.

[Enter ORLANDO.]

ORLANDO

Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind!

JAQUES

Nay, then, God be wi’ you, an you talk in blank verse.

ROSALIND

Farewell, monsieur traveller: look you lisp and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola.

[Exit JAQUES.]

Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been all this while? You a lover!—An you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more.

ORLANDO

My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.

ROSALIND

Break an hour’s promise in love! He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapped him o’ the shoulder, but I’ll warrant him heart-whole.

ORLANDO

Pardon me, dear Rosalind.

ROSALIND

Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I had as lief be wooed of a snail.

ORLANDO

Of a snail!

ROSALIND

Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head; a better jointure, I think, than you make a woman: besides, he brings his destiny with him.

ORLANDO

What’s that?

ROSALIND

Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholding to your wives for: but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents the slander of his wife.

ORLANDO

Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.

ROSALIND

And I am your Rosalind.

CELIA

It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a better leer than you.

ROSALIND

Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour, and like enough to consent.—What would you say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind?

ORLANDO

I would kiss before I spoke.

ROSALIND

Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were gravelled for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers lacking,—God warn us!—matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.

ORLANDO

How if the kiss be denied?

ROSALIND

Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.

ORLANDO

Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?

ROSALIND

Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit.

ORLANDO

What, of my suit?

ROSALIND

Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. Am not I your Rosalind?

ORLANDO

I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her.

ROSALIND

Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.

ORLANDO

Then, in mine own person, I die.

ROSALIND

No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he could to die before; and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and, being taken with the cramp, was drowned; and the foolish chroniclers of that age found it was—Hero of Sestos. But these are all lies; men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.