William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

ORLANDO

I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I protest, her frown might kill me.

ROSALIND

By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I will be your Rosalind in a more 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?

2. His leather skin and horns to wear.

1. Then sing him home:

[The rest shall bear this burden.]

Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;

It was a crest ere thou wast born.

1. Thy father’s father wore it;

2. And thy father bore it;

All. The horn, the horn, the lusty horn,

Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Another part of the Forest

[Enter ROSALIND and CELIA.]

ROSALIND

How say you now? Is it not past two o’clock? And here much Orlando!

CELIA

I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath ta’en his bow and arrows, and is gone forth—to sleep. Look, who comes here.

[Enter SILVIUS.]

SILVIUS

My errand is to you, fair youth;—

My gentle Phebe did bid me give you this:

[Giving a letter.]

I know not the contents; but, as I guess

By the stern brow and waspish action

Which she did use as she was writing of it,

It bears an angry tenor: pardon me,

I am but as a guiltless messenger.

ROSALIND

Patience herself would startle at this letter,

And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all:

She says I am not fair; that I lack manners;

She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,

Were man as rare as Phoenix. Od’s my will!

Her love is not the hare that I do hunt;

Why writes she so to me?—Well, shepherd, well,

This is a letter of your own device.

SILVIUS

No, I protest, I know not the contents:

Phebe did write it.

ROSALIND

Come, come, you are a fool,

And turn’d into the extremity of love.

I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand,

A freestone-colour’d hand: I verily did think

That her old gloves were on, but ‘twas her hands;

She has a huswife’s hand: but that’s no matter:

I say she never did invent this letter:

This is a man’s invention, and his hand.

SILVIUS

Sure, it is hers.

ROSALIND

Why, ‘tis a boisterous and a cruel style;

A style for challengers: why, she defies me,