SCENE I. The forest. As You Like It  Shakespeare homepage  |  As You Like It  | Act 4, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE I. The forest. 

 Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES  JAQUES  I prithee, 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's 

 contemplation of my travels, in which my often 

 rumination wraps me m 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. 



 Exit  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. 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 thousandth 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, 

 videlicit, 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 

 coroners 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. 

 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 

 new-fangled 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 art 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 

 'twill out at the key-hole; 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 cheque 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 misused 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. 



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