CORIN No more but that I know the more one sickens, the worse at ease he is, and that he that wants money, means, and content is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.

TOUCHSTONE Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd?

CORIN No, truly.

TOUCHSTONE Then thou art damned.

CORIN Nay, I hope.

TOUCHSTONE Truly thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.

CORIN For not being at court? Your reason?

TOUCHSTONE Why, if thou never wast at court thou never sawest good manners. If thou never sawest good manners, then thy manners must be wicked, and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.

CORIN Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not at the court but you kiss your hands. That courtesy would be uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds.

TOUCHSTONE Instance, briefly; come, instance.

CORIN Why, we are still handling our ewes, and their fells, you know, are greasy.

TOUCHSTONE Why, do not your courtier’s hands sweat? And is not the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance, I say. Come.

CORIN Besides, our hands are hard.

TOUCHSTONE Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again. A more sounder instance. Come.

CORIN And they are often tarred over with the surgery of our sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier’s hands are perfumed with civet.

TOUCHSTONE Most shallow, man. Thou worms’ meat in respect of a good piece of flesh indeed, learn of the wise, and perpend: civet is of a baser birth than tar, the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd.

CORIN You have too courtly a wit for me. I’ll rest.

TOUCHSTONE Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man. God make incision in thee, thou art raw.

CORIN Sir, I am a true labourer. I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness; glad of other men’s good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.

TOUCHSTONE That is another simple sin in you, to bring the ewes and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a bell-wether, and to betray a she-lamb of a twelvemonth to a crooked-pated old cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not damned for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds. I cannot see else how thou shouldst scape.

CORIN Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress’s brother.

Enter Rosalind as Ganymede

ROSALIND (reads)

‘From the east to western Ind

No jewel is like Rosalind.

Her worth being mounted on the wind

Through all the world bears Rosalind.

All the pictures fairest lined

Are but black to Rosalind.

Let no face be kept in mind

But the fair of Rosalind.’

TOUCHSTONE I’ll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners, and suppers, and sleeping-hours excepted. It is the right butter-women’s rank to market.

ROSALIND Out, fool.

TOUCHSTONE For a taste:

If a hart do lack a hind,

Let him seek out Rosalind.

If the cat will after kind,

So, be sure, will Rosalind.

Wintered garments must be lined,

So must slender Rosalind.

They that reap must sheaf and bind,

Then to cart with Rosalind.

‘Sweetest nut hath sourest rind’,

Such a nut is Rosalind.

He that sweetest rose will find

Must find love’s prick, and Rosalind.

This is the very false gallop of verses. Why do you infect yourself with them?

ROSALIND Peace, you dull fool, I found them on a tree.

TOUCHSTONE Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.

ROSALIND I’ll graft it with you, and then I shall graft it with a medlar; then it will be the earliest fruit i’th’ country, for you’ll be rotten ere you be half-ripe, and that’s the right virtue of the medlar.

TOUCHSTONE You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge.

Enter Celia, as Aliena, with a writing

ROSALIND

Peace, here comes my sister, reading. Stand aside.

CELIA (reads)

‘Why should this a desert be?

For it is unpeopled? No.

Tongues I’ll hang on every tree,

That shall civil sayings show.

Some, how brief the life of man

Runs his erring pilgrimage,

That the stretching of a span

Buckles in his sum of age.

Some of violated vows

’Twixt the souls of friend and friend.

But upon the fairest boughs,

Or at every sentence end,

Will I ‘Rosalinda’ write,

Teaching all that read to know

The quintessence of every sprite

Heaven would in little show.

Therefore heaven nature charged

That one body should be filled

With all graces wide-enlarged.

Nature presently distilled

Helen’s cheek, but not her heart,

Cleopatra’s majesty,

Atalanta’s better part,

Sad Lucretia’s modesty.

Thus Rosalind of many parts

By heavenly synod was devised

Of many faces, eyes, and hearts

To have the touches dearest prized.

Heaven would that she these gifts should have

And I to live and die her slave.’

ROSALIND O most gentle Jupiter! What tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried ‘Have patience, good people.’

CELIA How now, back, friends. Shepherd, go off a little. Go with him, sirrah.

TOUCHSTONE Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat, though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage. Exit with Corin

CELIA Didst thou hear these verses?

ROSALIND O yes, I heard them all, and more, too, for some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.

CELIA That’s no matter; the feet might bear the verses.

ROSALIND Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.