That can entame my spirits to your worship.

(To Silvius) You, foolish shepherd, wherefore do you

follow her

Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?

You are a thousand times a properer man

Than she a woman. ‘Tis such fools as you

That makes the world full of ill-favoured children.

’Tis not her glass but you that flatters her,

And out of you she sees herself more proper

Than any of her lineaments can show her.

(To Phoebe) But, mistress, know yourself; down on

your knees

And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love;

For I must tell you friendly in your ear,

Sell when you can. You are not for all markets.

Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;

Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.—

So, take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.

PHOEBE

Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together.

I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.

ROSALIND (to Phoebe) He’s fallen in love with your foulness, (to Silvius) and she’ll fall in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee with frowning looks, I’ll sauce her with bitter words. (To Phoebe) Why look you so upon me?

PHOEBE

For no ill will I bear you.

ROSALIND

I pray you do not fall in love with me,

For I am falser than vows made in wine.

Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,

’Tis at the tuft of olives, here hard by.

(To Celia) Will you go, sister? (To Silvius) Shepherd,

ply her hard.—

Come, sister. (To Phoebe) Shepherdess, look on him

better,

And be not proud. Though all the world could see,

None could be so abused in sight as he.—

Come, to our flock. Exeunt Rosalind, Celia, and Corin

PHOEBE (aside)

Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might:

‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’

SILVIUS

Sweet Phoebe—

PHOEBE Ha, what sayst thou, Silvius?

SILVIUS Sweet Phoebe, pity me.

PHOEBE

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 extermined.

PHOEBE

Thou hast my love, is not that neighbourly?

SILVIUS

I would have you.

PHOEBE 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 employed.

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. Loose now and then

A scattered smile, and that I’ll live upon.

PHOEBE

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.

PHOEBE

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 mixed in his cheek. ’Twas just the

difference

Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.

There be some women, Silvius, had they marked 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

Have I 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 remembered, scorned at me.

I marvel why I answered 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

Phoebe, with all my heart.

PHOEBE 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

4.1 Enter Rosalind as Ganymede, Celia as Aliena, 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. 9

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.