As You Like It, William Shakespeare [the false prince TXT] 📗

that fancy-monger I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him. Orlando I am he that is so love-shaked: I pray you tell me your remedy. Rosalind There is none of my uncle’s marks upon you: he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner. Orlando What were his marks? Rosalind A lean cheek, which you have not, a blue eye and sunken, which you have not, an unquestionable spirit, which you have not, a beard neglected, which you have not; but I pardon you for that, for simply your having in beard is a younger brother’s revenue: then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation; but you are no such man; you are rather point-device in your accoutrements as loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other. Orlando Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love. Rosalind Me believe it! you may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do than to confess she does: that is one of the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired? Orlando I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he. Rosalind But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? Orlando Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much. Rosalind Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel. Orlando Did you ever cure any so? Rosalind Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me: at which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles, for every passion something and for no passion truly any thing, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour; would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness; which was, to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep’s heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in’t. Orlando I would not be cured, youth. Rosalind I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day to my cote and woo me. Orlando Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me where it is. Rosalind Go with me to it and I’ll show it you and by the way you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go? Orlando With all my heart, good youth. Rosalind Nay you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go? Exeunt. Scene III

The forest.

Enter Touchstone and Audrey; Jaques behind. Touchstone Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? doth my simple feature content you? Audrey Your features! Lord warrant us! what features! Touchstone I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths. Jaques Aside. O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched house! Touchstone When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a man’s good wit seconded with the forward child Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical. Audrey I do not know what “poetical” is: is it honest in deed and word? is it a true thing? Touchstone No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign. Audrey Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical? Touchstone I do, truly; for thou swearest to me thou art honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign. Audrey Would you not have me honest? Touchstone No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar. Jaques Aside. A material fool! Audrey Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest. Touchstone Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish. Audrey I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul. Touchstone Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee, and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next village, who hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest and to couple us. Jaques Aside. I would fain see this meeting. Audrey Well, the gods give us joy! Touchstone Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is said, “many a man knows no end of his goods:” right; many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them.