Touch. 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. Cor. Besides, our hands are hard. Touch. Your lips will feel them the sooner: shallow again. A more sounder instance; come. Cor. 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. Touch. 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. Cor. You have too courtly a wit for me: I'll rest. Touch. Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man! God make incision in thee! thou art raw. Cor. 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. Touch. 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 be 67 civet: perfume derived from the civet cat 69 in respect of: in comparison with 71 flux: discharge 60 67 72 77 82 68 worms-meat; cf. n. 70 perpend: consider 76 incision: i.e., to cure thee of thy simpleness; cf. n. 77 raw: untrained 79 owe.... hate: have hate toward no man 85 offer: presume 86 bell-wether: leading sheep of a flock on whose neck a bell is hung tray a she-lamb of a twelvemonth to a crooked- 87 pated, old, cuckoldy ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou be'st not damned for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds: I cannot see else how thou shouldst 'scape. Cor. Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother. Enter Rosalind [reading a paper]. Ros. 'From the east to western Ind, 93 Her worth, being mounted on the wind, 96 All the pictures fairest lin'd Are but black to Rosalind. Let no face be kept in mind, But the fair of Rosalind.' Touch. I'll rime you so, eight years together, dinners and suppers and sleeping hours excepted: it is the right butter-women's rank to market. Ros. Out, fool! Touch. 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. So must slender Rosalind. They that reap must sheaf and bind, 100 105 108 112 87 crooked-pated: crooked-headed; i.e., in reference to the ram's horns 88 cuckoldy; cf. n. 98 lin'd: drawn out... match: quite unsuitable for her 107 taste: i.e., sample of skill 104 butter-women's rank; cf. n. 110 after kind: follow the dictates of nature Then to cart with Rosalind. Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, 116 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? Ros. Peace! you dull fool: I found them on a tree. Touch. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit. Ros. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit i' the country; for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar. Touch. You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge. Enter Celia with a writing. Ros. Peace! Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside. Cel. 'Why should this a desert be? 121 124 129 132 115 cart: a pun on farmer's cart which bore the harvest to market and the sheriff's cart on which female offenders were publicly 121 infect: contaminate (?) disgraced 126 medlar: a fruit, with quibble on 'meddler' 139 erring: wandering 140 span; cf. n. 125 graff: graft 137 civil sayings; cf. n. 141 Buckles in: limits But upon the fairest boughs, Teaching all that read to know Nature presently distill'd Atalanta's better part, 144 148 152 156 Heaven would that she these gifts should have, Ros. O most gentle Jupiter! what tedious 164 homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried, 'Have patience, good people!' Cel. How now! back, friends! Shepherd, go off a little: go with him, sirrah. Touch. Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage. 169 172 [Exeunt Corin and Touchstone.] Cel. Didst thou hear these verses? 148 quintessence; cf. n. 149 in little: in miniature (?); cf. n. 172 scrip: a shepherd's pouch 161 touches: features 166 withal: with scrippage: its contents Ros. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear. Cel. That's no matter: the feet might bear the verses. Ros. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse. Cel. But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be hanged and carved upon these trees? Ros. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder before you came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree: I was never so be-rimed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember. Cel. Trow you who hath done this? Ros. Is it a man? Cel. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck. Change you colour? Ros. I prithee, who? Cel. O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and so encounter. Ros. Nay, but who is it? Cel. Is it possible? Ros. Nay, I prithee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is. 176 Cel. O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful! and after that, out of all whooping! 195 hard... meet; cf. n. 181 184 189 193 197 201 204 187 palm-tree; cf. n. 204 out... whooping: beyond all shouting of astonishment |