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Ros. With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.

Orl. Are you native of this place?

Ros. As the cony, that you see dwell where she is kindled.

Orl. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.

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Ros. I have been told so of many: but indeed an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he 368 fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God, I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal.

Orl. Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of women?

Ros. There were none principal; they were all like one another as half-pence are; every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it.

Orl. I prithee, recount some of them.

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Ros. No, I will not cast away my physic, but on those that are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that abuses our young plants with carving 'Rosalind' on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind: if I could meet that fancy-monger, I would give him 362 kindled: brought forth

361 cony: rabbit

364 purchase: acquire removed: remote, secluded 366 religious: i.e., belonging to a religious order (?) 368 courtship: courtliness of manners, with quibble on 'wooing' 370 lectures: admonitions 387 fancy-monger: dealer in love

some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.

Orl. I am he that is so love-shaked. I pray you, tell me your remedy.

Ros. 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.

Orl. What were his marks?

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Ros. 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 403 unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and everything 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.

Orl. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.

Ros. 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,

389 quotidian: an intermittent daily fever; cf. n. 394 cage of rushes: i.e., ineffectual prison

398 blue eye: i.e., with a dark circle about the eye 399 unquestionable: unwilling to talk

401 having: possessions

403 ungartered

untied: i.e., the signs of a disconsolate lover

404 unbanded: without a hatband

407 point-device: extremely precise

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are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired?

Orl. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he.

Ros. But are you so much in love as your rimes speak?

Orl. Neither rime nor reason can express how much.

Ros. 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.

He was

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Orl. Did you ever cure any so? Ros. Yes, one; and in this manner. 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 438 tears, full of smiles, for every passion something, and for no passion truly anything, 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 445 humour of madness, which was, to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook

431 profess: claim to have knowledge of 436 moonish: variable

427 dark... whip; cf. n.
434 set him: i.e., as a task
438 fantastical: capricious apish: imitative
443 entertain: receive forswear: renounce
445 living . . . madness: humor of actual madness

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.

Orl. I would not be cured, youth.

Ros. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cote and woo me.

Orl. Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me where it is.

Ros. 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?

Orl. With all my heart, good youth.

Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind. sister, will you go?

Scene Three

[Another Part of the Forest]

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Come,
Exeunt.

Enter Touchstone, Audrey, and Jaques. Touch. 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?

Aud. Your features! Lord warrant us! what features?

Touch. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.

Jaq. [Aside.] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatch'd house!

449 liver; cf. n. 5 features; cf. n. 10 ill-inhabited: ill-lodged

8 capricious

Goths; ef. n.

11 Jove in a thatch'd house; cf. n.

Touch. 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.

Aud. I do not know what 'poetical' is. Is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true thing?

Touch. 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.

Aud. Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?

Touch. 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.

Aud. Would you not have me honest? Touch. No, truly, unless thou wert hardfavour'd; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.

Jaq. [Aside.] A material fool.

Aud. Well, I am not fair, and therefore I pray the gods make me honest.

Touch. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish.

Aud. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.

Touch. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it

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22 feigning: imaginative 34 material: full of sense

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