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 crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly 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.
CORIN
Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress’s brother.
[Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper.]
ROSALIND
“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 lin’d
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.
Winter garments must be lin’d,
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 graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar. Then it will be the earliest fruit in the 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, reading a paper.]
ROSALIND
Peace!
Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside.
CELIA
“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 streching 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 charg’d
That one body should be fill’d
With all graces wide-enlarg’d:
Nature presently distill’d
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 devis’d,
Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,
To have the touches dearest priz’d.
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.
[Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE.]
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.
CELIA
But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be hanged and carved upon these trees?
ROSALIND
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 berhymed since Pythagoras’ time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember.
CELIA
Trow you who hath done this?
ROSALIND
Is it a man?
CELIA
And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck. Change you colour?
ROSALIND
I pray thee, who?
CELIA
O lord, lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and so encounter.
ROSALIND
Nay, but who is it?
CELIA
Is it possible?
ROSALIND
Nay, I pr’ythee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is.
CELIA
O wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!
ROSALIND