PHEBE
Dead shepherd! now I find thy saw of might;
“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”
SILVIUS
Sweet Phebe,—
PHEBE
Ha! what say’st thou, Silvius?
SILVIUS
Sweet Phebe, pity me.
PHEBE
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 extermin’d.
PHEBE
Thou hast my love: is not that neighbourly?
SILVIUS
I would have you.
PHEBE
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 employ’d.
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: lose now and then
A scatter’d smile, and that I’ll live upon.
PHEBE
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.
PHEBE
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 mix’d in his cheek; ‘twas just the difference
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.
There be some women, Silvius, had they mark’d 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
I have 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 remember’d, scorn’d at me:
I marvel why I answer’d 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
Phebe, with all my heart.
PHEBE
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.]
ACT IV
SCENE I. The Forest of Arden
[Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES.]
JAQUES
I pr’ythee, 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.
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.
ROSALIND
A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men’s; then to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands.
JAQUES
Yes, I have gained my experience.
ROSALIND
And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad; and to travel for it too.
[Enter ORLANDO.]
ORLANDO
Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind!
JAQUES
Nay, then, God be wi’ you, an you talk in blank verse.
ROSALIND
Farewell, monsieur traveller: look you lisp and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola.
[Exit JAQUES.]
Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been all this while? You a lover!—An you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more.
ORLANDO
My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.
ROSALIND
Break an hour’s promise in love! He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but