The Forest of Ardenne.
 Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES.

Jaques	I prithee, 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, which, by 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.

                              Enter ORLANDO.

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 if too!

Orlando	Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!

Jaques	[Going.] Nay then, God-buy-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 a part of the 
	thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be 
	said of him that Cupid hath clapped him o'th'shoulder, but 
	I'll warrant him heart-whole.

Orlando	Pardon me dear Rosalind.

Rosalind	Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight. I had as 
	lief be wooed of a snail.

Orlando	Of a snail?

Rosalind	Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his 
	house on his head - a better jointure, I think, than you 
	make a woman. Besides, he brings his destiny with him.

Orlando	What's that?

Rosalind	Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholding to 
	your wives for; but he comes armed in his fortune, and 
	prevents the slander of his wife.

Orlando	Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.

Rosalind	And I am your Rosalind?

Celia	It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a 
	better leer than you.

Rosalind	Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour and 
	like enough to consent. What would you say to me now an I 
	were your very very Rosalind?

Orlando	I would kiss before I spoke.

Rosalind	Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were 
	gravelled for lack of matter, you might take occasion to 
	kiss. Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit, 
	and for lovers lacking - God warn us! - matter, the 
	cleanliest shift is to kiss.

Orlando	How if the kiss be denied?

Rosalind	Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.

Orlando	Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?

Rosalind	Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or I 
	should think my honesty ranker than my wit.

Orlando	What, of my suit?

Rosalind	Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. Am not I 
	your Rosalind?

Orlando	I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking 
	of her.

Rosalind	Well, in her person I say I will not have you.

Orlando	Then in mine own person, I die.

Rosalind	No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six 
	thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any 
	man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. 
	Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club, yet 
	he did what he could to die before, and he is one of the 
	patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair 
	year though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a 
	hot midsummer night, for, good youth, he went but forth to 
	wash him in the Hellespont, and, being taken with the 
	cramp, was drowned; and the foolish chroniclers of that age 
	found it was Hero of Sestos. But these are all lies: men 
	have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but 
	not for love.

Orlando	I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I 
	protest, her frown might kill me.

Rosalind	By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I will 
	be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition; and ask 
	me what you will, I will grant it.

Orlando	Then love me, Rosalind.

Rosalind	Yes, faith will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all.

Orlando	And wilt thou have me?

Rosalind	Ay, and twenty such.

Orlando	What sayst thou?

Rosalind	Are you not good?

Orlando	I hope so.

Rosalind	Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come, 
	sister, you shall be the priest and marry us. Give me your 
	hand, Orlando. What do you say sister?

Orlando	Pray thee, marry us.

Celia	I cannot say the words.

Rosalind	You must begin 'Will you, Orlando'.

Celia	Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?

Orlando	I will.

Rosalind	Ay, but when?

Orlando	Why now, as fast as she can marry us.

Rosalind	Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife'.

Orlando	I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.

Rosalind	I might ask you for your commission; but, I do take thee, 
	Orlando, for my husband. There's a girl goes before the 
	priest, and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her 
	actions.

Orlando	So do all thoughts; they are winged.

Rosalind	Now tell me how long you would have her after you have 
	possessed her?

Orlando	For ever and a day.

Rosalind	Say 'a day' without the 'ever'. No, no, Orlando, men are 
	April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May 
	when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are 
	wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-
	pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against 
	rain, more new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my 
	desires than a monkey. I will weep for nothing, like Diana 
	in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed 
	to be merry. I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou 
	art inclined to sleep.

Orlando	But will my Rosalind do so?

Rosalind	By my life, she will do as I do.

Orlando	O, but she is wise.

Rosalind	Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the wiser, 
	the waywarder. Make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it 
	will out at the casement; shut that, and 'twill out at the 
	keyhole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the 
	chimney.

Orlando	A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say 'Wit, 
	whither wilt?'

Rosalind	Nay, you might keep that check for it till you met your 
	wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.

Orlando	And what wit could wit have to excuse that?

Rosalind	Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never 
	take her without her answer, unless you take her without 
	her tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her 
	husband's occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, 
	for she will breed it like a fool.

Orlando	For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.

Rosalind	Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.

Orlando	I must attend the duke at dinner. By two o'clock I will be 
	with thee again.

Rosalind	Ay, go your ways, go your ways - I knew what you would 
	prove. My friends told me as much; and I thought no less. 
	That flattering tongue of yours won me. 'Tis but one cast 
	away, and so, come death! Two o'clock is your hour?

Orlando	Ay, sweet Rosalind.

Rosalind	By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and 
	by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break 
	one jot of your promise, or come one minute behind your 
	hour, I will think you the most pathetical break-promise, 
	and the most hollow lover, and the most unworthy of her you 
	call Rosalind, that may be chosen out of the gross band of 
	the unfaithful. Therefore beware my censure and keep your 
	promise.

Orlando	With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind. 
	So, adieu!

Rosalind	Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such 
	offenders, and let Time try. Adieu!
															[Exit ORLANDO.

Celia	You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate. We must 
	have your doublet and hose plucked over your head, and show 
	the world what the bird hath done to her own nest.

Rosalind	O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know 
	how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be 
	sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay 
	of Portugal.

Celia	Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour affection 
	in, it runs out.

Rosalind	No; that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of 
	thought, conceived of spleen, and born of madness, that 
	blind rascally boy that abuses everyone's eyes because his 
	own are out, let him be judge how deep I am in love. I'll 
	tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. 
	I'll go find a shadow, and sigh till he come.

Celia	And I'll sleep.
															[Exeunt.
