1    I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted
2    with thee.

3    They say you are a melancholy fellow.

4    I am so; I do love it better than laughing.

5    Those that are in extremity of either are abominable
6    fellows and betray themselves to every modern
7    censure worse than drunkards.

8    Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.

9    Why then, 'tis good to be a post.

10   I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is
11   emulation, nor the musician's, which is fantastical,
12   nor the courtier's, which is proud, nor the
13   soldier's, which is ambitious, nor the lawyer's,
14   which is politic, nor the lady's, which is nice, nor
15   the lover's, which is all these: but it is a
16   melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples,
17   extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry's
18   contemplation of my travels, in which my often
19   rumination wraps me m a most humorous sadness.

20   A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to
21   be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see
22   other men's; then, to have seen much and to have
23   nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

24   Yes, I have gained my experience.

25   And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have
26   a fool to make me merry than experience to make me
27   sad; and to travel for it too!

28   Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!

29   Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse.

30   Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and
31   wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your
32   own country, be out of love with your nativity and
33   almost chide God for making you that countenance you
34   are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a
35   gondola. Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been
36   all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such
37   another trick, never come in my sight more.

38   My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.

39   Break an hour's promise in love! He that will
40   divide a minute into a thousand parts and break but
41   a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the
42   affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid
43   hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant
44   him heart-whole.

45   Pardon me, dear Rosalind.

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

48   Of a snail?

49   Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he
50   carries his house on his head; a better jointure,
51   I think, than you make a woman: besides he brings
52   his destiny with him.

53   What's that?

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

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

58   And I am your Rosalind.

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

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

64   I would kiss before I spoke.

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

70   How if the kiss be denied?

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

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

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

75   What, of my suit?

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

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

80   Well in her person I say I will not have you.

81   Then in mine own person I die.

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

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

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

102  Then love me, Rosalind.

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

104  And wilt thou have me?

105  Ay, and twenty such.

106  What sayest thou?

107  Are you not good?

108  I hope so.

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

112  Pray thee, marry us.

113  I cannot say the words.

114  You must begin, 'Will you, Orlando--'

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

116  I will.

117  Ay, but when?

118  Why now; as fast as she can marry us.

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

120  I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.

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

125  So do all thoughts; they are winged.

126  Now tell me how long you would have her after you
127  have possessed her.

128  For ever and a day.

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

140  But will my Rosalind do so?

141  By my life, she will do as I do.

142  O, but she is wise.

143  Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the
144  wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's
145  wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and
146  'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly
147  with the smoke out at the chimney.

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

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

152  And what wit could wit have to excuse that?

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

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

160  Alas! dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.

161  I must attend the duke at dinner: by two o'clock I
162  will be with thee again.

163  Ay, go your ways, go your ways; I knew what you
164  would prove: my friends told me as much, and I
165  thought no less: that flattering tongue of yours
166  won me: 'tis but one cast away, and so, come,
167  death! Two o'clock is your hour?

168  Ay, sweet Rosalind.

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

178  With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my
179  Rosalind: so adieu.

180  Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such
181  offenders, and let Time try: adieu.

182  You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate:
183  we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your
184  head, and show the world what the bird hath done to
185  her own nest.

186  O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou
187  didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But
188  it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown
189  bottom, like the bay of Portugal.

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

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

199  And I'll sleep.