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to these particulars is more than to answer in a catechism.
Rosalind
But doth he know that I am in this forest and in man’s apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled?
Celia
It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover; but take a taste of my finding him, and relish it with good observance. I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn.
Rosalind
It may well be called Jove’s tree, when it drops forth such fruit.
Celia
Give me audience, good madam.
Rosalind
Proceed.
Celia
There lay he, stretched along, like a wounded knight.
Rosalind
Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground.
Celia
Cry “holla” to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets unseasonably. He was furnished like a hunter.
Rosalind
O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart.
Celia
I would sing my song without a burden: thou bringest me out of tune.
Rosalind
Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on.
Celia
You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here?
Enter Orlando and Jaques.
Rosalind
’Tis he: slink by, and note him.
Jaques
I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.
Orlando
And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for your society.
Jaques
God be wi’ you: let’s meet as little as we can.
Orlando
I do desire we may be better strangers.
Jaques
I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks.
Orlando
I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.
Jaques
Rosalind is your love’s name?
Orlando
Yes, just.
Jaques
I do not like her name.
Orlando
There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.
Jaques
What stature is she of?
Orlando
Just as high as my heart.
Jaques
You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings?
Orlando
Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions.
Jaques
You have a nimble wit: I think ’twas made of Atalanta’s heels. Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world and all our misery.
Orlando
I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.
Jaques
The worst fault you have is to be in love.
Orlando
’Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.
Jaques
By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you.
Orlando
He is drowned in the brook: look but in, and you shall see him.
Jaques
There I shall see mine own figure.
Orlando
Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.
Jaques
I’ll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good Signior Love.
Orlando
I am glad of your departure: adieu, good Monsieur Melancholy. Exit Jaques.
Rosalind
Aside to Celia. I will speak to him, like a saucy lackey and under that habit play the knave with him. Do you hear, forester?
Orlando
Very well: what would you?
Rosalind
I pray you, what is’t o’clock?
Orlando
You should ask me what time o’ day: there’s no clock in the forest.
Rosalind
Then there is no true lover in the forest; else sighing every minute and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a clock.
Orlando
And why not the swift foot of Time? had not that been as proper?
Rosalind
By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I’ll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal and who he stands still withal.
Orlando
I prithee, who doth he trot withal?
Rosalind
Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized: if the interim be but a se’nnight, Time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year.
Orlando
Who ambles Time withal?
Rosalind
With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout, for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain, the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury; these Time ambles withal.
Orlando
Who doth he gallop withal?
Rosalind
With a thief to the gallows, for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.
Orlando
Who stays it still withal?
Rosalind
With lawyers in the vacation, for they sleep between term and term and then they perceive not how Time moves.
Orlando
Where dwell you, pretty youth?
Rosalind
With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.
Orlando
Are you native of this place?
Rosalind
As the cony that you see dwell where she is kindled.
Orlando
Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.
Rosalind
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 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.
Orlando
Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of women?
Rosalind
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.
Orlando
I prithee, recount some of them.
Rosalind
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
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