your liver 45 as clean as a sound sheep's heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't. Orl. I would not be cured, youth. Ros. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cote, and woo me. Orl. Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me where it is. Ros. Go with me to it, and I'll show it you; and by the way you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go? Orl. With all my heart, good youth. Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind: - Come, sister, will you go? SCENE III. Another Part of the Forest. [Exeunt. Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES at a distance, observing them. Touch. Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? doth my simple feature content you? Aud. Your features! Lord warrant us! what features? 2 Touch. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths. Jaq. [Aside.] O knowledge ill-inhabited! worse than Jove in a thatch'd house!* Touch. When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room. -Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical. Aud. I do not know what poetical is. Is it honest in deed and word? is it a true thing? Touch. No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feign 45 The liver was supposed to be the special seat of love and courage. 1 Audrey is a corruption of Etheldreda. The saint of that name is so styled in ancient calendars. 2 The word feature is too learned for Audrey, and she reiterates it with simple wonder. Feature and features were then used indiscriminately for the proportion and figure of the whole body. 8 Shakespeare remembered that caper was Latin for goat, and thence chose this epithet. There is also a quibble between goats and Goths. 4 The active and passive forms had not become fully differentiated in the Poet's time. We have already had disputable for disputations, and unexpres sire for inexpressible. So here we have ill inhabited for ill-inhabiting; that is, ill-lodged An old classical fable represents that Jupiter and Mercury were once overtaken by night in Phrygia, and were inhospitably excluded by all the people, till at last an old poor couple, named Philemon and Baucis, who lived in a thatched house, took them in, and gave them the best entertainment the house would afford. Their kindness was richly rewarded by the gods afterwards. That is the matter alluded to in the text. ing; and lovers are given to poetry, and what they swear in poetry, may be said, as lovers, they do feign. Aud. Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical? Touch. I do, truly; for thou swear'st to me thou art honest now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign. Aud. Would you not have me honest? Touch. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favour'd; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar. Jaq. [Aside.] A material Fool!" Aud. Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest! Touch. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut, were to put good meat into an unclean dish. Aud. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul." Touch. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee; and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next village, who hath promis'd to meet me in this place of the forest, and to couple us. Jaq. [Aside.] I would fain see this meeting. Aud. Well, the gods give us joy! Touch. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! Here comes Sir Oliver. Enter Sir OLIVER MARTEXT. Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met: will you despatch us Sir Oli. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful. Jaq. [Coming forward.] Proceed, proceed: I'll give her. Touch Good even, good Master What-ye-call't: How do you, sir? You are very well met: God 'îld you for your 6 A material Fool is a Fool with matter in him. 6 Audrey uses foul as opposed to fair; that is, for plain, homely. She had good authority for doing so. Thus, in Thomas' History of Italy: "If the maiden be fair, she is soon had, and little money given with her; if she be foul, they advance her with a better portion." 7 Sir was in common use as a clerical title in Shakespeare's time, and long before. He has several instances of it; as, Sir Hugh Evans, the famous Welsh parson. 8 God yield you, God reward vou. last company: I am very glad to see you:-Even a toy in hand here, sir:-nay, pray be cover'd. Jaq. Will you be married, Motley? Touch. As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling. Jaq. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush, like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is: this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel, and like green timber warp, warp. Touch. I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of another: for he is not like to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife. Jaq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. but O sweet Oliver, O brave Oliver, Wend away; begone, I say, 10 I will not to wedding with thee.1o [Exeunt JAQ., TOUCH., and AUDREY Sir Oli. "Tis no matter: ne'er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling. [Exit SCENE IV. Another Part of the Forest. Before a Cottage. Enter ROSALIND and CELIA. Ros. Never talk to me; I will weep. Cel. Do, I pr'ythee; but yet have the grace te consider that tears do not become a man. Ros. But have I not cause to weep? Cel. As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep. Ros. His very hair is of the dissembling colour. 1 Cel. Something browner than Judas's: Marry, his kisses are Judas's own children. 9 That is, his yoke, which, in ancient time, resembled a bow or branching horns. 10 The ballad of "O sweet Oliver, leave me not behind thee," and the answer to it, are entered on the Stationers' books in 1584 and 1586. Touch stone says, I will sing not that part of the ballad which says "Leave me not behind thee;" but that which says "Begone, I say," probably part of the answer. 1 Judas was represented in old paintings and tapestry, with red hair and beard. So in The Insatiate Countess: "I ever thought by his red beard he would prove a Judas." Ros. I' faith, his hair is of a good colour. Cel. An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour. Ros. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread. Cel. He hath bought a pair of chaste lips of Diana: 2 a nun of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice hastity is in them. Ros. But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not? Cel. Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him. Ros. Do you think so? Cel. Yes: I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer; but, for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet or a worm-eaten nut. Ros. Not true in love? Cel. Yes, when he is in; but I think he is not in. Ros. You have heard him swear downright he was. 3 Cel. Was is not is: besides, the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmers of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest on the Duke your father.. Ros. I met the Duke yesterday, and had much question with him. He ask'd me of what parentage I was: I told him, of as good as he; so he laugh'd, and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando? Cel. O, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; as a puny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose: but all's brave that youth mounts and folly guides. Who comes here? 4 Enter CORIN. Cor. Mistress and master, you have oft inquir'd After the shepherd that complain'd of love, Whom you saw sitting by me on the turf, 2 The original has "cast lips," which is commonly explained as meaning lips cast aside, as we still say cast clothes. So understood, cast may add some humour to the passage, but makes it rather incoherent. In old printing and writing we have many cases of phonographic spelling; and the probability is, that chaste was pronounced with the ch hard, like k, in the Poet's time. The word is from the Latin castus, castitas. 8 In accordance with the ancient proverb, "At lovers' perjuries, Jove laughs." An allusion to tilting, where it was held disgraceful for a knight to break his lance across the body of his adversary, instead of by a push of the point. Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess That was his mistress. Cel. Well, and what of him? Ros. SCENE V. Another Part of the Forest. Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE. [Exeunt. Sil. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe: Say that you love me not; but say not so In bitterness. The common executioner, Whose heart th' accustom'd sight of death makes hard, Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, at a distance I fly thee, for I would not injure thee. Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye: 'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable, That eyes that are the frail'st and softest things, 2 Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers! And, if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee: Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers! Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee: Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush, The cicatrice and capable impressure 1 It was customary for the executioner to kneel down and ask pardea of the victim, before striking him. To "die and live by bloody drops" is to get one's living till one dies, by making others bleed. 2 Atomie has already been explained, page 61, note 27. But 8 Cicatrice is scar. Some would read palpable instead of capable. the latter is much the more characteristic expression. And the dent made by leaning on any firm substance is capable, has capacity, will hold some water while it lasts. |