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Phe. For no ill will I bear you.

Ros. I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine:

Besides, I like you not: If you will know my house, 'Tis at the tuft of olives, here hard by :

Will you go, sister?-Shepherd, ply her hard:-
Come, sister-Shepherdess, look on him better,
And be not proud: though all the world could see,
None could be so abus'd in sight as he.
Come, to our flock.

[Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN. Phe. Dead shepherd! now I find thy saw of might; Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?

Sil. Sweet Phebe,

Phe.

Ha! what say'st thou, Silvius?

Sil. Sweet Phebe, pity me.

Phe. Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.

Sil. 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.

Phe. Thou hast my love; Is not that neigh

bourly?

Sil. I would have you.

Phe.

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.

Sil. 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: loose now and then A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon.

Phe. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me ere while?

Sil. 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.

Phe. Think not I love him, though I ask for him; "Tis but a peevish boy :-yet he talks well;

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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 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 differ

ence

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,

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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?
Sil. Phebe, with all my heart.
Phe.

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.

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Enter ROSALIND CELIA, and JAQUES.

Jaq. I pr'ythee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.

Ros. They say, you are a melancholy fellow.

Jaq. I am so; I do love it better than laughing. Ros. Those, that are in extremity of either, are abominable fellows; and betray themselves to every modern censure, worse than drunkards.

Jaq. Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.
Ros. Why then, 'tis good to be a post.

Jaq. 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 sol

dier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politick; 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, is a most humorous sadness.

Ros. 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.

Jaq. Yes, I have gained my experience.

Enter ORLANDO.

Ros. 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.

Orl. Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind! Jaq. Nay then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse.

[Exit.

Ros. 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.-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.

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

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Ros. Break an hour's promise in love? He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him, that Cupid hath clap'd him o' the shoulder, but I warrant him heart-whole.

Orl. Pardon me, dear Rosalind.

Ros. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight; I had as lief be woo'd of a snail.

Orl. Of a snail?

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

Orl. What's that?

Ros. Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholden to your wives for: but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents the slander of his wife. Orl. Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.

Ros. And I am your Rosalind.

Cel. It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a better leer3 than you.

Ros. 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?

Orl. I would kiss, before I spoke.

Ros. 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

3 Complexion.

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