第12章

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'