tar? The courtier's hands are perfumed with civet.

TOUCH. Most shallow man! Thou wormsmeat, in respect of a good piece of flesh, indeed! -Learn of the wise, and perpend: civet is of a baser birth than tar; the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd.

COR. You have too courtly a wit for me; I'll

rest.

TOUCH. Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man! God make incision in thee, thou art raw.a

COR. Sir, I am a true labourer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's good, content with my harm: and the greatest of my pride is, to see my ewes graze, and my lambs suck.

TOUCH. That is another simple sin in you; to bring the ewes and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a bell-wether; and to betray a shelamb of a twelvemonth, to a crooked-pated, old cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not damned for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst 'scape.

COR. Here comes young master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother.

a God make incision in thee, thou art raw.] Steevens suggests, very plausibly, that the allusion is to the common expression of cutting for the simples.

Fair-] Beauty. See note (a), p. 69, Vol. I.

e Right butter-women's rank to market.] Rank, here, Whiter says, "means the jog-trot rate with which butter-women uniformly travel one after another in their road to market." But this is not satisfactory. From a passage in Drayton's poem, Shepherd's Sirena," it might be inferred that "rank" was a familiar term for chorus, or rhyme :

"On thy bank,

"The

Enter CELIA, reading a paper.

CEL. Why should this at desert be?
For it is unpeopled? No;
Tongues I'll hang on every tree,
That shall civil sayings show.
Some, how brief the life of man
Runs his erring pilgrimage;
That the stretching of a span
Buckles in his sum of age.
Some, of violated vows

'Twixt the souls of friend and friend: But upon the fairest boughs,

Or at every sentence' end,

Will I Rosalinda write;
Teaching all that read, to know
The quintessence of every sprite
Heaven would in little show.
Therefore heaven nature charg'd
That one body should be fill'd
With all graces wide enlarg'd:
Nature presently distill'd
Helen's cheek, but not her heart;
Cleopatra's majesty,

And butter-women's rank may have been only another term for verse which rhymed in couplets, called of old, "riding ryme.'

d In little show.] In miniature show. So in "Hamlet," Act II. Sc. 2: Those that would make mowes at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece, for his picture in little."

Atalanta's better part,

Sad Lucretia's modesty. Thus Rosalind of many parts

By heavenly synod was devis'd, Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,

To have the touches dearest priz'd. Heaven would that she these gifts should have,

And I to live and die her slave.

Ros. O most gentle Jupiter!--what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried, Have patience, good people!

CEL. How now! back friends;-shepherd, go off a little go with him, sirrah.

TOUCH. Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.

[Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE. CEL. Didst thou hear these verses? Ros. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.

CEL. That's no matter; the feet might bear the verses.

Ros. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.

CEL. But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be hanged and carved upon these trees?

Ros. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder before you came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree: I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat,(3) which I can hardly remember.

CEL. Trow you who hath done this?
Ros. Is it a man?

CEL. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck change you colour?

Ros. I pr'ythee, who?

CEL. O lord, lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and so encounter.

Ros. Nay, but who is it?

CEL. Is it possible?

Ros. Nay, I pray thee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is.

CEL. O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!

Good my complexion!] Celia is triumphing in Rosalind's heightened colour, and the latter's petulant exclamation may be equivalent to "plague on my complexion." Or "Good" may be a misprint for "Hood." Thus Juliet:

"Hood my unmann'd blood bating in my cheeks." Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 2.

b One inch of delay more is a South-sea of discovery.] This is

Ros. Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South-sea of discovery." I pr'ythee, tell me who is it, quickly, and speak apace: I would thou couldst stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-mouthed bottle,—either too much at once, or not at all. I pr'ythee take the cork out of thy mouth, that I may drink thy tidings.

CEL. So you may put a man in your belly.

Ros. Is he of God's making? What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard?

CEL. Nay, he hath but a little beard.

Ros. Why, God will send more, if the man will be thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin.

CEL. It is young Orlando, that tripped up the wrestler's heels and your heart, both in an instant. Ros. Nay, but the devil take mocking; speak sad brow and true maid.

CEL. I'faith, coz, 'tis he.
Ros. Orlando?

CEL. Orlando.

Ros. Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose?-What did he, when thou sawest him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? and when shalt thou see him again? Answer me in one word.

CEL. You must borrow me Gargantua's (4) mouth first: 'tis a word too great for any mouth of this age's size. To say ay and no, to these particulars, is more than to answer in a catechism.

Ros. 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?

CEL. 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.

Ros. It may well be called Jove's tree, when it drops forth such fruit.

с

CEL. Give me audience, good madam.

Ros. Proceed.

CEL. There lay he, stretched along, like a wounded knight.

painfully obscure, and the efforts of the commentators have by no means lessened its ambiguity. Does Rosalind mean that though "caparisoned like a man,' she has so much of a woman's curiosity in her disposition, that "one inch of delay more" would cause her to betray her sex?

e When it drops forth such fruit.] The folio, 1623, reads, "when it drops forth fruit;" such was inserted by the editor of the second folio.

Ros. Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground.

*

CEL. Cry, holla! to thy tongue, I pr'y thee; it curvets unseasonably. He was furnished like a hunter.

Ros. O ominous! he comes to kill my heart. CEL. I would sing my song without a burden: thou bringest me out of tune.

Ros. Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on.

CEL. You bring me out.-Soft! comes he not here?

Ros. 'Tis he; slink by, and note him.

[CELIA and ROSALIND retire.

Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES.

JAQ. I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.

ORL. And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for your society.

JAQ. God be wi' you; let's meet as little as we

can.

ORL. I do desire we may be better strangers. JAQ. I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks.

ORL. I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.

JAQ. Rosalind is your love's name?
ORL. Yes, just.

JAQ. I do not like her name.

ORL. There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.

JAQ. What stature is she of?

ORL. Just as high as my heart.

JAQ. You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conned them out of rings?

ORL. Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions.

JAQ. You have a nimble wit; I think it was 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.

ORL. I will chide no breather in the world but myself; against whom I know most faults.

JAQ. The worst fault you have is to be in love. ORL. "Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.

JAQ. By my troth, I was secking for a fool when I found you.

and

ORL. He is drowned in the brook; look but in you shall see him.

JAQ. There I shall see mine own figure.

ORL. Which I take to be either a fool or a cypher.

JAQ. I'll tarry no longer with you; farewell, good signior Love. [Exit JAQUES. ORL. I am glad of your departure; adieu, good monsieur Melancholy.

[CELIA and ROSALIND come forward. Ros. I will speak to him like a saucy lackey, and under that habit play the knave with him.— Do you hear, forester?

ORL. Very well; what would you?
Ros. I pray you, what is't o'clock?

ORL. You should ask me, what time o'day; there's no clock in the forest.

Ros. 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.

ORL. And why not the swift foot of time? had not that been as proper?

Ros. 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.

ORL. I pr'ythee who doth he trot withal?

Ros. 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.

ORL. Who ambles Time withal?

Ros. 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.

- glister like the god of war,

When he intendeth to become the field."

:

sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves.

ORL. Where dwell you, pretty youth?

Ros. With this shepherdess, my sister, here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat. ORL. Are you native of this place?

Ros. As the coney, that you see dwell where she is kindled.

ORL. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.

a

Ros. 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.

ORL. Can you remember any of the principal evils, that he laid to the charge of women?

Ros. 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.

a An inland man;] See note (c), p. 144.

b An unquestionable spirit,-] One averse to question or discourse.

ORL. I pr'ythee, recount some of them.

Ros. 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 that fancy-monger, I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.

ORL. I am he that is so love-shaked; I pray you, tell me your remedy.

Ros. There is none of my uncle's marks upon you: he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not a prisoner.

ORL. What were his marks?

Ros. A lean cheek,-which you have not; a blue eye and sunken,-which you have not; an unquestionable spirit,-which you have not; a beard neglected,-which you have not; but I pardon you for that; for simply your having in beard is a younger brother's revenue. Then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded,

(*) First folio, defying.

с

(t) First folio, art.

c Your hose should be ungartered,-] See note (d), p. 11, Vol. I.