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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 years.

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.

Orl. Who doth he gallop withal?

Ros. With a thief to the gallows: for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.

Orl. Who stays it still withal?

Ros. With lawyers in the vacation: for they 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.

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 in-land 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 touch'd with so many giddy offences as he hath generally tax'd 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.

Orl. I pr'ythee, recount some of them.
Ros. No; I will not

cast away my physick, 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;

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removed- i. e. remote, sequestered.

in-land man;] Is used in this play for one civilised, in opposition to the rustick of the priest.

in which cage of rushes, I am sure, you are not prisoner.

Orl. What were his marks?

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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 ungarter'd, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation. But you are no such man; you are rather point-device? in your accoutrements; as loving yourself, than seeming the lover of any other.

Orl. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.

Ros. Me believe it? you may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do, than to confess she does; that is one of the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired?

Orl. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he. Ros. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?

Orl. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.

a blue eye,] i. e. a blueness about the eyes.

9 an unquestionable spirit;] That is, a spirit unwilling to be

conversed with.

1your having-] Having is possession, estate.

2 Then your hose should be ungarter'd, &c.] These seem to have been the established and characteristical marks by which the votaries of love were denoted in the time of Shakspeare.

3. - point-device—] i. e. exact, drest with finical nicety.

you,

Ros. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell deserves as well a dark house and a whip, as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured, is, that the lunacy is so ordinary, that the whippers are in love too: Yet I profess curing it by counsel.

Orl. Did you ever cure any so?

He was to

Ros. Yes, one; and in this manner. imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me: At which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing, and liking; proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every passion something, and for no passion truly any thing, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour: would now like him, now loath him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love, to a living humour of madness; which was, to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastick: And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver 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.

a moonish youth,] i. e. variable.

Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind:-Come, sister, will you go?

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

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?

Touch. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths."

Jaq. O knowledge ill-inhabited!" worse than Jove in a thatch'd house!

[Aside. 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.

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Audrey;] Is a corruption of Etheldreda. The saint of that name is so styled in ancient calendars.

6 as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.] Capricious is not here humoursome, fantastical, &c. but lascivious. UPTON.

Mr. Upton is, perhaps, too refined in his interpretation of capricious. Our author remembered that caper was the Latin for a goat, and thence chose this epithet. This, I believe, is the whole. There is a poor quibble between goats and Goths.

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word.

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MALONE. ill-inhabited!] i. e. ill-lodged. An unusual sense of the

it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room:] A great reckoning, in a little room, implies that the entertainment was mean, and the bill extravagant.

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