It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue;
but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord
the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs
no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no
epilogue; yet to good wine they do use ...

I'll have no father, if you be not he:
I'll have no husband, if you be not he:
Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she.

To DUKE SENIOR To you I give myself, for I am yours.
To ORLANDO
To you I give myself, for I am yours.

I have promised to make all this matter even.
Keep you your word, O duke, to give your daughter;
You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter:
Keep your word, Phebe, that you'll marry me,
Or else refusing me, to wed this shepherd:
Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll ...

You say, that you'll have Phebe, if she will?

But if you do refuse to marry me,
You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?

You say, you'll marry me, if I be willing?

And you say, you will have her, when I bring her?

Patience once more, whiles our compact is urged:
You say, if I bring in your Rosalind,
You will bestow her on Orlando here?

Pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling
of Irish wolves against the moon.
To SILVIUS
I will help you, if I can:
To PHEBE
I would love you, if I could. To-morrow meet me all together.
To PHEBE
I will marry you, if ever I marry woman ...

Who do you speak to, 'Why blame you me to love you?'

And so am I for no woman.

And I for no woman.

And I for no woman.

I care not if I have: it is my study
To seem despiteful and ungentle to you:
You are there followed by a faithful shepherd;
Look upon him, love him; he worships you.

By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I
say I am a magician. Therefore, put you in your
best array: bid your friends; for if you will be
married to-morrow, you shall, and to Rosalind, if you will.
Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE
Look, here comes a lover ...

I will weary you then no longer with idle talking.
Know of me then, for now I speak to some purpose,
that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I
speak not this that you should bear a good opinion
of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know ...

Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?

O, I know where you are: nay, 'tis true: there was
never any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams
and Caesar's thrasonical brag of 'I came, saw, and
overcame:' for your brother and my sister no sooner
met but they looked, no sooner looked but they ...

Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to
swoon when he showed me your handkerchief?

I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws
of a lion.

O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee
wear thy heart in a scarf!

God save you, brother.

I shall devise something: but, I pray you, commend
my counterfeiting to him. Will you go?

So I do: but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by right.

Counterfeit, I assure you.

I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would
think this was well counterfeited! I pray you, tell
your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!

I would I were at home.

But, for the bloody napkin?

Wast you he rescued?

But, to Orlando: did he leave him there,
Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness?

I am: what must we understand by this?

Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity. Wilt
thou love such a woman? What, to make thee an
instrument and play false strains upon thee! not to
be endured! Well, go your way to her, for I see
love hath made thee a tame snake, and say this ...

Reads
Why, thy godhead laid apart,
Warr'st thou with a woman's heart?
Did you ever hear such railing?
Whiles the eye of man did woo me,
That could do no vengeance to me.
Meaning me a beast.
If the scorn of your bright eyne
Have power to raise ...

She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes.
Reads
Art thou god to shepherd turn'd,
That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?
Can a woman rail thus?

Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style.
A style for-challengers; why, she defies me,
Like Turk to Christian: women's gentle brain
Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention
Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect
Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?

Come, come, you are a fool
And turn'd into the extremity of love.
I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand.
A freestone-colour'd hand; I verily did think
That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands:
She has a huswife's hand; but that's ...

Patience herself would startle at this letter
And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all:
She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;
She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
Were man as rare as phoenix. 'Od's my will!
Her love is not ...

How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock? and
here much Orlando!

No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot
of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness,
that blind rascally boy that abuses every one's eyes
because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I
am in love. I'll tell thee, Aliena, I ...

O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou
didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But
it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown
bottom, like the bay of Portugal.

Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such
offenders, and let Time try: adieu.

By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend
me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous,
if you break one jot of your promise or come one
minute behind your hour, I will think you the most
pathetical break-promise and the most hollow lover
and ...

Ay, go your ways, go your ways; I knew what you
would prove: my friends told me as much, and I
thought no less: that flattering tongue of yours
won me: 'tis but one cast away, and so, come,
death! Two o'clock is your hour?

Alas! dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.

Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall
never take her without her answer, unless you take
her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot
make her fault her husband's occasion, let her
never nurse her child herself, for she will breed
it like a ...

Nay, you might keep that cheque for it till you met
your wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.

Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the
wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's
wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and
'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly
with the smoke out at the chimney.

By my life, she will do as I do.

Say 'a day,' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando;
men are April when they woo, December when they wed:
maids are May when they are maids, but the sky
changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous
of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen,
more clamorous ...