As You Like It, Act 4 scene 1 - passage between Rosalind and Jaques

As You Like It

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ACT IV SCENE I	The forest.
[Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES]
JAQUES	I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted
	with thee.
ROSALIND	They say you are a melancholy fellow.
JAQUES	I am so; I do love it better than laughing.
ROSALIND	Those that are in extremity of either are abominable
	fellows and betray themselves to every modern
	censure worse than drunkards.	7
JAQUES	Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.
ROSALIND	Why then, 'tis good to be a post.
JAQUES	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
	soldier's, which is ambitious, nor the lawyer's,
	which is politic, 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's
	contemplation of my travels, in which my often
	rumination wraps me m a most humorous sadness.	18
ROSALIND	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.
JAQUES	Yes, I have gained my experience.
ROSALIND	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!
[Enter ORLANDO]
ORLANDO	Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!
JAQUES	Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse.	29
[Exit]
ROSALIND	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.
ORLANDO	My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.
ROSALIND	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 clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant
	him heart-whole.
ORLANDO	Pardon me, dear Rosalind.	45
ROSALIND	Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I
	had as lief be wooed of a snail.
ORLANDO	Of a snail?
ROSALIND	Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he
	carries his house on his head; a better jointure,
	I think, than you make a woman: besides he brings
	his destiny with him.
ORLANDO	What's that?
ROSALIND	Why, horns, which such as you are fain to be
	beholding to your wives for: but he comes armed in
	his fortune and prevents the slander of his wife.
ORLANDO	Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.
ROSALIND	And I am your Rosalind.
CELIA	It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a
	Rosalind of a better leer than you.
ROSALIND	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?
ORLANDO	I would kiss before I spoke.	57
ROSALIND	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 are
	out, they will spit; and for lovers lacking--God
	warn us!--matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.
ORLANDO	How if the kiss be denied?
ROSALIND	Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.
ORLANDO	Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?
ROSALIND	Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or
	I should think my honesty ranker than my wit.
ORLANDO	What, of my suit?
ROSALIND	Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit.
	Am not I your Rosalind?
ORLANDO	I take some joy to say you are, because I would be
	talking of her.
ROSALIND	Well in her person I say I will not have you.
ORLANDO	Then in mine own person I die.	69
ROSALIND	No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is
	almost six thousand years old, and in all this time
	there was not any man died in his own person,
	videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains
	dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he
	could to die before, and he is one of the patterns
	of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair
	year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been
	for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went
	but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being
	taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish
	coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.'
	But these are all lies: men have died from time to
	time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
ORLANDO	I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind,
	for, I protest, her frown might kill me.	84
ROSALIND	By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now
	I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on
	disposition, and ask me what you will. I will grant
	it.
ORLANDO	Then love me, Rosalind.
ROSALIND	Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all.
ORLANDO	And wilt thou have me?
ROSALIND	Ay, and twenty such.
ORLANDO	What sayest thou?
ROSALIND	Are you not good?
ORLANDO	I hope so.	95
ROSALIND	Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?
	Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.
	Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?
ORLANDO	Pray thee, marry us.
CELIA	I cannot say the words.
ROSALIND	You must begin, 'Will you, Orlando--'
CELIA	Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?
ORLANDO	I will.	105
ROSALIND	Ay, but when?
ORLANDO	Why now; as fast as she can marry us.
ROSALIND	Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.'
ORLANDO	I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.
ROSALIND	I might ask you for your commission; but I do take
	thee, Orlando, for my husband: there's a girl goes
	before the priest; and certainly a woman's thought
	runs before her actions.
ORLANDO	So do all thoughts; they are winged.	115
ROSALIND	Now tell me how long you would have her after you
	have possessed her.
ORLANDO	For ever and a day.
ROSALIND	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 than a parrot against rain, more
	new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires
	than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana
	in the fountain, and I will do that when you are
	disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and
	that when thou art inclined to sleep.
ORLANDO	But will my Rosalind do so?	130
ROSALIND	By my life, she will do as I do.
ORLANDO	O, but she is wise.
ROSALIND	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.
ORLANDO	A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say
	'Wit, whither wilt?'
ROSALIND	Nay, you might keep that cheque for it till you met
	your wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.
ORLANDO	And what wit could wit have to excuse that?
ROSALIND	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 fool!
ORLANDO	For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.	140
ROSALIND	Alas! dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.
ORLANDO	I must attend the duke at dinner: by two o'clock I
	will be with thee again.
ROSALIND	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?
ORLANDO	Ay, sweet Rosalind.
ROSALIND	By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend	150
	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 the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind that
	may be chosen out of the gross band of the
	unfaithful: therefore beware my censure and keep
	your promise.
ORLANDO	With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my
	Rosalind: so adieu.
ROSALIND	Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such
	offenders, and let Time try: adieu.
[Exit ORLANDO]
CELIA	You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate:
	we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your
	head, and show the world what the bird hath done to
	her own nest.	165
ROSALIND	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.
CELIA	Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour
	affection in, it runs out.
ROSALIND	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	174
	because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I
	am in love. I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out
	of the sight of Orlando: I'll go find a shadow and
	sigh till he come.
CELIA	And I'll sleep.
[Exeunt]

Next: As You Like It, Act 4, Scene 2
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Explanatory notes for Act 4, Scene 1
From As You Like It. Ed. Samuel Thurber, Jr. and Louise Wetherbee. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1922.
(Line numbers have been altered.)
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This scene contains a lively passage between Rosalind and Jaques in which Rosalind shows herself better able to cope with Jaques than did even Orlando. The mock courtship naturally follows soon after the scene where the appointment was made, even though the lover is an hour late. No one is surprised at the mock marriage although Celia is a bit shocked.

Line 5. in extremity: extremely given to.

6. modern censure: ordinary judgment.

11. emulation: envy of his rivals. fantastical: imaginative.

13. politic: pretended sympathy for client.

14. nice: finical.

16. simples: herbs.

17. sundry: varied. in which ... rumination: on which my frequent meditation. humorous: moody. Note that this summary of his own brand of melancholy is what you have been led to expect of Jaques, selfish in the extreme.

19. Rosalind's retort hits nearer the mark than she supposes, but she scorns such a mental attitude.

30. lisp ... suits: This means to have an affected manner.

31. disable: abuse.

34. swam ... gondola: Rosalind probably means that he had lived in Venice where he had become experienced in life.

36. Note that Rosalind delays some time in noticing and answering Orlando. Why?

43. clapped: just touched him so that he is not really in love.

50. jointure: settlement.

53. leer: look. Poor Celia is certainly having a stupid time and must be unutterably bored.

59. gravelled: stuck in the sand and therefore stuck here.

60. are out: are at a loss.

61. God warn us: God forbid.

62. cleanliest way: the best way.

70. by attorney: by proxy.

72. videlicet: namely.

78. Troilus: During the Trojan War, Troilus, one of the sons of Priam, fell in love with Cressida. His love was not returned, for Cressida loved Diomedes, a Greek. Therefore Troilus tried to die in battle. Shakespeare uses this story in "Troilus and Cressida" and alludes to it in "Merchant of Venice," where Lorenzo says:

"in such a night
Troilus me thinks mounted the Troy an walls
And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night."

75. Leander, he: A common grammatical error now. Leander was drowned when swimming across the Hellespont after a visit to Hero of Sestos with whom he was in love.

78. Hellespont: The ancient name for the modem Dardanelles. The origin of the name is an interesting story which you should know.

103. go to: come. Are you reminded of a modern slang expression?

111. commission: authority.

124. against: before.

127. like Diana in the fountain: Evidently the Londoners of the day were accustomed to the sight of such a statue.

128. hyen: hyena. If other hyenas do not laugh, those known to dwellers in Arden certainly do. What sort of laughter is meant?

153. pathetical: shocking.

158. religion: observance.

162. simply misused: entirely abused. Celia surely has a right to scold, and yet even she does it laughingly, for it has been a charming scene.

169. bay of Portugal: "still used by sailors to denote that portion of the sea off the coast of Portugal from Oporto to the headlands of Cintra. The water there is excessively deep, and within a distance of forty miles from the shore it attains a depth upwards of 1400 fathoms, which in Shakespeare's time would be practically unfathomable." — Wright.

172. bastard of Venus: Cupid.

173. thought: melancholy. spleen: caprice.

174. abuses: deceives.

177. shadow: a place in the shade.

QUESTIONS

1. What does Jaques especially enjoy in Rosalind? Compare this conversation with those he had with Touchstone and Orlando.

2. Define the melancholy of Jaques as he does himself. Do you regard it as a possible philosophy of life? Has it any modern counterpart?

3. Why does Rosalind keep Orlando waiting before she speaks to him?

4. How do you explain Orlando's apparent enjoyment of these interviews with Ganymede?

5. Describe the action of the mock marriage.

6. What part has Celia been playing? Is she necessary to the scene? What effect would her absence have upon Rosalind?

7. How do you know that Rosalind is excited?

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How to cite the explanatory notes:
Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Eds. Samuel Thurber, Jr. and Louise Wetherbee. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1922. Shakespeare Online. 10 Aug. 2010. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/asu_4_1.html >.

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