Act 4, Scene 1

The Forest of Arden.

[Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES.]
Jaques
1726 I pr'ythee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.
Rosalind
1727 They say you are a melancholy fellow.
Jaques
1728 I am so; I do love it better than laughing.
Rosalind
1729 Those that are in extremity of either are abominable
1730 fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse
1731 than drunkards.
Jaques
1732 Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.
Rosalind
1733 Why then, 'tis good to be a post.
Jaques
1734 I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is
1735 emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the
1736 courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is
1737 ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's,
1738 which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these: but it is
1739 a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted
1740 from many objects: and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my
1741 travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most
1742 humorous sadness.
Rosalind
1743 A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be
1744 sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's;
1745 then to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes
1746 and poor hands.
Jaques
1747 Yes, I have gained my experience.
Rosalind
1748 And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to
1749 make me merry than experience to make me sad; and to travel for
1750 it too.
[Enter ORLANDO.]
Orlando
1751 Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind!
Jaques
1752 Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse.
Rosalind
1753 Farewell, monsieur traveller: look you lisp and wear strange
1754 suits; disable all the benefits of your own country; be out
1755 of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making
1756 you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have
1757 swam in a gondola.
[Exit JAQUES.]
Rosalind
1758 Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been all this while?
1759 You a lover!—An you serve me such another trick, never come
1760 in my sight more.
Orlando
1761 My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.
Rosalind
1762 Break an hour's promise in love! He that will divide a
1763 minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the
1764 thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said
1765 of him that Cupid hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll
1766 warrant him heart-whole.
Orlando
1767 Pardon me, dear Rosalind.
Rosalind
1768 Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I
1769 had as lief be wooed of a snail.
Orlando
1770 Of a snail!
Rosalind
1771 Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries
1772 his house on his head; a better jointure, I think, than you
1773 make a woman: besides, he brings his destiny with him.
Orlando
1774 What's that?
Rosalind
1775 Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholding to
1776 your wives for: but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents
1777 the slander of his wife.
Orlando
1778 Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.
Rosalind
1779 And I am your Rosalind.
Celia
1780 It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of
1781 a better leer than you.
Rosalind
1782 Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour,
1783 and like enough to consent.—What would you say to me now, an
1784 I were your very very Rosalind?
Orlando
1785 I would kiss before I spoke.
Rosalind
1786 Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were
1787 gravelled for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.
1788 Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for
1789 lovers lacking,—God warn us!—matter, the cleanliest shift is
1790 to kiss.
Orlando
1791 How if the kiss be denied?
Rosalind
1792 Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.
Orlando
1793 Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?
Rosalind
1794 Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I
1795 should think my honesty ranker than my wit.
Orlando
1796 What, of my suit?
Rosalind
1797 Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit.
1798 Am not I your Rosalind?
Orlando
1799 I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of
1800 her.
Rosalind
1801 Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.
Orlando
1802 Then, in mine own person, I die.
Rosalind
1803 No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six
1804 thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man
1805 died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had
1806 his brains dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he
1807 could to die before; and he is one of the patterns of love.
1808 Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had
1809 turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for,
1810 good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and,
1811 being taken with the cramp, was drowned; and the foolish
1812 chroniclers of that age found it was—Hero of Sestos. But these
1813 are all lies; men have died from time to time, and worms have
1814 eaten them, but not for love.
Orlando
1815 I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I
1816 protest, her frown might kill me.
Rosalind
1817 By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I
1818 will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition; and
1819 ask me what you will, I will grant it.
Orlando
1820 Then love me, Rosalind.
Rosalind
1821 Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays, and all.
Orlando
1822 And wilt thou have me?
Rosalind
1823 Ay, and twenty such.
Orlando
1824 What sayest thou?
Rosalind
1825 Are you not good?
Orlando
1826 I hope so.
Rosalind
1827 Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?—Come,
1828 sister, you shall be the priest, and marry us.—Give me your
1829 hand, Orlando:—What do you say, sister?
Orlando
1830 Pray thee, marry us.
Celia
1831 I cannot say the words.
Rosalind
1832 You must begin,—'Will you, Orlando'—
Celia
1833 Go to:—Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?
Orlando
1834 I will.
Rosalind
1835 Ay, but when?
Orlando
1836 Why, now; as fast as she can marry us.
Rosalind
1837 Then you must say,—'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.'
Orlando
1838 I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.
Rosalind
1839 I might ask you for your commission; but,—I do take
1840 thee, Orlando, for my husband:—there's a girl goes before the
1841 priest; and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her
1842 actions.
Orlando
1843 So do all thoughts; they are winged.
Rosalind
1844 Now tell me how long you would have her, after you have possessed
1845 her.
Orlando
1846 For ever and a day.
Rosalind
1847 Say "a day," without the "ever." No, no, Orlando: men are
1848 April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when
1849 they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will
1850 be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen;
1851 more clamorous than a parrot against rain; more new-fangled than
1852 an ape; more giddy in my desires than a monkey: I will weep for
1853 nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you
1854 are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when
1855 thou are inclined to sleep.
Orlando
1856 But will my Rosalind do so?
Rosalind
1857 By my life, she will do as I do.
Orlando
1858 O, but she is wise.
Rosalind
1859 Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the wiser,
1860 the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will
1861 out at the casement; shut that, and it will out at the keyhole;
1862 stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.
Orlando
1863 A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say,—'Wit,
1864 whither wilt?'
Rosalind
1865 Nay, you might keep that check for it, till you met your wife's
1866 wit going to your neighbour's bed.
Orlando
1867 And what wit could wit have to excuse that?
Rosalind
1868 Marry, to say,—she came to seek you there. You shall never
1869 take her without her answer, unless you take her without her
1870 tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's
1871 occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will
1872 breed it like a fool.
Orlando
1873 For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.
Rosalind
1874 Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours!
Orlando
1875 I must attend the duke at dinner; by two o'clock I
1876 will be with thee again.
Rosalind
1877 Ay, go your ways, go your ways; I knew what you would
1878 prove; my friends told me as much, and I thought no less:—that
1879 flattering tongue of yours won me:—'tis but one cast away,
1880 and so,—come death!—Two o'clock is your hour?
Orlando
1881 Ay, sweet Rosalind.
Rosalind
1882 By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and
1883 by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot
1884 of your promise, or come one minute behind your hour, I will
1885 think you the most pathetical break-promise, and the most hollow
1886 lover, and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind, that may
1887 be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful: therefore
1888 beware my censure, and keep your promise.
Orlando
1889 With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind: so,
1890 adieu!
Rosalind
1891 Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such
1892 offenders, and let time try: adieu!
[Exit ORLANDO.]
Celia
1893 You have simply misus'd our sex in your love-prate: we must
1894 have your doublet and hose plucked over your head, and show
1895 the world what the bird hath done to her own nest.
Rosalind
1896 O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know
1897 how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded:
1898 my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal.
Celia
1899 Or rather, bottomless; that as fast as you pour affection
1900 in, it runs out.
Rosalind
1901 No; that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of
1902 thought, conceived of spleen, and born of madness; that blind
1903 rascally boy, that abuses every one's eyes, because his own are
1904 out, let him be judge how deep I am in love.—I'll tell thee,
1905 Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando: I'll go find
1906 a shadow, and sigh till he come.
Celia
1907 And I'll sleep.
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1734cultural context
“scholar's melancholy, which is emulation”
Jaques catalogues seven varieties of melancholy matched to seven social roles: the scholar's melancholy is caused by professional envy (emulation); the musician's by wild imagination (fantastical); the courtier's by pride; the soldier's by ambition; the lawyer's by scheming; the lady's by fastidiousness (nice); the lover's by all of these at once. His own he calls a unique compound extracted from wide travel and observation. The seven types mirror the 'seven ages of man' scheme Jaques delivered in 2.7.
historical Melancholy and the malcontent
TLN 1744historical topical
“sold your own lands to see other men's”
Rosalind skewers the fashionable Elizabethan traveller who spent his inheritance touring the Continent to acquire foreign manners and came back with nothing but affectation. The gibe -- 'rich eyes and poor hands' -- was a familiar English criticism: travel was expensive and the returning traveller often had squandered his estate for nothing but a foreign accent and strange clothes.
TLN 1752rhetorical device
“God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse”
When Orlando enters and greets Rosalind in accidentally metrical speech ('Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind!'), Jaques immediately mocks it as 'blank verse' -- unrhymed iambic pentameter, the prestige form of the stage -- and exits, refusing to stay for what will become a love-scene. The joke is one of the play's self-conscious theatrical winks: even the characters can hear when dialogue tips into poetry.
TLN 1753historical topical
“lisp and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits”
Rosalind lists the affectations expected of a returned Continental traveller: adopting a foreign accent ('lisp'), dressing in foreign fashions ('strange suits'), running down everything English ('disable all the benefits of your own country'), and claiming to have ridden in a Venetian gondola -- the tourist's signature experience in Italy. 'Disable' here means belittle or disparage, not prevent.
TLN 1765classical allusion
“Cupid hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant him heart-whole”
Rosalind says that a man who breaks even a tiny fraction of a minute's promise in love has only been touched lightly on the shoulder by Cupid -- the god of love -- and she will guarantee his heart is completely unaffected ('heart-whole'). 'Clapped on the shoulder' was a gesture of mild arrest or notification, so Cupid has barely tapped him; he is not genuinely in love. The jest punctures Orlando's romantic self-image.
classical Cupid's golden and leaden arrows
TLN 1780archaic vocab
“he hath a Rosalind of a better leer than you”
Celia reminds Rosalind-as-'Ganymede' that Orlando's true Rosalind -- the real woman he loves -- has 'a better leer,' meaning a more attractive face or complexion. 'Leer' in Elizabethan English meant appearance, countenance, or complexion, not the sinister sideways glance it means today. Celia is pointing out that the disguised Rosalind is a pale stand-in for herself.
TLN 1787archaic vocab
“gravelled for lack of matter”
'Gravelled' means stuck fast, at a loss, unable to proceed -- like a ship run aground on gravel. Rosalind tells Orlando to speak first and, if he finds himself stumped for words, use the pause to kiss. She then compares him to an orator who, when he loses his place ('when they are out'), buys time by spitting. 'Matter' means subject matter or words; to be 'out' means to have dried up, forgotten one's speech.
TLN 1795wordplay
“my honesty ranker than my wit”
Rosalind says that if a man could not be put at a loss ('out') while standing before his mistress, she would think her own 'honesty' was 'ranker than her wit' -- meaning her chastity was too excessive, too coarse, too gross compared to her cleverness. 'Ranker' plays on two senses: 'more rank' (more overgrown, coarser) and the comparative of 'rank' meaning foul-smelling or excessively strong. The implicit joke is that a woman whose mere presence cannot fluster a man must be undesirably 'rank' in her virtue.
TLN 1797wordplay
“Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit”
When Orlando asks 'What, of my suit?', meaning has he lost his argument or wooing plea, Rosalind makes a pun: he is not stripped of his 'apparel' (clothing), but he is 'out of your suit' -- both 'your case is lost' and 'you are out of your set of clothes.' 'Suit' means both a legal or romantic petition and a matched set of garments. The pun implies Rosalind-as-'Ganymede' is rejecting his suit while winking at the audience about disguise and undressing.
TLN 1803rhetorical device
“die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old”
When Orlando says he will 'die' if refused -- conventional Petrarchan hyperbole where to be denied is to die of love -- Rosalind demolishes the conceit with comic logic. 'Die by attorney' means let someone else die for you by proxy. She then conducts a mock historical survey: in six thousand years (the age of the world by biblical chronology), not one man has actually died of love. Troilus's brains were dashed out by a Greek club; Leander drowned in a cramp. Neither died 'of love' strictly speaking.
historical Petrarch and the Petrarchan lover
TLN 1805classical allusion
“Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club”
Troilus was the Trojan prince who loved the Greek girl Cressida; he became the type of the faithful, suffering romantic hero. Rosalind insists he was killed in battle -- his brains dashed out by a Greek weapon -- not by love, even though he had 'done what he could to die before' (tried every Petrarchan pose of dying for love). Troilus was considered one of the great 'patterns of love,' which is exactly the romantic inflation Rosalind is puncturing.
TLN 1808classical allusion
“Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun”
Leander swam the narrow Hellespont strait each night to visit Hero, his beloved, guided by a lamp in her tower. One stormy night the lamp was blown out; he lost his way and drowned. Rosalind retells the story as pure bathos: Leander did not die for love but because he was a bad swimmer who got a cramp on a hot midsummer night, and the 'foolish chroniclers' who blamed Hero were wrong. The deflation of the most famous love-death in ancient literature drives home her point that 'men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.'
classical Hero and Leander
TLN 1840cultural context
“there's a girl goes before the priest; and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her actions”
After speaking her own marriage vow ('I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband') before the mock-priest Celia has finished the ceremony, Rosalind apologizes with a proverb: a girl runs ahead of the priest, meaning she has jumped the liturgical gun. The joke also glances at the marriage ritual itself, in which the woman spoke second, after the man -- Rosalind, as always, is rushing ahead of convention. 'A woman's thought runs before her actions' was a recognized proverbial idea.
TLN 1847rhetorical device
“men are April when they woo, December when they wed”
Rosalind delivers a rapid-fire antithetical proverb: men are spring (eager, fresh, courtly) while wooing, and winter (cold, settled, indifferent) once married; women are May (in bloom) while still maids, but the sky changes once they are wives. She then launches into a comic catalogue of impossible wifely behaviour she promises to inflict on Orlando -- weeping like Diana in the fountain, laughing like a hyena at wrong moments -- to brace him against the reality of marriage.
TLN 1852classical allusion
“weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain”
Rosalind compares her future wifely tearfulness to Diana weeping in a fountain. This refers to fountain statues of the weeping goddess Diana (the virgin huntress, goddess of the moon) that were common ornaments in Elizabethan gardens and in the fountains of great houses. Diana was associated with the moon and with chastity, and her statue weeping in a fountain was a decorative cliche Rosalind uses to mock her own anticipated melodrama.
classical Diana, virgin goddess of the moon
TLN 1860rhetorical device
“make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out at the casement”
Rosalind uses a sustained architectural metaphor: a woman's wit is so resourceful it cannot be shut in. Bar the main doors and it slips out at the casement window; shut the window and it escapes through the keyhole; stop that and it flies up the chimney with the smoke. The three-stage escalation (a rhetorical tricolon) makes the point through comic accumulation. 'Casement' is a hinged window that opens outward, like a modern French window.
TLN 1879rhetorical device
“'tis but one cast away, and so,—come death!”
After Orlando announces he is leaving for two hours, Rosalind mock-laments in the theatrical language of romantic tragedy: she is 'cast away' (abandoned, ruined) and cries 'come death!' -- an exaggerated Petrarchan death-wish. Having just spent the scene demolishing the cliche that men die of love, she immediately performs it herself, showing that the convention is both absurd and irresistible. The self-parody is the scene's comic apex.
historical Petrarch and the Petrarchan lover
TLN 1889wordplay
“With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind”
Orlando says he will keep his two-o'clock promise with no less 'religion' than if Rosalind were his true Rosalind. 'Religion' here means devotion, conscientious fidelity -- treating a promise as a sacred bond. The word carries a mild irony: Orlando is unknowingly swearing with religious sincerity to a disguised version of the very woman he is pledging fidelity to.
TLN 1894cultural context
“your doublet and hose plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest”
Celia reproves Rosalind for 'misusing' womanhood in her love-talk while disguised as a man. A doublet and hose was the standard Elizabethan male outfit: a close-fitting padded jacket (doublet) and tight-fitting breeches (hose). Celia threatens to strip these off over Rosalind's head, exposing that she is a woman dressed as a man, and 'show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest' -- meaning the bird (Rosalind) has fouled her own nest (dishonoured her sex) with her frank love-talk.
TLN 1901classical allusion
“that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of thought, conceived of spleen, and born of madness”
Rosalind describes Cupid, the god of love, as a 'wicked bastard of Venus' -- calling him illegitimate because in some classical traditions his father was uncertain. He was 'begot of thought' (born from the mind's fantasy), 'conceived of spleen' (the spleen being the Elizabethan seat of sudden impulse and passion), and 'born of madness.' He is blind ('his own are out'), which is why he makes fools of everyone else's eyes by shooting them with love against their better judgment.
classical Cupid's golden and leaden arrows