Love's Labour's Lost (version 2) - Free Audiobook

000 Scene II. The Forest.

AYLI III. 2 Enter Orlando, with a paper.

Orl.

Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love:

And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey

With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,

Thy huntress’ name that my full life doth sway.

005 O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books

And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character;

That every eye which in this forest looks

Shall see thy virtue witness’d every where.

Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree

010 The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she. [Exit.

Enter Corin and Touchstone.

011 Cor. And how like you this shepherd’s life, Master Touchstone?

Touch. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd’s life, it is naught. 015 In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more 020 plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?

Cor. No more but that I know the more one sickens the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, means and content is without three good friends; that the property 025 of rain is to wet and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may 028 complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.

Touch. Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever 030 in court, shepherd?

Cor. No, truly.

Touch. Then thou art damned.

033 Cor. Nay, I hope.

Touch. Truly, thou art damned like an ill-roasted egg, 035 all on one side.

Cor. For not being at court? Your reason.

Touch. Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never sawest good manners; if thou never sawest good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, 040 and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.

041 Cor. Not a whit, Touchstone: those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not at the court, but you kiss your hands: 045 that courtesy would be uncleanly, if courtiers were shepherds.

Touch. Instance, briefly; come, instance.

Cor. Why, we are still handling our ewes, and their fells, you know, are greasy.

Touch. Why, do not your courtier’s hands sweat? and 050 is not the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance, I say; come.

Cor. Besides, our hands are hard.

Touch. Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow 054 again. A more sounder instance, come.

055 Cor. And they are often tarred over with the surgery of 056 our sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier’s hands are perfumed with civet.

Touch. Most shallow man! thou worms-meat, in respect 059 of a good piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the wise, and 060 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.

065 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 070 ewes and the rams together and to offer to get your living 071 by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a bell-wether, and to betray a she-lamb 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 075 no shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst ’scape.

076 Cor. Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new 077 mistress’s brother.

Enter Rosalind, with a paper, reading.

Ros.

078 From the east to western Ind,

No jewel is like Rosalind.

080 Her worth, being mounted on the wind,

Through all the world bears Rosalind.

082 All the pictures fairest lined

Are but black to Rosalind.

084 Let no face be kept in mind

085 But the fair of Rosalind.

Touch. I’ll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted: it is the right 088 butter-women’s rank to market.

Ros. Out, fool!

090 Touch. For a taste:

If a hart do lack a hind,

Let him seek out Rosalind.

If the cat will after kind,

So be sure will Rosalind.

095 Winter garments must be lined,

So must slender Rosalind.

They that reap must sheaf and bind;

Then to cart with Rosalind.

099 Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,

100 Such a nut is Rosalind.

He that sweetest rose will find,

Must find love’s prick and Rosalind.

This is the very false gallop of verses: why do you infect yourself with them?

105 Ros. Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.

Touch. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.

Ros. I’ll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit i’ the country; for you’ll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that’s the 110 right virtue of the medlar.

Touch. You have said; but whether wisely or no, let 112 the forest judge.

Enter Celia, with a writing.

113 Ros. Peace!

Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside.

Cel. [reads]

115 Why should this a 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

120 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:

125 But upon the fairest boughs,

Or at every sentence end,

Will I Rosalinda write,

Teaching all that read to know

129 The quintessence of every sprite

130 Heaven would in little show.

131 Therefore Heaven Nature charged

That one body should be fill’d

With all graces wide-enlarged:

Nature presently distill’d

135 Helen’s cheek, but not her heart,

Cleopatra’s majesty,

Atalanta’s better part,

Sad Lucretia’s modesty.

Thus Rosalind of many parts

140 By heavenly synod was devised;

Of many faces, eyes and hearts,

To have the touches dearest prized.

Heaven would that she these gifts should have,

And I to live and die her slave.

145 Ros. O most gentle pulpiter! what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never 147 cried ‘Have patience, good people’!

148 Cel. How now! back, friends! Shepherd, go off a little. Go with him, sirrah.

150 Touch. Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip 152 and scrippage. [Exeunt Corin and Touchstone.

153 Cel. Didst thou hear these verses?

Ros. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some 155 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.

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

162 Ros. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder 163 before you came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree. 164 I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras’ time, 165 that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember.

Cel. Trow you who hath done this?

Ros. Is it a man?

168 Cel. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck. 169 Change you colour?

170 Ros. I prithee, 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?

175 Cel. Is it possible?

Ros. Nay, I prithee now with most petitionary vehemence, 177 tell me who it is.

Cel. O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all 180 hooping!

181 Ros. Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I 182 am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in 183 my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South-sea of 184 discovery; I prithee, tell me who is it quickly, and speak 185 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 none at all. I prithee, take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.

190 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 195 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 200 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 205 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.

210 Cel. You must borrow me Gargantua’s mouth first: ’tis a word too great for any mouth of this age’s size. To say 212 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 215 man’s apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he 216 wrestled?

217 Cel. It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover; but take a taste of my finding him, 219 and relish it with good observance. I found him under a 220 tree, like a dropped acorn.

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

Cel. Give me audience, good madam.

Ros. Proceed.

225 Cel. There lay he, stretched along, like a wounded knight.

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

229 Cel. Cry ‘holla’ to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets 230 unseasonably. He was furnished like a hunter.

231 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, 235 I must speak. Sweet, say on.

236 Cel. You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here?

Enter Orlando and Jaques.

Ros. Tis he: slink by, and note him.

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

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

242 Jaq. God buy 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 245 in their barks.

246 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.

250 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.

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

258 Orl. Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, 259 from whence you have studied your questions.

260 Jaq. You have a nimble wit: I think ’twas 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, 264 against whom I know most faults.

265 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 seeking for a fool when I found you.

270 Orl. He is drowned in the brook: look but in, and you shall see him.

Jaq. There I shall see mine own figure.

Orl. Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.

Jaq. I’ll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good 275 Signior Love.

276 Orl. I am glad of your departure: adieu, good 277 Monsieur Melancholy. [Exit Jaques.

Ros. [Aside to Celia] I will speak to him like a saucy lackey, and under that habit play the knave with him. Do 280 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.

285 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?

290 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.

294 Orl. I prithee, who doth he trot withal?

295 Ros. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized: 297 if the interim be but a se’nnight, Time’s pace is so hard 298 that it seems the length of seven year.

299 Orl. Who ambles Time withal?

300 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 305 penury: these Time ambles withal.

306 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.

309 Orl. Who stays it still withal?

310 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 315 of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.

Orl. Are you native of this place?

317 Ros. As the cony that you see dwell where she is kindled.

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

320 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 323 there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures 324 against it, and I thank God I am not a woman, to be 325 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 330 one another as half-pence are, every one fault seeming 331 monstrous till his fellow-fault came to match it.

Orl. I prithee, 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 335 our young plants with carving Rosalind on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles; all, 337 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.

340 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 344 rushes I am sure you are not prisoner.

345 Orl. What were his marks?

346 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 349 not; but I pardon you for that, for simply your having in 350 beard is a younger brother’s revenue: then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation; but you are no such man; 354 you are rather point-device in your accoutrements as loving 355 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 360 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 365 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.

Ros. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and 370 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?

Ros. Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine 375 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 380 passion truly any thing, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour: would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from 384 his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness; 385 which was, to forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as 388 clean as a sound sheep’s heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in’t.

390 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.

395 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.

Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, 400 will you go? [Exeunt.