As You Like It (Act 3 Scene II) PART 1

CORIN: Here comes young master Ganymede, my new Mistress’s Brother. From the east to western Ind,no jewel is like Rosalind, Her worth being mounter on the wind, through all the world bears Rosalind. All the pictures fairest Lined, are but black to Rosalind. Let no face be kept in mind, but the fair of Rosalind.
TS: I’ll rhyme you so, eight years together; dinners, and suppers, and sleeping hours excepted: it is the right Butter-Women’s rank to Market. Out, fool!
TS: 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. Wintered Garments must be lined, so must slender Rosalind. They that reap must sheaf and bind, then to cart with Rosalind. Sweetest nut, hath sourest rind, 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 your self with them? Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.
TS: Truly, the tree yields bad fruit. I’ll graft it with you and then I shall graft it with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit i’th’ country, for you’ll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that’s the right virtue of the medlar.
TS: You have said: but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge. Peace, here comes my sister reading, stand aside.
C: 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 manruns 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: But upon the fairest boughs, or at every sentence end; Will I Rosalinda write, teaching all that read, to knowThe quintessence of every sprite, heaven would in little show. Therefore heaven nature charged, that one body should be filledWith all Graces wide enlarged, nature presently distilledHelen’s cheek, but not her heart, Cleopatra’s majesty:Atalanta’s better part, sad Lucretia’s Modesty. Thus Rosalind of many parts, 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. O most gentle Jupiter, what tedious homily of Love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried, “have patience good people.”
C: How now? Back, friends: Shepard, go off a little: go with him sirrah. TS: Come Shepard, let us make an honorable retreat, though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage. C: Didst thou hear these verses? O yes, I heard them all, and more too, for some of them had in them more feet than the Verses would bear.
C: That’s no matter: the feet might bear the verses. Aye, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.
C: But didst thou hear without wondering, how thy name should be hanged and carved upon these trees? I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder, before you came: for look here what I found on a Palm tree; I was never so berhymed since Pythagoras’ time that I was an irish rat, which I can hardly remember.
C: Trow you, who hath done this? Is it a man?
And a chain that you once wore about his neck: change you color? I prithee, who?
O Lord, Lord, it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but Mountains may be removed with Earth-quakes, and so encounter. Nay, but who is it?
Is it possible? Nay, I prithee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is.
C: O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful – wonderful and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all hoping. Good my complexion, dost thou think though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet adn hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more, is a South-sea of discovery. I prithee tell me, who it is quickly, and speak apace: I would thou couldst stammer, that thou mightst power 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.
S: So you may put a man in your belly. Is he of God’s making? What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat? Or his chin worth a beard?
C: Nay, he hath but a little beard. Why God will send more, if the man will be thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin.
C: It is young Orlando, that tripped up the Wrestler’s heels, and your hear, both in an instant. Nay, but the devil take mocking: speak sad brow, and true maid.
C: I’faith Cos, ’tis he. Orlando?
C: Orlando. Alas the day, what shall I do with my doublet and hose? What did he when thou sawst 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 on word.
C: You must borrow me Gargantua’s mouth first: ’tis a Word too great for any mouth of this Age’s size, to say aye and no, to these particulars, is more than to answer in a Catechism. But doth he know that I am in this forest, and in man’s apparel? Look he as freshly, as he did the day he Wrestled?
C: It is as easy to count Atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover: but take a taste of my finding him, and relish it with good observance. I found him under a tree like a dropped Acorn. It may well be called Jove’s tree, when it drops forth such fruit.
C: Give me audience, good Madam. Proceed.
C: There lay he stretched along like a Wounded knight. Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground.
C: Cry holla, to the tongue, I prithee: it curvets unseasonably. He was furnished like a Hunter. O ominous, he comes to kill my heart.
C: I would sing my song without a burden, thou bringst me out of tune. Do you not know I am a woman, when I think, I must speak: sweet, say on.
C: You bring me out. Soft, comes he not here? ‘Tis he, slink by, and note him.
July 4, 2019