| Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,/ Hath not old custom made this life more sweet/ Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods/ More free from peril than the envious court?/ Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,/ The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang/ And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,/ Which when it bites and blows upon my body/ Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say/ ‘This is no flattery. These are counsellors/ That feelingly persuade me what I am.’/ Sweet are the uses of adversity/ Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,/ Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;/ And this our life, exempt from public haunt,/ Finds tounges in trees, books in the running brooks,/ Sermons in stones, and good in everything. | Duke Senior (2.1) |
| Alas, what danger will it be to us,/ Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!/ Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. | Rosalind (1.3) |
| Thus must I from the smoke into the smother,/ From tyrant Duke unto a tyrant brother.-/ But heavenly Rosalind! | Orlando (1.2) |
| First, for his weeping into the needless stream;/ ‘Poor deer,’ quoth he, ‘thou mak’st a testament/ As worldlings do, giving thy some of more/ To that which had too much.’ Then being there alone,/ Left and abandoned of his velvet friend,/ ”Tis right,’ quoth he, ‘thus misery doth part/ The flux of company.’ Anon a careless heard/ Full of the pasture jumps along by him/ And never stays to greet him. ‘Ay,’ quoth Jaques,/ ‘Sweep on , you fat and greasy citizens,/ ‘Tis just the fashion. Wherefore do you look/ Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?’/ Thus most invectively he pierceth through/ The body of country, city, court,/ Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we/ Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what’s worse,/ To fright the animals and to kill them up/ In their assigned and native dwelling place. | First Lord (2.1) |
| I remember when I was in love I broke my sword upon a stone and bid him take that for coming a-night to Jane Smile, and I remember the kissing of her batlet, and the cow’s dugs that her pretty chopped hands had milked; and I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her, from whom I took two cods, and giving her them again, said with weeping tears, ‘Wear these for my sake.’ We that are true lovers run into strange capers. But as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly. | Touchstone (2.4) |
| Give me leave/ To speak my mind, and I will through and through/ Cleanse the foul body of th’infected world,/ If they will patiently receive my medicine. | Jaques (2.7) |
| All the world’s a stage,/ And all the men and women merely players./ They have their exits and their entrances,/ And one man in his time plays many parts,/ His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,/ Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms./ Then the whining schoolboy with his satchel/ And shining morning face, creeping like snail/ Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,/ Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad/ Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then, a soldier,/ Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,/ Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,/ Seeking the bubble reputation/ Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,/ In fair round belly with good capon lined,/ With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,/ Full of wise saws and modern instances;/ And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts/ Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,/ With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,/ His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide/ For his shrunk shank, and his big, manly voice,/ Turning again toward childish treble, pipes/ And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,/ That ends this strange, eventful history,/ Is second childishness and mere oblivion,/ Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. | Jaques (2.7) |
| 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 good bushes, and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me. My way is to conjure you; and I’ll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you. And I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women – as I perceive by your simpering none of you hates them – that between you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as has had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me, and breaths that I defied not. And I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths, will for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. | Rosalind (epilogue) |
| (to Orlando) If that you were the good Sir Rowland’s son,/ As you have whispered faithfully you were,/ And as mine eye doth his effigies witness/ Most truly limned and living in your face,/ Be truly welcome hither. I am the Duke/ That loved your father. The residue of your fortune,/ Go to my cave and tell me. (To Adam) Good old man,/ Thou art right welcome, as thy master is. -/ (To Lords) Support him by the arm. (To Orlando) Give me your hand,/ And let me all your fortunes understand. | Duke Senior (2.7) |
| 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 you are; neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in some little measure draw a belief from you to do yourself good, and not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things. I have since I was three year old conversed with a magician, most profound in his art, and yet not damnable. If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries it out, when your brother marries Aliena shall you marry her. I know into what straits of fortune she is driven, and it is not impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient to you, to set her before your eyes tomorrow, human as she is, and without any danger. | Rosalind (5.2) |
| 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, videlicet, 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 chroniclers 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. | Rosalind (4.1) |
| You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate. | Celia (4.1) |
| There was never anything so sudden but the fight of two rams, and Caesar’s thrasonical brag of ‘I came, saw, and overcame’ | Rosalind (5.2) |
‘As You Like It’ key quotes
July 5, 2019