As You Like It
Act III, Scene 4
Another part of the Forest of Arden.
Viola Allen as Rosalind
James Samuel Windeatt, circa 1900
- Enter Rosalind and Celia.
Rosalind
1- Never talk to me, I will weep.
Celia
2 - 3- Do, I prithee, but yet have the grace to consider that tears
- do not become a man.
Rosalind
4- But have I not cause to weep?
Celia
5- As good cause as one would desire, therefore weep.
Rosalind
6- His very hair is of the dissembling color.
Celia
7 - 8- Something browner than Judas’s. Marry, his kisses are
- Judas’s own children.
Rosalind
9- I’ faith, his hair is of a good color.
Celia
10- An excellent color. Your chestnut was ever the only color.
Rosalind
11 - 12- And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy
- bread.
Celia
13 - 15- He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana. A nun of
- winter’s sisterhood kisses not more religiously, the very
- ice of chastity is in them.
Rosalind
16 - 17- But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes
- not?
Celia
18- Nay certainly there is no truth in him.
Rosalind
19- Do you think so?
Celia
20 - 22- Yes, I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer, but
- for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a
- cover’d goblet or a worm-eaten nut.
Rosalind
23- Not true in love?
Celia
24- Yes, when he is in—but I think he is not in.
Rosalind
25- You have heard him swear downright he was.
Celia
26 - 29- “Was” is not “is.” Besides, the oath of a lover is no
- stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the
- confirmer of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest
- on the Duke your father.
Rosalind
30 - 33- I met the Duke yesterday, and had much question with him. He
- ask’d me of what parentage I was. I told him of as good as
- he, so he laugh’d and let me go. But what talk we of
- fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando?
Celia
34 - 39- O, that’s a brave man! He writes brave verses, speaks brave
- words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite
- traverse, athwart the heart of his lover, as a puisne
- tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his
- staff like a noble goose. But all’s brave that youth mounts
- and folly guides. Who comes here?
- Enter Corin.
Corin
40 - 44- Mistress and master, you have oft inquired
- After the shepherd that complain’d of love,
- Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
- Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
- That was his mistress.
Celia
45- Well; and what of him?
Corin
46 - 50- If you will see a pageant truly play’d
- Between the pale complexion of true love
- And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,
- Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you,
- If you will mark it.
Rosalind
51 - 54- O, come, let us remove,
- The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
- Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
- I’ll prove a busy actor in their play.
- Exeunt.
Rosalind and Celia
Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, 1919