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Rof. Love is meerly a madnefs, and, I tell you, deferves as well a dark houfe and a whip, as mad men do: and the reafon why they are not fo punish'd and cured, is, that the lunacy is fo ordinary, that the whippers are in love too: yet I profefs curing it by counsel. Orla. Did you ever cure any fo?

Rof. Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to ima gine me his love, his mistress: and I fet him every day to wooe me. At which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing, and liking; proud, fantaftical, apifh, fhallow, inconftant, full of tears, full of fmiles; for every paffion fomething, and for no paffion truly any thing, as boys and women are for the moft part cattle of this colour; would now like him, now loath him; then entertain him, then forfwear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my fuitor from his mad humour of love, to a living humour of madnefs; which was, to forfwear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook meerly monaftick; and thus I cur'd him, and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clear as a found fheep's heart, that there shall not be one fpot of love in't.

Orla. I would not be cur'd, youth.

Rof. I would cure you if you would but call me Røfalind, and come every day to my cotte, and wooe me. Orla. Now, by the faith of my love, I will; tell me where it is.

Rof. Go with me to it, and I will fhew it you; and, by the way, you shall tell me where in the Foreft you live: will you go?

Orla. With all my heart, good youth.

Rof. Nay, nay, you must call me Rofalind: come, fifter, will you go?

Enter Clown, Audrey and Jaques.

[Exeunt.

Clo. Come apace, good Audrey, I will fetch up your goats, Audrey; and now, Audrey, am I the man yet? doth my fimple feature content you?

Aud. Your features, lord warrant us; what features?

Clo.

Clo. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet honeft Ovid was among the Goths. Faq. O knowledge ill-inhabited, worfe than Jove in

a thatch'd house!

Clo. When a man's verfes cannot be understood, nor a man's good Wit feconded with the forward child, Understanding; it ftrikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room; truly, I would the Gods had made thee poetical.

Aud. I do not know what poetical is; is it honeft in deed and word; is it a true thing?

Clo. No, truly; for the trueft poetry is the moft feigning; and lovers are given to poetry; and what they fwear in poetry, may be faid, as lovers, they do feign.

Aud. Do you wish then, that the Gods had made me poetical?

Clo. I do, truly; for thou fwear'ft to me, thou art Honeft: now if thou wert a poet, I might have fome hope thou didst feign.

Aud. Would you not have me honeft?

Clo. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favour'd; for honefty coupled to beauty, is, to have honey a fawce to fugar.

Jaq. A material fool!

Aud. Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the

Gods make me honest!

Clo. Truly, and to caft away honefty upon a fouf flut, were to put good meat into an unclean difh.

Aud. I am not a flut, though I thank the Gods I am foul.

Clo. Well, praised be the Gods for thy foulness; fluttishness may come hereafter: but be it as it may be, I will marry thee; and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Mar-text, the vicar of the next village, who hath promis'd to meet me in this place of the foreft, and to couple us.

Faq. I would fain fee this meeting.
Aud. Well, the Gods give us joy.

Clo.

Clo. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, ftagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no affembly but horn-beasts.. But what tho'? courage. As horns are odious, they are neceffary. It is faid, many a man knows no end of his goods: right: many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife, 'tis none of his own getting; horns? even fo poor men alone? no, no, the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal: is the fingle man therefore bleffed? no. As a wall'd town is more worthier than a village, fo is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a batchelor; and by how much defence is better than no skill, fo much is a horn more precious than to want.

Enter Sir Oliver Mar-text.

Here comes Sir Oliver: Sir Oliver Mar-text, you are well met. Will you dispatch us here under this tree, or fhall we go with you to your Chappel?

Sir Oli. Is there none here to give the woman?
Clo. I will not take her on gift of any man.

Sir Oli. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.

Jaq. Proceed, proceed! I'll give her.

Clo. Good even, good mafter what ye call: how do you, Sir? you are very well met: God'ild you for your laft company, I am very glad to fee you; even a toy in hand here, Sir: nay; pray, be covered.

Jaq. Will you be married, Motley?

Clo. As the ox hath his bow, Sir, the horse his curb, and the faulcon his bells, fo man hath his defire; and as pidgeons bill, fo wedlock would be nibling.

Jaq. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bufh like a beggar? get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is this fellow will but join you together, as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a fhrunk pannel, and like green timber, warp, warp.

Clo.

Clo. I am not in the mind, but I were better to be married of him than of another; for he is not like to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good excufe for me hereafter to leave my wife.

Faq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.

Clo. Come, fweet Audrey, we must be married, or we must live in bawdry: farewell, good Mr. Oliver; not O fweet Oliver, O brave Oliver, leave me not behind thee: but wind away, begone I fay, I will not to wedding with thee.

Sir Oli. 'Tis no matter; ne'er a fantastical knave of them all fhall flout me out of my Calling.

[Exeunt. SCENE changes to a Cottage in the Forest.

Rof.

Enter Rofalind and Celia.

Ever talk to me, I will weep.

Cel. Do, I pr'ythee; but yet have the grace to confider, that tears do not become a man. Rof. But have I not caufe to weep?

Cel. As good caufe as one would defire, therefore

weep.

Rof. His very hair is of the diffembling colour.

Cel. Something browner than Judas's: marry, his kiffes are Judas's own children.

Rof. I'faith, his hair is of a good colour.

Cel. An excellent colour: your chefnut was ever the only colour.

Rof. (19) And his kiffing is as full of fanctity, as the touch of holy Beard.

(19) And his kiffing is as full of Sanctity, as the Touch of holy Bread.] The' this be the Reading of the oldest Copies, I have made no Scruple to fubftitute an Emendation of Mr. Warburton, which mightily adds to the Propriety of the Similie. What can the Poet be fuppos'd to mean by holy Bread? Not the Sacramental, fure; that would have been Prophanation, upon a Subject of so much Levity. But holy Beard very beautifully alludes to the Kifs of a holy Saint, which the Antients call'd the Kifs of Charity. And for Rofalind to fay, that Orlando kiss'd as holily as a Saint, renders the Comparison very juft.

Cel.

Cel. (20) He hath bought a pair of caft lips of Diana; a nun of Winter's fifterhood kiffes not more religiously, the very ice of chastity is in them.

Rof. But why did he fwear he would come this morning, and comes not?

Cel. Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.
Rof. Do you think fo?

Cel. Yes, I think, he is not a pick-purfe, 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.

Rof. Not true in love?

Cel. Yes, when he is in; but, I think, he is not in. Rof. You have heard him fwear downright, he was. Cel. Was, is not is; befides, the oath of a lover is no ftronger than the word of a tapfter; they are both the confirmers of false reckonings; he attends here in the Forest on the Duke your Father.

Rof. I met the Duke yesterday, and had much queftion with him: he askt me, of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as he; fo he laugh'd, and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when there is fuch a man as Orlando?

Cel. O, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses, fpeaks brave words, fwears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite travers athwart the heart of his lover; as a puifny tilter, that spurs his horse but one

(20) He hath bought a pair of chaft Lips of Diana; a Nun of Winter's Sifterhood kiffes not more religiously; the very Ice of Chastity is in them] This Pair of chaft Lips is a Corruption as Old as the fecond Edition in Folio; I have rettor'd with the firft Folio, a Pair of caft Lips, i. e. a Pair left off by Diana. Again, what Idea does a Nun of Winter's Sifterhood give us? Tho' I have not ventur'd to disturb the Text, it feems more probable to me that the Poet wrote;

A Nun of Winifred's Sifterhood, &c.

Not, indeed, that there was any real religious Order of that Denomination: but the Legend of St. Winifred is this. She was a Chriftian Virgin at Holywell a fmall Town in Flintshire, fo tenacious of her Chastity, that when a tyrannous Governour laid Siege to her, he could not reduce her to Compliance, but was oblig'd to ravifh, and afterwards beheaded her in Revenge of her Obftinacy. Vid. Cambden's Britannia by Dr. Gibfon. p. 688. This Tradition forts very well with our Poet's Allufion.

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