Act 4, Scene I

SCENE I. The forest.

Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES
JAQUES
I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted
with thee.

ROSALIND
They say you are a melancholy fellow.

JAQUES
I am so; I do love it better than laughing.

ROSALIND
Those that are in extremity of either are abominable
fellows and betray themselves to every modern
censure worse than drunkards.

JAQUES
Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.

ROSALIND
Why then, 'tis good to be a post.

JAQUES
I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is
emulation, nor the musician's, which is fantastical,
nor the courtier's, which is proud, nor the
soldier's, which is ambitious, nor the lawyer's,
which is politic, nor the lady's, which is nice, nor
the lover's, which is all these: but it is a
melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples,
extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry's
contemplation of my travels, in which my often
rumination wraps me m a most humorous sadness.

ROSALIND
A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to
be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see
other men's; then, to have seen much and to have
nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

JAQUES
Yes, I have gained my experience.

ROSALIND
And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have
a fool to make me merry than experience to make me
sad; and to travel for it too!

Enter ORLANDO

ORLANDO
Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!

JAQUES
Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse.

Exit

ROSALIND
Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and
wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your
own country, be out of love with your nativity and
almost chide God for making you that countenance you
are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a
gondola. Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been
all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such
another trick, never come in my sight more.

ORLANDO
My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.

ROSALIND
Break an hour's promise in love! He that will
divide a minute into a thousand parts and break but
a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the
affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid
hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant
him heart-whole.

ORLANDO
Pardon me, dear Rosalind.

ROSALIND
Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I
had as lief be wooed of a snail.

ORLANDO
Of a snail?

ROSALIND
Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he
carries his house on his head; a better