Orl. Is't possible that, on so little acquaintance, you should like her? that, but seeing, you should love her? and, loving, woo? and, wooing, she should grant? and will you perséver to enjoy her?

Oli. Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden consenting; but say with me, I love Aliena; say with her, that she loves me; consent with both, that we may enjoy each other: it shall be to your good; for my father's house, and all the revenue that was old Sir Roland's, will I estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.

Orl. You have my consent. Let your wedding be to morrow: thither will I invite the Duke, and all's contented followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for, look you, here comes my Rosalind.

Enter ROSALIND.

Ros. God save you, brother.

Oli. And you, fair sister.1

[Exit.

Ros. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf!

Orl. It is my arm.

Ros. I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion.

Orl. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.

Ros. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon when he show'd me your handkercher?

1 Oliver has before this learnt from Celia the whole secret of who Ganymede and Aliena are. Hence he calls Rosalind "sister" here, well knowing that Orlando will understand him as referring to the character she is sustaining in her masked courtship..

Orl. Ay, and greater wonders than that. Ros. O, I know where you are: nay, 'tis true: there was never any thing so sudden, but the fight of two rams, and Cæsar's thrasonical2 brag of-I came, saw, and overcame for your brother and my sister no sooner met, but they look'd; no sooner look'd, but they loved; no sooner loved, but they sigh'd; no sooner sigh'd, but they ask'd one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason, but they sought the remedy: and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent,3 or else be incontinent before marriage: they are in the very wrath of love, and they will together; clubs cannot part them.4

Orl. They shall be married to-morrow; and I will bid the Duke to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes! By so much the more shall I to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall think my brother happy in having what he wishes for.

Ros. Why, then to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?

Orl. I can live no longer by thinking.

Ros. I will weary you, then, no longer with idle talking. Know of me, then, - for now I speak to some purpose,

2 Thrasonical is from Thraso, the name of a bragging, vain-glorious soldier in one of Terence's comedies. The famous dispatch, veni, vidi, vici, which Julius Cæsar was alleged to have sent to Rome, announcing his great and swift victory in the battle of Zela in Pontus, is the matter referred to.

8 Incontinent here signifies immediately, without any stay.

4 It was a common custom in Shakespeare's time, on the breaking out of a fray, to call out, "clubs, clubs," to part the combatants. It was the popular cry to call forth the London apprentices. So, in The Renegado, i. 3: “If he were in London among the clubs, up went his heels for striking of a prentice." The matter is well set forth in Scott's Fortunes of Nigel.

that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: 5 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 to-morrow human as she is, and without any danger.

Orl. Speak'st thou in sober meaning?

Ros. By my life, I do; which, I tender dearly, though I say I am a magician.8 Therefore, put you in your best array, bid your friends; for, if you will be married to-morow, you shall; and to Rosalind, if you will. Look, here comes a lover of mine, and a lover of hers.

Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE.

Phe. Youth, you have done me much ungentleness, To show the letter that I writ to you.

5 Conceit was used of all the forms of mental action, and always in a good Here it means sense, judgment, or understanding. Wit, also, was used in a similar largeness of meaning.

sense.

• In Shakespeare's time, the practice of magic was held to be criminal, or damnable, and was punishable with death. Rosalind means that her preceptor, though a magician, used magic only for honest and charitable ends; such a pure and benevolent magician, perhaps, as the Poet shows us in Prospero.

7 That is, Rosalind her very self, and not a mere phantom of her, conjured up by magic rites, such as it was dangerous to practise.

8 She alludes to the danger in which her avowal of practising magic, had it been serious, would have involved her.

Ros. I care not, if I have; it is my study
To seem despiteful and ungentle to you.
You are there follow'd by a faithful shepherd:
Look upon him, love him; he worships you.

Phe. Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.
Sil. It is to be all made of sighs and tears;

And so am I for Phebe.

Phe. And I for Ganymede.

Orl. And I for Rosalind.

Ros. And I for no woman.

Sil. It is to be all made of faith and service; And so am I for Phebe.

Phe. And I for Ganymede.

Orl. And I for Rosalind.

Ros. And I for no woman.

Sil. It is to be all made of fantasy,

All made of passion, and all made of wishes;

All adoration, duty, and observance,

All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all endurance;

And so am I for Phebe.

Phe. And so am I for Ganymede.

Orl. And so am I for Rosalind.

Ros. And so am I for no woman.

Phe. [To Ros.] If this be so, why blame you me to love you ?9

Sil. [To PHE.] If this be so, why blame you me to love you?

Orl. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?

Ros. Who do you speak to, Why blame you me to love you?
Orl. To her that is not here, nor doth not hear.
Ros. Pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling of

9" For loving you." Still another gerundial infinitive.

if I can :

Irish wolves against the Moon.10-[To SIL.] I will help you, -[To PHE.] I would love you, if I could. — Tomorrow meet me all together. [To PHE.] I will marry you, if ever I marry woman, and I'll be married to-morrow: [To ORL.] I will satisfy you, if ever I satisfy man, and you shall be married to-morrow :- [To SIL.] I will content you, if what pleases you contents you, and you shall be married to-morrow. [To ORL.] As you love Rosalind, meet: [To SIL.] As you love Phebe, meet: and as I love no woman, I'll meet. - So, fare you well: I have left you commands. Sil. I'll not fail, if I live.

Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY.

Touch. To-morrow is the joyful day, Audrey; to-morrow will we be married.

Aud. I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is no dishonest desire, to desire to be a woman of the world.1 Here come two of the banish'd Duke's pages.

10 This howling was probably rather monotonous and dismal. So in Lodge's tale: "I tell thee, Montanus, in courting Phoebe thou barkest with the wolves of Syria against the moon." Wolves held their ground in Ireland until a recent period. In Spenser's View of the State of Ireland, 1596, we have the following: "Also the Scythians said, that they were once every year turned into wolves, and so is it written of the Irish: though Mr. Camden in a better sense doth suppose it was a disease, called Lycanthropia, so named of the wolf."

1 "To be a woman of the world" was to be a married woman, as opposed to being a woman of the Church, which implied a vow of perpetual celibacy. So we have the phrase of "going to the world," for getting married, in contradistinction to becoming a monk or a nun. See vol. iv., page 182, note 28.