Sir Oli. 'Tis no matter; ne'er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling. [Exit.

SCENE IV. The same. Before a Cottage.

Enter ROSALIND and CELIA.

Ros. Never talk to me, I will weep.

Cel. Do, I pr'ythee; but yet have the grace to consider, that tears do not become a man.

Ros. But have I not cause to weep?

Cel. As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.

Ros. His very hair is of the dissembling colour. Cel. Something browner than Judas's1: marry, his kisses are Judas's own children.

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

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

Ros. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.

Cel. 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 2.

Ros. But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not?

Cel. Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.

1 It has been already observed, in a note on The Merry Wives of Windsor, that Judas was constantly represented in old paintings and tapestry, with red hair and beard. So in The Insatiate Countess :

'I ever thought by his red beard he would prove a Judas.'

2 Surely this speech is sufficiently intelligible without the blundering of Theobald or the pedantic refinement of Warburton? There is humour in the expression cast lips; which Theobald rightly explained left off, as we still say cast clothes. Who would ever dream of taking this figurative passage in its literal meaning? The nun of winter's sisterhood with the very ice of chastity in her lips, needs no explanation.

Ros. Do you think so?

Cel. 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.

Ros. Not true in love?

Cel. Yes, when he is in; but, I think he is not in. Ros. You have heard him swear downright, he was. Cel. Was is not is: besides the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmers of false reckonings: He attends here in the forest on the duke your father.

Ros. I met the duke yesterday, and had much question3 with him. He asked 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?

Cel. 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 lover5; as a puny 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?

3 Question is conversation.

4 When the tilter by unsteadiness or awkwardness suffered his spear to be turned out of its direction, and to be broken across the body of his adversary, instead of by the push of the point, it was held very disgraceful. Sir Philip Sidney alludes to this in the mock combat of Clinias and Damætas in the Arcadia; and in the following verses,

'One said he brake across, full well it might so be-' the lover and the tilter are compared; as the one brakes staves, the other breaks oaths.

5 i.e. mistress. So in Measure for Measure:

'Your brother and his lover have embraced.'

6 Sir Thomas Hanmer proposed to read 'nose-quilled goose,' which has received some support from Farmer and Steevens.

Enter CORIN.

Cor. 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.

Cel.

Well, and what of him?

Cor. 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.

Ros.
O, come, let us remove;
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love:-
Bring us unto this sight, and you shall
I'll prove a busy actor in their play.

say

[Exeunt.

SCENE V. Another part of the Forest.

Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE.

Sil. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe: Say, that you love me not; but say not so

In bitterness. The common executioner, Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard,

Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck,

But first begs pardon; Will you sterner be
Than he that dies and lives 1 by bloody drops?

Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, at a
distance.

Phe. I would not be thy executioner:
I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.

1 i. e. he who, to the very end of life, continues a common executioner. So in the second Scene of Act v. of this play: live and die a shepherd.'

Thou tell'st me, there is murder in mine eye: 'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,

That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies,—
Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!
Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
And, if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee;
Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down;
Or, if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.

Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee:
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush,
The cicatrice and palpable impressure

Thy palm some moment keeps: but now mine eyes,
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;

Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes

That can do hurt.

Sil.

O dear Phebe,

If ever, (as that ever may be near,)

You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy3, Then shall you know the wounds invisible

That love's keen arrows make.

Phe.

But, till that time,

Come not thou near me: and, when that time comes, Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;

As, till that time, I shall not pity thee.

Ros. And why, I pray you? [Advancing.] Who might be your mother,

That you insult, exult, and all at once,

2 The cicatrice and palpable impressure.' The old copy reads 'capable impressure.' I think it is evident we should read palpable. For no one can surely be satisfied with the strained explanations offered by Johnson and Malone. Cicatrice, however improperly, is used for skin mark, which is in fact a scar, though not an indelible one.

3 Love.

Over the wretched? What though? you have no beauty+,

(As, by my faith, I see no more in you
Than without candle may go dark to bed,)
Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
I see no more in you, than in the ordinary
Of nature's sale-work:-Od's my little life!
I think she means to tangle my eyes too:-
No, 'faith, proud mistress, hope not after it;
'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk-hair,
Your bugle eye-balls, nor your cheek of cream,
That can entame my spirits to your worship.-
You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?
You are a thousand times a properer man,
Than she a woman: 'Tis such fools as you,
That make the world full of ill-favour'd children:
'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;
And out of you she sees herself more proper,
Than any of her lineaments can show her.
But, mistress, know yourself; down on your knees,
And thank heaven fasting, for a good man's love:

What though? you have no beauty.' This is the reading of the old copy, which Malone thought erroneous, and proposed to read mo' beauty; Steevens adopted his emendation, and reads more. This is certainly wrong; the whole of Rosalind's spirited address to Phebe tends to the disparagement of her beauty, and whoever reads it with attention will conclude with me that the old copy is right. Some one suggested to Theobald that no should be omitted, and in this Mr. Douce concurs. It is true this omission would correct the redundancy in the line, and is altogether better than Malone's arbitrary change; yet upon the whole I am persuaded that the negative particle is Shakspeare's, and that it was intended to be emphatic. What though? is an elliptical interrogation, much in the spirit of Rosalind's railing, and is again used in A Midsummer Night's Dream :

'What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?