AS YOU LIKE IT
Page: 29

If a hart do lack a hind,
Let him seek out Rosalind.
If the cat will after kind,
So be sure will Rosalind.
Winter garments must be lin'd,
So must slender Rosalind.
They that reap must sheaf and bind,--
Then to cart with Rosalind.
Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
Such a nut is Rosalind.
He that sweetest rose will find
Must find love's prick, and Rosalind.

This is the very false gallop of verses: why do you infect
yourself with them?

ROSALIND.
Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.

TOUCHSTONE.
Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.

ROSALIND.
I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a
medlar. Then it will be the earliest fruit in the country:
for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right
virtue of the medlar.

TOUCHSTONE.
You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge.

[Enter CELIA, reading a paper.]

ROSALIND.
Peace!
Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside.

CELIA.
'Why should this a desert be?
For it is unpeopled? No;
Tongues I'll hang on every tree
That shall civil sayings show:
Some, how brief the life of man
Runs his erring pilgrimage,
That the streching of a span
Buckles in his sum of age.
Some, of violated vows
'Twixt the souls of friend and friend;
But upon the fairest boughs,
Or at every sentence end,
Will I Rosalinda write,
Teaching all that read to know
The quintessence of every sprite
Heaven would in little show.
Therefore heaven nature charg'd
That one body should be fill'd
With all graces wide-enlarg'd:
Nature presently distill'd
Helen's cheek, but not her heart;
Cleopatra's majesty;
Atalanta's better part;
Sad Lucretia's modesty.
Thus Rosalind of many parts
By heavenly synod was devis'd,
Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,
To have the touches dearest priz'd.
Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
And I to live and die her slave.'

ROSALIND.
O most gentle Jupiter!--What tedious homily of love have