As You Like It

Please, pretty young man, I’d like to get to know you better.

They say you are a melancholy fellow.

I am. I like it better than laughing.

People who are either too serious or too silly are awful. They make themselves targets for ridicule even faster than drunks do.

Well, I think it’s good to be serious and keep quiet.

In that case it’s good to be a post.

I’m not a scholar’s kind of melancholy, which is all about impressing one’s peers, or a musician’s, which comes from his passion for his art. I don’t have the proud melancholy of a courtier or the ambitious melancholy of a soldier or the calculated melancholy of a lawyer. My melancholy is not like a lady’s—which is nothing more than an affectation—nor like a lover’s, which combines all of these qualities. My melancholy is purely my own—a compound made from many ingredients. I’m serious because I’ve traveled so much. When I think about all the things I’ve seen, I sink into deep thoughts.

You’re a traveler. Well then, you have good reason to be sad. I’m afraid you’ve sold your own land to see other men’s. To have seen much but own nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

Not true. I gained my experience.

And your experience makes you sad. I’d rather have a jester to make me happy than experience to make me sad—and to travel for all that trouble, no less!

Good day and happiness to you, darling Rosalind.

No—I’ll say goodbye if you’re going to talk in blank verse.

Goodbye, Mr. Traveler. Make sure to keep up your foreign accent, wear strange clothes, belittle all the benefits you receive from your native land and fall out of love with it, and nearly curse God for making you look like the Englishman you are, or else I’ll never believe you’ve paddled in a gondola in a Venetian canal, as you say you have.

(as Ganymede pretending to be ROSALIND) What’s going on, Orlando? Where have you been all this time? And you call yourself a lover? If you ever insult me like this again, don’t bother coming around here again.

My beautiful Rosalind, I’m only an hour late.

You’d break a date with your beloved by a whole hour? A man who will dare to meet his lover even a thousandth part of a minute late—well, it’s possible he likes her, but I doubt he really loves the woman.

Forgive me, darling Rosalind.

No, if you’re ever late like this again, I’ll refuse to see you. I’d rather be wooed by a snail.

A snail?

Yes, a snail. Because even though he’s slow, he carries his house on his head—a better offer than you can make a woman, I think. Besides, he brings his fate with him.

What fate is that?

Why, his cuckold’s horns, of course—the kind you men are always blaming on your wives. See, the snail already has its horns, which prevents nasty rumors from spreading about his wife’s infidelity.

A virtuous woman won’t give her husband horns, and my Rosalind is definitely virtuous.

And I am your Rosalind.

(as Aliena) He likes calling you that, but he’s got another Rosalind out there with a prettier face.

Come on, woo me, woo me. I’m in a good mood now and likely to give you what you want. What would you say to me now if I really were your precious little Rosalind?

I’d kiss you before I spoke.

No, it would be better to speak first and kiss only after you’ve run out of things to say. When good orators finish talking, they spit; when lovers do (God help us if they ever do), they kiss.

What if she won’t kiss me?

Then she’s making you beg, and that gives you a whole new set of things to talk about.

Who could be out of things to say if he were with the girl he loves?

Indeed, you would be out if I were your mistress—if my chastity is worth as much as my wit.

Would I be out of my suit?

No, you’d still have your clothes on—but, yes, I wouldn’t think much of you. Aren’t I your Rosalind?

I like to pretend you are, because then it’s almost like actually talking to her.

Well, on behalf of Rosalind, I’ll tell you I don’t want you.

Then, on behalf of myself, I’ll tell you I’ll die.

No, you won’t die yourself, but only by proxy. This world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time not one man has ever actually died from love. Troilus may have wanted to die from love, and he’s now considered one of the great, tragic love heroes, but, in fact, a Greek with a club beat his brains out. It had nothing to do with love. Leander would have lived many more years if it hadn’t been for a particularly hot summer night, when he went swimming in the Hellespont, got a cramp, and drowned. The foolish poets of the time insisted he died for love, but they’re lying. All the love stories are lies. Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not because of love.

I hope Rosalind doesn’t feel as you do. Her frown alone would kill me.

No, her frown wouldn’t kill a fly. But come on, now I’ll play your Rosalind, and in a more friendly state of mind. Whatever you ask for, I’ll give.

Then love me, Rosalind.

Okay, I will—on Fridays and Saturdays, and the rest.

And will you have me?

Sure, and twenty others just like you.

What’s that?

Well, aren’t you a good man?

I hope so.

And can a person ever have too much of a good thing?—Come on, sister, you can be the priest and marry us.—Give me your hand, Orlando.—What do you say, sister?

Please, marry us.

I can’t say the words.

You just have to say, “Do you, Orlando—”

Oh, stop it.—Do you, Orlando, take Rosalind to be your lawfully wedded wife?

I do.

Okay, but when?

Right now; as fast as she can say the vows.

Then you have to say, “I take you, Rosalind, to be my lawfully wedded wife.”

I take you, Rosalind, to be my lawfully wedded wife.

Maybe I should ask you what right you have to take me, but I’ll take you, Orlando, to be my husband. Look, I’ve sped ahead of the priest and answered the question before he even asked. A woman’s thoughts are always running ahead of her actions.

So do all thoughts. They have wings.

Now tell me how long you intend to keep her.

Forever and a day.

You might as well just say for “a day,” and forget the “ever” part. No, Orlando, men are like April when they’re wooing a girl—young, and passionate—but like December once they’re married and their passions have cooled. Women are as sweet and temperate as springtime when they’re single, but the climate changes once they’re married. I’ll be more jealous of you than a wild rooster over his hen; more noisy than a parrot chattering about the rain; more fond of new things than an ape; more giddy about getting what I want than a monkey. I’ll cry at nothing, and I’ll always do it when you’re in a good mood. And when you want to go to sleep, I’ll be up laughing like a hyena.

But will my Rosalind do this, too?

Indeed, she’ll act just like me.

But she is wise.

Right. If she weren’t wise, she wouldn’t be smart enough to behave badly. The wiser the woman, the wilder. If you close the doors on a woman’s wit, it’ll fly out the window. If you shut the windows, it will pour out the keyhole. If you stop up the keyhole, it will escape from the chimney along with the smoke.

A man with a wife like that might ask, “Hey, wandering wit, where are you off to?”

Nah, better save the questions for when you find her in your neighbor’s bed.

And what wit could excuse that?

She’ll say she was at the neighbor’s looking for you. You’ll never find her without an answer unless you find her without a tongue. A woman who doesn’t know how to make her own indiscretions look like her husband’s fault is hardly a woman. And she’s hardly fit to be a mother—her child will turn out to be a fool.

Rosalind, I have to leave you for two hours.

Oh, no! Darling, I can’t live without you for two hours.

I must join the duke for lunch. I’ll be back here with you by two o’clock.

Oh, go, leave me. I knew you’d turn out this way. My friends told me as much, and I knew it, too. But I was won over by your flattering words. I’m just another girl whom you’ve cast aside. So, take me, death! You’ll be back at two o’clock?

Yes, sweet Rosalind.

Honestly, truly, in God’s name, and by all those little girly oaths that don’t actually have any power, if you break even a little bit of your promise, or if you come even a minute after two o’clock, I’ll think you the most pathetic promise breaker, the most lying lover, and the most unworthy partner for Rosalind that could be found anywhere. So beware of my contempt, and keep your promise.

I’ll keep my promise just as if you really were Rosalind. So, goodbye.

Well, time is the old judge that tries your kind of criminal. Time will tell what kind of a man you are. Goodbye.

You have absolutely abused our sex in this love talk of yours. We should rip off your man’s clothing and show the world the woman who has represented her own kind so badly.

Oh cousin, cousin, cousin, my sweet little cousin, I wish you knew how deep in love I am. The bottom of my love is so deep it can’t be reached. It’s as deep as the bay of Portugal.

Or it’s bottomless, at least: pour affection in one end, and it runs out the other.

Cupid—that blind bastard son of Venus, conceived from a thought and anger, born from insanity, that blind, naughty boy who makes everyone else go blind just because he can’t see himself—let Cupid judge how deep my love runs. I’m telling you, Aliena, I can’t stand being apart from Orlando. I’m going to find some shade and sigh until he returns.

And I’m going to sleep.