Rosalind and Celia, also, had come across Jaques, and the latter would willingly have become closer friends with the shepherd youth, but Rosalind’s sunny nature had nothing in sympathy with this cynic.
“They say you are a melancholy fellow,” she said one day, in answer to a suggestion from Jaques that they should become better acquainted.
“I am so; I love it better than laughing,” he replied. “It is good to be sad and say nothing.”
“Why, then, it’s good to be a post,” remarked Rosalind.
There were many different kinds of melancholy, Jaques explained, such as the scholar’s, the musician’s, the courtier’s, the soldier’s, etc.; his, however, was a melancholy of his own, compounded of many different ingredients, but especially due to reflections over his travels.
“Yes, I have gained my experience,” he ended, with mournful satisfaction.
“And your experience makes you sad?” quoth Rosalind. “I would rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad. And to travel for it too!”
But the joyous, free life of the forest was drawing to a close, though much happiness was still in store for those who had wandered there. A day came when Orlando for once failed to keep his tryst. He had left Rosalind, promising to return within an hour, but in his stead there came to the two cousins a stranger bearing a handkerchief stained with blood. Briefly he told his tale. Orlando had been walking through the forest, when he saw a wretched man, ragged and unkempt, sleeping under a tree. Round his neck a green and gilded snake had twined itself, and its head was just poised to strike, when, seeing Orlando, it glided away under a bush. But the peril was not yet over, for under that very bush couched a famished lioness, watching like a cat, to pounce on the sleeping man the moment he should stir. And having seen this, Orlando approached, and found it was his brother—his eldest brother.
Remembering the cruel way in which Oliver had always treated him, his first impulse was to leave him to his fate, but his better nature conquered. Orlando did battle with the lioness, who quickly fell before him.