CELIA.
[Reads.]
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 charged
That one body should be filled
With all graces wide-enlarged.
Nature presently distilled
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 devised,
Of many faces, eyes, and hearts
To have the touches dearest prized.
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 you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried “Have patience, good people!”
CELIA.
How now! Back, friends. Shepherd, go off a little. Go with him, sirrah.
TOUCHSTONE.
Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat, though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.
[Exeunt Corin and Touchstone.]
CELIA.
Didst thou hear these verses?
ROSALIND.
O yes, I heard them all, and more too, for some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.
CELIA.
That’s no matter. The feet might bear the verses.
ROSALIND.
Ay, but the feet were lame and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.
CELIA.
But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be hanged and carved upon these trees?