Scene I. The forest.
AYLI IV. 1 Enter Rosalind, Celia, and Jaques.
[001] Jaq. I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.
Ros. They say you are a melancholy fellow.
Jaq. I am so; I do love it better than laughing.
005 Ros. Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than drunkards.
Jaq. Why, ’tis good to be sad and say nothing.
Ros. Why then, ’tis good to be a post.
010 Jaq. I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician’s, which is fantastical; nor the courtier’s, which is proud; nor the soldier’s, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer’s, which is politic; nor the lady’s, which is nice; nor the lover’s, which is all these: but it is a 015 melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects; and indeed the sundry contemplation [017] of my travels, in which my often rumination [018] wraps me in a most humorous sadness.
Ros. A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason 020 to be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men’s; then, to have seen much, and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.