William Shakespeare: As You Like It

ACT III. 2. SCENE II. The Forest of Arden. (continued)

TOUCHSTONE.
That is another simple sin in you: to bring the ewes
and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the
copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a bell-wether; and to betray
a she-lamb of a twelvemonth to crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram,
out of all reasonable match. If thou be'st not damned for this,
the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how
thou shouldst 'scape.

CORIN.
Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother.

[Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper.]

ROSALIND.
  'From the east to western Ind,
  No jewel is like Rosalind.
  Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
  Through all the world bears Rosalind.
  All the pictures fairest lin'd
  Are but black to Rosalind.
  Let no face be kept in mind
  But the fair of Rosalind.'

TOUCHSTONE.
I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners, and
suppers, and sleeping hours excepted. It is the right
butter-women's rank to market.

ROSALIND.
Out, fool!

TOUCHSTONE.
For a taste:--
  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.