Cel.

I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.

Ros.

Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banish'd father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.

Cel.

Herein, I see, thou lov'st me not with the full weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the Duke my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine; so wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously temper'd, as mine is to thee.

Ros.

Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to rejoice in yours.

Cel.

You know, my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to have; and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt be his heir; for what he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee again in affection; by mine Honour, I will—and when I break

that oath, let me turn monster. Therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.

Ros.

From henceforth I will, coz, and devise Sports. Let me see—What think you of falling in love?

Cel.

Marry, I pr'ythee, do, to make sport withal; but love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport neither, than with safety of a pure blush thou may'st in honour come off again.

Ros.

What shall be our Sport then?

Cel.

Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel,^{8 note} that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.

Ros.

I would, we could do so; for her benefits are mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women.

Cel.

'Tis true; for those, that she makes fair, she scarce makes honest; and those, that she makes honest, she makes very ill-favoured.

Ros.

Nay, now thou goest from fortune's office to nature's: fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of nature.

Cel.

No! when nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by fortune fall into the fire? Though nature hath given us wit to flout at fortune, hath not fortune sent in this Fool to cut off this argument?

Ros.

Indeed, there is fortune too hard for nature; when fortune makes nature's Natural the cutter off of nature's Wit.

Cel.

Peradventure, this is not fortune's work, neither, but nature's; who, perceiving our natural wits too dull to reason of such Goddesses, hath sent this

Natural for our whetstone: for always the dulness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How now, Wit, whither wander you?

Clo.

Mistress, you must come away to your father.

Cel.

Were you made the messenger?

Clo.

No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you.

Ros.

Where learned you that oath, fool?

Clo.

Of a certain Knight, that swore by his honour they were good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught. Now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught, and the mustard was good, and yet was not the Knight forsworn.

Cel.

How prove you that in the great heap of your knowledge?

Ros.

Ay, marry; now unmuzzle your wisdom.

Clo.

Stand you both forth now; stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.

Cel.

By our beards, if we had them, thou art.

Clo.

By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you swear by That that is not, you are not forsworn; no more was this Knight swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away, before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.

Cel.

Pry'thee, who is that thou mean'st?

Clo.

^{9 note}

Cel.

My father's love is enough to honour him:

—enough! speak no more of him, you'll be whipt for taxation one of these days.

Clo.

The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.

Cel.

By my troth, thou say'st true; for since the little wit that fools have was silenc'd,^{1 note} the little foolery that wise men have makes a great Show: here comes Monsieur Le Beu.