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CORIN.

For not being at court? Your reason.

TOUCHSTONE.

Why, if thou never wast at court thou never saw'st good manners; if thou never saw'st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.

CORIN.

Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not at the court, but you kiss your hands; that courtesy would be uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds.

TOUCHSTONE.

Instance, briefly; come, instance.

CORIN.

Why, we are still handling our ewes; and their fells, you know, are greasy.

TOUCHSTONE.

Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? And is not the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance, I say; come.

CORIN.

Besides, our hands are hard.

TOUCHSTONE.

Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again.

A more sounder instance; come.

CORIN.

And they are often tarr'd over with the surgery of our sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier's hands are perfum'd with civet.

TOUCHSTONE.

Most shallow man! thou worm's meat in respect of a good piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the wise, and perpend: civet is of a baser birth than tar- the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd.

CORIN.

You have too courtly a wit for me; I'll rest.

TOUCHSTONE.

Wilt thou rest damn'd? God help thee, shallow man!

God make incision in thee! thou art raw.

CORIN.

Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.

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 beest not damn'd 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 Inde,

No jewel is like Rosalinde.

Her worth, being mounted on the wind,

Through all the world bears Rosalinde.

All the pictures fairest lin'd

Are but black to Rosalinde.

Let no face be kept in mind

But the fair of Rosalinde.'

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 Rosalinde.

If the cat will after kind,

So be sure will Rosalinde.

Winter garments must be lin'd,

So must slender Rosalinde.

They that reap must sheaf and bind,

Then to cart with Rosalinde.

Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,

Such a nut is Rosalinde.

He that sweetest rose will find

Must find love's prick and Rosalinde.

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 i' th' country; for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar.

TOUCHSTONE.

You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge.

Enter CELIA, with a writing

ROSALIND.

Peace!

Here comes my sister, reading; stand aside.

CELIA.

'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