a word from our sponsors
The First Web Folio Edition of Shakespeare's Works
| ROSALIND | It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; | ||
| but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord | |||
| the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs | |||
| no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no | |||
| epilogue; yet to good wine they do use good bushes, | 5 | ||
| and good plays prove the better by the help of good | |||
| epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am | |||
| neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with | |||
| you in the behalf of a good play! I am not | |||
| furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not | 10 | ||
| become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin | |||
| with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love | |||
| you bear to men, to like as much of this play as | |||
| please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love | |||
| you bear to women--as I perceive by your simpering, | 15 | ||
| none of you hates them--that between you and the | |||
| women the play may please. If I were a woman I | |||
| would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased | |||
| me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I | |||
| defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good | 20 | ||
| beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my | |||
| kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. | |||
| [Exeunt] |
This edition copyright © 2000 Dana Spradley, Publisher, shakespeare.com. Originally derived from the Complete Moby Shakespeare(tm), which is now in the public domain.
'The First Web Folio Edition' is a trademark of Dana Spradley, Publisher, shakespeare.com. All rights reserved.
If you're not reading this on shakespeare.com, you're in the wrong place.