• Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES

    JAQUES

    I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.

    ROSALIND

    They say you are a melancholy fellow.

    JAQUES

    I am so. I do love it better than laughing.

    ROSALIND

    5Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than drunkards.

    JAQUES

    Why, ’tis good to be sad and say nothing.

    ROSALIND

    Why then, ’tis good to be a post.

    JAQUES

    10I 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 melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.
  • ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES enter.

    JAQUES

    Please, pretty young man, I’d like to get to know you better.

    ROSALIND

    They say you are a melancholy fellow.

    JAQUES

    I am. I like it better than laughing.

    ROSALIND

    People who are either too serious or too silly are awful. They make themselves targets for ridicule even faster than drunks do.

    JAQUES

    Well, I think it’s good to be serious and keep quiet.

    ROSALIND

    In that case it’s good to be a post.

    JAQUES

    I’m not a scholar’s kind of melancholy, which is all about impressing one’s peers, or a musician’s, which comes from his passion for his art. I don’t have the proud melancholy of a courtier or the ambitious melancholy of a soldier or the calculated melancholy of a lawyer. My melancholy is not like a lady’s—which is nothing more than an affectation—nor like a lover’s, which combines all of these qualities. My melancholy is purely my own—a compound made from many ingredients. I’m serious because I’ve traveled so much. When I think about all the things I’ve seen, I sink into deep thoughts.