Say a day without the ever:  no, no, Orlando, men are April when they woo, December when they wed:  maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives:  I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen; more clamorous than a parrot against rain; more newfangled than an ape; more giddy in my desires than a monkey; I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when you are inclined to sleep.

   Orlando.  But will my Rosalind do so?

   Rosalind.  By my life she will do as I do.

The silent and retired character of Celia is a necessary relief to the provoking loquacity of Rosalind, nor can anything be better conceived or more beautifully described than the mutual affection between the two cousins: 

     —­We still have slept together,
     Rose at an instant, learn’d, play’d, eat together,
     And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans,
     Still we went coupled and inseparable.

The unrequited love of Silvius for Phebe shows the perversity of this passion in the commonest scenes of life, and the rubs and stops which nature throws in its way, where fortune has placed none.  Touchstone is not in love, but he will have a mistress as a subject for the exercise of his grotesque humour, and to show his contempt for the passion, by his indifference about the person.  He is a rare fellow.  He is a mixture of the ancient cynic philosopher with the modern buffoon, and turns folly into wit, and wit into folly, just as the fit takes him.  His courtship of Audrey not only throws a degree of ridicule on the state of wedlock itself, but he is equally an enemy to the prejudices of opinion in other respects.  The lofty tone of enthusiasm, which the Duke and his companions in exile spread over the stillness and solitude of a country life, receives a pleasant shock from Touchstone’s sceptical determination of the question.

   Corin.  And how like you this shepherd’s life, Mr. Touchstone?

   Clown.  Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life;
     but in respect that it is a shepherd’s life, it is naught.  In
     respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect
     that it is private, it is a very vile life.  Now in respect it is
     in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in
     the court, it is tedious.  As it is a spare life, took you, it
     fits my humour; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes
     much against my stomach.

Zimmennan’s celebrated work on Solitude discovers only half the sense of this passage.