Monologue

Rosalind Monologue from As You Like It

From As You Like It by William Shakespeare

female · philosophical · 1:24 min

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Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress, and I set him every day to woo me; at which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every passion something and for no passion truly anything, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour; would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness, which was to forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cured him, and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep’s heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in ’t.

About this piece

Rosalind reflects on the complexities of love and the fickle nature of emotions, revealing her strategy to manipulate her suitor's affections while questioning the nature of romantic desire.

20s · confusion · love · madness · identity · power

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