As You Like It: Act 5, Epilogue

comedy

Scene Summary

Rosalind speaks the epilogue herself, admitting it is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue. She charges the women and the men to like as much of the play as pleases them. Then the joke that only works in Shakespeare's theatre: if I were a woman, says the boy actor playing her, he would kiss every man in the crowd with a good beard, a good face and sweet breath.

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,

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

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,

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

beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my

kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

Exeunt