Love Dissembled

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

From “As You Like It,” Act III. Sc. 5.

THINK not I love him, though I ask for him;

’T is but a peevish boy:—yet he talks well;—

But what care I for words?—yet words do well,

When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.

But, sure, he ’s proud; and yet his pride becomes him:

He ’ll make a proper man: The best thing in him

Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue

Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.

He is not very tall; yet for his years he ’s tall;

His leg is but so so; and yet ’t is well:

There was a pretty redness in his lip,

A little riper and more lusty red

Than that mixed in his cheek; ’t was just the difference

Betwixt the constant red, and mingled damask.

There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him

In parcels, as I did, would have gone near

To fall in love with him: but, for my part,

I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet

I have more cause to hate him than to love him:

For what had he to do to chide at me?

He said mine eyes were black and my hair black;

And, now I am remembered, scorned at me:

I marvel, why I answered not again:

But that ’s all one; omittance is no quittance.