As You Like It: Epilogue

           [Enter ROSALIND.]

      ROSALIND
  1   It is not the fashion to see the lady the

2. unhandsome: unfitting.

2 epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome

3-4. If it be true that good wine needs no bush: i.e., if it's true that it's not the brand name that makes the wine taste good. — In Shakespeare's time, an ivy bush at the end of a pole (see below) often served as signage for a pub.

8. case: predicament.
9. insinuate: ingratiate myself.

  3   than to see the lord the prologue. If it be
  4   true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true
  5   that a good play needs no epilogue; yet to
  6   good wine they do use good bushes, and good
  7   plays prove the better by the help of good
  8   epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am
  9   neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate
10   with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not

11. furnished like: dressed like.

11 furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not

12. conjure you: 1) earnestly charge you; 2) command you by a magical charm.

12   become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin
13   with the women. I charge you, O women, for the
14   love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as
15   please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love you
16   bear to women—as I perceive by your simp'ring, none
17   of you hates them—that between you and the women

18. If I were a woman: —In Shakespeare's time the parts of young women were played by boys whose voices had not yet broken into baritone.
20. lik'd me: pleased me. defied: despised.

18   the play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss
19   as many of you as had beards that pleased me,
20   complexions that lik'd me and breaths that I defied
21   not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards or
22   good faces or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer,

23. bid me farewell: i.e., applaud me.—Of course all of the men applaud, because if they don't, they don't have "good beards or good faces or sweet breaths."

23 when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

Exit.

As You Like It: Epilogue

As You Like It : Epilogue