Act IV: French Scene 7
Purlews: borders
sheep-coat: shepherd's cottage
neighbor bottom: water-meadow nearby
ranke of Oziers: row of willow trees; Oziers are ranke (smelly) so they would be placed in the West. Celia might also imagine her place (vagina) down (in the supine position of sexual intercourse) under Oliver's "neighborly" (friendly) bottom (genitals and posteriors). If Celia is ranke (sexually excited) she needs Oziers (willows, whose blossoms were used as an aphrodisiac).
Left on your right hand: having 'left' the Oziers on your right hand
keepe: guard
If that an eye may profit by a tongue: If my eyes can understand what I have been told; play on eye (eyeballs or testes, penis) profit (sexual pleasure), and tongue (clitoris).
favour: feature
bestowes: behaves
ripe: mature; Gamimed has female features and behaves himself not like Aliena's brother but like a sister who is ripe, either a) knowledgeable b) prone to mischief c) fine, excellent d) mature, or e) of marriageable age. Ganimed also bestowes (grants his homo-sexual favors) himself like a ripe (shamelessly wanton) sister (whore).
commend him: send greetings
napkin: handkerchief
know of me: let me tell you
Within an houre: before very long
threw an eye: glanced
guilded: glistering like gold; the snake symbolizes both sin and redemption because the same snake that was a female symbol of renewal in earth's vegetation later became the serpent of the Garden of Eden in Hebrew mythology. The colors of the snake suggest that even though Oliver's own snake (penis) was guilded (castrated, deprived of vigor or vitality) he yet has hope of again being greene (fertile, virile).
unlink'd: uncoiled
indented: zigzag
drawne drie: sucked dry by her cubs; Shakespeare draws this from Lodge's Rosalynde but the original lion is male. Shakespeare perhaps changed the animal's sex due to a) the mother lion's reputation for ferociousness when nursing her young; b) the slang sense of Lyonnesse as "harlot" c) the belief that in the "Lion Year" (the one year in seven when the Lyonnesse supposedly gave birth) other creatures became infertile. Superstition ascribed sterility to the lioness and the women of antiquity, when they met a lioness, considered it as an omen of sterility.
occasion: cause, reason
hurtling: struggle
contrive: plot
'Twas I, but 'tis not I: I was that man then, but I am not the same man now
doe not shame: am not ashamed
for: what about
our recountments: the stories we had to tell
Desert: unpeopled
gentle: noble
aray: clothing
entertainment: nourishment
Briefe: in a few words
recover'd: revived
small space: short time
Cosen Ganimed: In her fright, Aliena/Celia forgets that Ganimed/Rosalind is supposed to be her brother. Cosen was used for a collateral relative more distant than a brother or sister and nowhere in the Folio does any character describe or address an actual sibling as Cosen.
complexion: appearence
passion of earnest: genuine feeling
draw homewards: let's go home
devise: think of