so downcast – at her. Thrown rocks would cause her to be lame, but thrown reasons will stop her from questioning Rosalind.
Rosalind responds that if she throws reasons at Celia, then Celia will become as lame as Rosalind. Rosalind is lame with madness (line 7). Madness is the opposite of Reason, in this sense; and Rosalind is declaring that her feelings are mad ones and that reason has nothing to with the way that she is feeling. This is the conflict of Reason vs. Emotion that appears in every Shakespeare play. Rosalind is madly in love with Orlando, but she cannot explain why she is in love. She cannot use reason to explain her emotions.
Rosalind and Celia then metaphorically engage in suggesting that the troubles of the world are like burs (thorns or briers) that stick to one’s clothing (lines 9-17). When Celia suggests that Rosalind should just shakes these burs off, Rosalind responds that the burs are stuck to her heart. Celia then suggests that Rosalind should just hem or cough these problems out (with a pun on the word bur, which also means something caught in one’s throat).
Rosalind then puns on the word hem and moves the conversation onto a wrestling metaphor:
I would try, if I could cry “hem” and have him. (17)
Rosalind is suggesting that, like a wrestler, she could hem in or pin down and thus defeat her problem. Of course, Celia quickly recognizes the double meaning