After Rosalind and Celia exit, Phoebe utters the following:
Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might: “Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”
(82-83)
The dead shepherd that Phoebe is referring to is Christopher Marlowe.1 The line comes from his poem entitled Hero and Leander. Marlowe was asserting that real love is love that comes at first sight. Phoebe did not believe that Marlowe’s saying (or saw) was true until she met Rosalind/Ganymede. Now she not only believes it is true: she believes it is mightily true. Phoebe now feels the mighty pangs of love.
Phoebe undergoes a drastic change as a result of her love. Now that she understands love, she is able to feel pity for Silvius: “I am sorry for thee,
1 In Hero and Leander Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) wrote the following:
It lies not in our power to love, or hate, For will in us is over-rulde by fate.
When two are stript long ere the course begin, We wish that one should lose, the other win. And one especially doo we affect,
Of two gold Ingots like in each respect, The reason no man knowes, let it suffise, What we behold is censur'd by our eyes. Where both deliberat, the love is slight, Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?