| [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES behind] | |
| TOUCHSTONE | Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? doth my simple feature content you? |
| AUDREY | Your features! Lord warrant us! what features! |
| TOUCHSTONE | I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths. |
| JAQUES | [Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched house! |
| TOUCHSTONE | When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical. |
| AUDREY | I do not know what 'poetical' is: is it honest in deed and word? is it a true thing? |
| TOUCHSTONE | No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign. |
| AUDREY | Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical? |
| TOUCHSTONE | I do, truly; for thou swearest to me thou art honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign. |
| AUDREY | Would you not have me honest? |
| TOUCHSTONE | No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar. |
| JAQUES | [Aside] A material fool! |
| AUDREY | Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest. |
| TOUCHSTONE | Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish. |
| AUDREY | I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul. |
| TOUCHSTONE | Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee, and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next village, who hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest and to couple us. |
| JAQUES | [Aside] I would fain see this meeting. |
| AUDREY | Well, the gods give us joy! |
| TOUCHSTONE | Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is said, 'many a man knows no end of his goods:' right; many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; 'tis none of his own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man therefore blessed? No: as a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to want. Here comes Sir Oliver. |
| [Enter SIR OLIVER MARTEXT] | |
| Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met: will you dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel? |
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| SIR OLIVER MARTEXT | Is there none here to give the woman? |
| TOUCHSTONE | I will not take her on gift of any man. |
| SIR OLIVER MARTEXT | Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful. |
| JAQUES | [Advancing] |
| Proceed, proceed I'll give her. | |
| TOUCHSTONE | Good even, good Master What-ye-call't: how do you, sir? You are very well met: God 'ild you for your last company: I am very glad to see you: even a toy in hand here, sir: nay, pray be covered. |
| JAQUES | Will you be married, motley? |
| TOUCHSTONE | As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling. |
| JAQUES | And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is: this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel and, like green timber, warp, warp. |
| TOUCHSTONE | [Aside] I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of another: for he is not like to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife. |
| JAQUES | Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. |
| TOUCHSTONE | 'Come, sweet Audrey: We must be married, or we must live in bawdry. Farewell, good Master Oliver: not,-- O sweet Oliver, O brave Oliver, Leave me not behind thee: but,-- Wind away, Begone, I say, I will not to wedding with thee. |
| [Exeunt JAQUES, TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY] | |
| SIR OLIVER MARTEXT | 'Tis no matter: ne'er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling. |
| [Exit] |