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The forest.
[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?
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.
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