As You Like It

1 Enter Touchstone and Audrey; Jaques at a distance observing them.
2 TOUCHSTONE.
3 Come apace, good Audrey. I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how,
4 Audrey? Am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature content you?
5 AUDREY.
6 Your features, Lord warrant us! What features?
7 TOUCHSTONE.
8 I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest
9 Ovid, was among the Goths.
10 JAQUES.
11 [_Aside_.] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched
12 house!
13 TOUCHSTONE.
14 When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a man’s good wit seconded
15 with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than
16 a great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would the gods had made
17 thee poetical.
18 AUDREY.
19 I do not know what “poetical” is. Is it honest in deed and word? Is it
20 a true thing?
21 TOUCHSTONE.
22 No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning, and lovers are
23 given to poetry, and what they swear in poetry may be said, as lovers,
24 they do feign.
25 AUDREY.
26 Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical?
27 TOUCHSTONE.
28 I do, truly, for thou swear’st to me thou art honest. Now if thou wert
29 a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign.
30 AUDREY.
31 Would you not have me honest?
32 TOUCHSTONE.
33 No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for honesty coupled to
34 beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.
35 JAQUES.
36 [_Aside_.] A material fool!
37 AUDREY.
38 Well, I am not fair, and therefore I pray the gods make me honest.
39 TOUCHSTONE.
40 Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat
41 into an unclean dish.
42 AUDREY.
43 I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
44 TOUCHSTONE.
45 Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness; sluttishness may come
46 hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee. And to that end I
47 have been with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next village, who
48 hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest and to couple us.
49 JAQUES.
50 [_Aside_.] I would fain see this meeting.
51 AUDREY.
52 Well, the gods give us joy!
53 TOUCHSTONE.
54 Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this
55 attempt, for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but
56 horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are
57 necessary. It is said, “Many a man knows no end of his goods.” Right.
58 Many a man has good horns and knows no end of them. Well, that is the
59 dowry of his wife; ’tis none of his own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor
60 men alone? No, no, the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is
61 the single man therefore blessed? No. As a walled town is more worthier
62 than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable
63 than the bare brow of a bachelor. And by how much defence is better
64 than no skill, by so much is horn more precious than to want.
65 Enter Sir Oliver Martext.
66 Here comes Sir Oliver. Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met. Will you
67 dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your
68 chapel?
69 MARTEXT.
70 Is there none here to give the woman?
71 TOUCHSTONE.
72 I will not take her on gift of any man.
73 MARTEXT.
74 Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.
75 JAQUES.
76 [_Coming forward_.] Proceed, proceed. I’ll give her.
77 TOUCHSTONE.
78 Good even, good Master What-ye-call’t, how do you, sir? You are very
79 well met. God ’ild you for your last company. I am very glad to see
80 you. Even a toy in hand here, sir. Nay, pray be covered.
81 JAQUES.
82 Will you be married, motley?
83 TOUCHSTONE.
84 As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her
85 bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would
86 be nibbling.
87 JAQUES.
88 And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush
89 like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell
90 you what marriage is. This fellow will but join you together as they
91 join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel, and like
92 green timber, warp, warp.
93 TOUCHSTONE.
94 [_Aside_.] I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him
95 than of another, for he is not like to marry me well, and not being
96 well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my
97 wife.
98 JAQUES.
99 Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.
100 TOUCHSTONE.
101 Come, sweet Audrey. We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.
102 Farewell, good Master Oliver. Not
103 _O sweet Oliver,
104 O brave Oliver,
105 Leave me not behind thee._
106 But
107 _Wind away,—
108 Begone, I say,
109 I will not to wedding with thee._
110 [_Exeunt Touchstone, Audrey and Jaques._]
111 MARTEXT.
112 ’Tis no matter. Ne’er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me
113 out of my calling.
114 [_Exit._]