Enter Touchstone and Audrey; Jaques at a distance observing them.
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 swear’st 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 horn more precious than to want.
Enter Sir Oliver Martext.
Here comes Sir Oliver. Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met. Will you dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel?
MARTEXT.
Is there none here to give the woman?
TOUCHSTONE.
I will not take her on gift of any man.
MARTEXT.
Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.
JAQUES.
[Coming forward.] 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 Touchstone, Audrey and Jaques.]
MARTEXT.
’Tis no matter. Ne’er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my
calling.
[Exit.]
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