As You Like It

SCENE III. Another part of the Forest

Enter Touchstone and Audrey.

TOUCHSTONE.
Tomorrow is the joyful day, Audrey, tomorrow will we be married.

AUDREY.
I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is no dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the world.

Enter two Pages.

Here come two of the banished Duke’s pages.

FIRST PAGE.
Well met, honest gentleman.

TOUCHSTONE.
By my troth, well met. Come sit, sit, and a song.

SECOND PAGE.
We are for you, sit i’ th’ middle.

FIRST PAGE.
Shall we clap into’t roundly, without hawking or spitting or saying we are hoarse, which are the only prologues to a bad voice?

SECOND PAGE.
I’faith, i’faith, and both in a tune like two gipsies on a horse.

SONG

PAGES.
[Sing.]
It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o’er the green cornfield did pass
In the spring-time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.
Sweet lovers love the spring.

Between the acres of the rye,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
These pretty country folks would lie,
In the spring-time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.
Sweet lovers love the spring.

This carol they began that hour,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
How that a life was but a flower,
In the spring-time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.
Sweet lovers love the spring.

And therefore take the present time,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
For love is crowned with the prime,
In the spring-time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.
Sweet lovers love the spring.

TOUCHSTONE
Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable.

FIRST PAGE.
You are deceived, sir, we kept time, we lost not our time.

TOUCHSTONE.
By my troth, yes. I count it but time lost to hear such a foolish song. God be wi’ you, and God mend your voices. Come, Audrey.

[Exeunt.]