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Another Part of the Forest. | |
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Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES behind. | |
| Touch. 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? | |
| Aud. Your features! Lord warrant us! what features? | |
| Touch. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths. | 5 |
| Jaq. [Aside.] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatch’d house! | |
| Touch. 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. | |
| Aud. I do not know what ‘poetical’ is. Is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true thing? | |
| Touch. 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. | |
| Aud. Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical? | 10 |
| Touch. 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. | |
| Aud. Would you not have me honest? | |
| Touch. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favour’d; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar. | |
| Jaq. [Aside.] A material fool. | |
| Aud. Well, I am not fair, and therefore I pray the gods make me honest. | 15 |
| Touch. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish. | |
| Aud. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul. | |
| Touch. 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. | |
| Jaq. [Aside.] I would fain see this meeting. | |
| Aud. Well, the gods give us joy! | 20 |
| Touch. 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. | |
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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 Oli. Is there none here to give the woman? | |
| Touch. I will not take her on gift of any man. | 25 |
| Sir Oli. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful. | |
| Jaq. [Coming forward.] Proceed, proceed: I’ll give her. | |
| Touch. 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. | |
| Jaq. Will you be married, motley? | |
| Touch. 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. | 30 |
| Jaq. 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. | |
| Touch. [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. | |
| Jaq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. | |
| Touch. Come, sweet Audrey: | |
| We must be married, or we must live in bawdry. | 35 |
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 Oli. ’Tis no matter: ne’er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling. [Exit. | |
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