Love's Labour's Lost (version 2) - Free Audiobook

000 Scene III. The forest.

AYLI III. 3 Enter Touchstone and Audrey; Jaques behind.

Touch. Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your 002 goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? doth my simple feature content you?

004 Aud. Your features! Lord warrant us! what features?

005 Touch. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.

Jaq. [Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched house!

Touch. When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor 010 a man’s good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, 011 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 015 deed and word? is it a true thing?

Touch. No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most 017 feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what they 018 swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign.

Aud. Do you wish then that the gods had made me 020 poetical?

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?

025 Touch. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; 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.

030 Touch. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish.

032 Aud. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.

Touch. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness 035 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.

040 Aud. Well, the gods give us joy!

041 Touch. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but 043 the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is 045 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 048 getting. Horns?—even so:—poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single 050 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.

055 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.

Sir Oli. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is 060 not lawful.

Jaq. Proceed, proceed: I’ll give her.

062 Touch. Good even, good Master What-ye-call’t: how 063 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 065 hand here, sir: nay, pray be covered.

Jaq. Will you be married, motley?

067 Touch. As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb 068 and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.

070 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 075 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.

080 Jaq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.

Touch. Come, sweet Audrey:

We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.

083 Farewell, good Master Oliver: not,—

084 O sweet Oliver,

085 O brave Oliver,

086 Leave me not behind thee:

087 but,—

088 Wind away,

Begone, I say,

090 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.