Comedy plays; Exiles -- Drama; Fathers and daughters -- Drama; Pastoral drama
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._]
SCENE IV. Another part of the Forest. Before a Cottage
Enter Rosalind and Celia.
ROSALIND.
Never talk to me, I will weep.
CELIA.
Do, I prithee, but yet have the grace to consider that tears do not
become a man.
ROSALIND.
But have I not cause to weep?
CELIA.
As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.
ROSALIND.
His very hair is of the dissembling colour.
CELIA.
Something browner than Judas’s. Marry, his kisses are Judas’s own
children.
ROSALIND.
I’ faith, his hair is of a good colour.
CELIA.
An excellent colour. Your chestnut was ever the only colour.
ROSALIND.
And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.
CELIA.
He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana. A nun of winter’s
sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in
them.
ROSALIND.
But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not?
CELIA.
Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.
ROSALIND.
Do you think so?
CELIA.
Yes. I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer, but for his
verity in love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet or a
worm-eaten nut.
ROSALIND.
Not true in love?
CELIA.
Yes, when he is in, but I think he is not in.
ROSALIND.
You have heard him swear downright he was.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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