As You Like It
Act III, Scene 3
Another part of the Forest of Arden.
Audrey
Starting in 1825 at the Theater Royal in Edinburgh, it has become a tradition that in this scene Audrey is munching a turnip. In later years she might instead munch an apple.
Sampson Low, Marston & Co., Ltd.; 1896
- Enter Clown (Touchstone), Audrey; and Jaques behind.
Touchstone
1 - 3- 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
4- Your features, Lord warrant us! What features?
Touchstone
5 - 6- I am here with thee and thy goats as the most capricious
- poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.
Jaques
7 - 8- Aside.
- O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatch’d
- house!
Touchstone
9 - 12- 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
13 - 14- I do not know what ‘poetical’ is. Is it honest in deed and
- word? Is it a true thing?
Touchstone
15 - 17- 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
18- Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?
Touchstone
19 - 20- 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
21- Would you not have me honest?
Touchstone
22 - 23- No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favor’d; for honesty
- coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.
Jaques
24- Aside.
- A material fool!
Audrey
25 - 26- Well, I am not fair, and therefore I pray the gods make me
- honest.
Touchstone
27 - 28- Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put
- good meat into an unclean dish.
Audrey
29- I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
Touchstone
30 - 34- Well, prais’d 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
May 8, 2020 Miko Some sources, such as the Merriam-Webster dictionary, define “martext” as a blundering or incompetent preacher. However, the Oxford English Dictionary has no definition for the word at all. It may be that Shakespeare named the character to imply incompetence, it may be that the character created the word, or it may be that there is no relationship at all. - vicar of the next village, who hath promis’d to meet me in
- this place of the forest and to couple us.
Jaques
35- Aside.
- I would fain see this meeting.
Audrey
36- Well, the gods give us joy!
Touchstone
37 - 52- 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 bless’d? No, as a wall’d
- town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of
- a married man more honorable than the bare brow of a
- bachelor; and by how much defense is better than no skill,
- by so much is a 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?
Is there none here to give the woman?
Francis Philip Stephanoff, circa 1800
Sir Oliver
53- Is there none here to give the woman?
Touchstone
54- I will not take her on gift of any man.
Sir Oliver
55- Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.
Jaques
56- Discovering himself.
- Proceed, proceed. I’ll give her.
Touchstone
57 - 60- 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 cover’d.
Jaques
61- Will you be married, motley?
Touchstone
62 - 64- 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
65 - 69- 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
70 - 73- 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
74- Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.
Touchstone
75 - 84- 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,
- Be gone, I say,
-
I will not to wedding with thee.”
Jul 2, 2019 Miko The First Folio assigns these lines to Sir Oliver. It is assumed that they are intended for Touchstone.
- Exeunt Jaques, Touchstone, and Audrey.
Sir Oliver
85 - 86- ’Tis no matter; ne’er a fantastical knave of them all shall
- flout me out of my calling.
- Exit.
From: As You Like It, set of engravings of costumes for the characters in the play
John Miller, George Scharf, 1824