THE FOREST

Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY

3E SHALL FIND A TIME, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey.

AUD. Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old gentleman's saying.

TOUCH. A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to you.

AUD. Ay, I know who 't is: he hath no interest in me in the

world: here comes the man you mean.

TOUCH. It is meat and drink to me to see a clown: 10 by my troth, we that have good wits have much to answer for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold.

10 meat and drink] a proverbial expression implying something very congenial. Cf. M. Wives, I, i, 268: "That's meat and drink to me."

Enter WILLIAM

WILL. Good even, Audrey.

AUD. God ye good even, William.

WILL. And good even to you, sir.

TOUCH. Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy head; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend?

WILL. Five and twenty, sir.

TOUCH. A ripe age. Is thy name William?

WILL. William, sir.

TOUCH. A fair name. Wast born i' the forest here? WILL. Ay, sir, I thank God.

TOUCH. "Thank God;" a good answer. Art rich? WILL. Faith, sir, so so.

TOUCH. "So so" is good, very good, very excellent good; and yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise? WILL. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.

20

TOUCH. Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying, "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." The heathen philoso- 30 pher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth; meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do love this maid?

WILL. I do, sir.

TOUCH. Give me your hand. Art thou learned?
WILL. No, sir.

TOUCH. Then learn this of me: to have, is to have;

12 hold] restrain (sc. our wit).

for it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other; for all your writers do consent that ipse is he: 40 now, you are not ipse, for I am he.

WILL. Which he, sir?

TOUCH. He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you clown, abandon, - which is in the vulgar leave, the society, which in the boorish is company, of this female, which in the common is woman; which together is, abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest; or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage: I will deal in 50 poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction; I will o'er-run thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways: therefore tremble, and depart.

AUD. Do, good William.

WILL. God rest you merry, sir.

Enter CORIN

[Exit.

COR. Our master and mistress seeks you; come, away, away!

TOUCH. Trip, Audrey! trip, Audrey! I attend, I attend. [Exeunt.

51 bastinado] cudgelling. Cf. Florio's Ital.-Eng. Dict.: "A bastonado, or cudgell-blow."

bandy] The word literally means "to toss from side to side like a tennis-ball"; but it is here synonymous with "contend" or "fight."

SCENE II-THE FOREST

Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER

ORL. Is 't possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her? that but seeing you should love her? and loving woo? and, wooing, she should grant? and will you persever to enjoy her?

OLI. Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden consenting; but say with me, I love Aliena; say with her that she loves me; consent with both that we may enjoy each other: it shall be to your good; for my father's house and all the revenue that 10 was old Sir Rowland's will I estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.

ORL. You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow: thither will I invite the Duke and all's contented followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for look you, here comes my Rosalind.

Enter ROSALIND

Ros. God save you, brother.
OLI. And you, fair sister.

[Exit.

Ros. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf!

17 fair sister] Rosalind is still disguised, and, as far as is known, Oliver believes her to be a boy. But he enters into Orlando's humour, and calls her "sister" in the spirit of Act IV, Sc. i. Cf. IV, iii, 86, where Oliver has already likened the boy Rosalind 66 a ripe sister."

to

19 in a scarf] in a sling.

ORL. It is my arm.

Ros. I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion.

ORL. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.

Ros. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon when he showed me your handkercher?

ORL. Ay, and greater wonders than that.

20

Ros. O, I know where you are: nay, 't is true: there was never any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams, and Caesar's thrasonical brag of "I came, saw, and overcame: " for your brother and my sister no sooner met but 30 they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy: and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage: they are in the very wrath of love and they will together; clubs cannot part them.

ORL. They shall be married to-morrow, and I will bid the Duke to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is 40 to look into happiness through another man's eyes! By so much the more shall I to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall think my brother happy in having what he wishes for.

Ros. Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?

40 nuptial] Shakespeare invariably uses the singular. The plural, "nuptials," is a more modern usage. Conversely he employs "funerals" where we use "funeral."