As You Like It: Act 3, Scene 3 Translation

Enter Touchstone and Audrey, followed by Jaques.

TOUCHSTONE 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 Your features, Lord warrant us! What
features? 5

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

JAQUES, aside O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than
Jove in a thatched house. 10

TOUCHSTONE 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. 15

AUDREY I do not know what “poetical” is. Is it honest
in deed and word? Is it a true thing?

TOUCHSTONE 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 20
feign.

AUDREY Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me
poetical?

TOUCHSTONE I do, truly, for thou swear’st to me thou
art honest. Now if thou wert a poet, I might have 25
some hope thou didst feign.

AUDREY Would you not have me honest?

TOUCHSTONE No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favored;
for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a
sauce to sugar. 30

JAQUES, aside A material fool.

AUDREY Well, I am not fair, and therefore I pray the
gods make me honest.

TOUCHSTONE Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a
foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean 35
dish.

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

TOUCHSTONE Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness;
sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may 40
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.

JAQUES, aside I would fain see this meeting. 45

AUDREY Well, the gods give us joy.

TOUCHSTONE 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, 50
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 55
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 honorable than the bare brow
of a bachelor. And by how much defense is better 60
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?

OLIVER MARTEXT Is there none here to give the
woman?

TOUCHSTONE I will not take her on gift of any man.

OLIVER MARTEXT Truly, she must be given, or the
marriage is not lawful. 70

JAQUES, coming forward Proceed, proceed. I’ll give
her.

TOUCHSTONE Good even, good Monsieur What-you-call-’t.
How do you, sir? You are very well met. God
’ild you for your last company. I am very glad to see 75
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 80
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 85
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 I am not in the mind but I were better to 90
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. 95

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, 100
Leave me not behind thee,"

But

"Wind away,
Begone, I say,
I will not to wedding with thee." 105

Audrey, Touchstone, and Jaques exit.

OLIVER MARTEXT ’Tis no matter. Ne’er a fantastical
knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling.

He exits.