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?

Your features, Lord warrant us! What features?

I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest

Ovid, was among the Goths.

[_Aside_.] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched

house!

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.

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

a true thing?

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.

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

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.

Would you not have me honest?

No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for honesty coupled to

beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.

[_Aside_.] A material fool!

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

Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat

into an unclean dish.

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

Well, praised 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 vicar of the next village, who

hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest and to couple us.

[_Aside_.] I would fain see this meeting.

Well, the gods give us joy!

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 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 horn more precious than to want.

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?

I will not take her on gift of any man.

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

[_Coming forward_.] Proceed, proceed. I’ll give her.

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.

Will you be married, motley?

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.

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.

[_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.

Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.

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._

’Tis no matter. Ne’er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me

out of my calling.