SILVIUS I’ll not fail, if I live.

PHOEBE Nor I.

ORLANDO Nor I.

Exeunt severally

5.3 Enter Touchstone the clown and Audrey

TOUCHSTONE Tomorrow is the joyful day, Audrey, tomorrow will we be married.

AUDREY I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is no dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the world. Here come two of the banished Duke’s pages.

Enter two Pages

FIRST PAGE Well met, honest gentleman.

TOUCHSTONE By my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, and a song.

SECOND PAGE We are for you. Sit i’th’ middle.

FIRST PAGE Shall we clap into’t roundly, without hawking, or spitting, or saying we are hoarse, which are the only prologues to a bad voice?

SECOND PAGE I‘faith, i’faith, and both in a tune, like two gipsies on a horse.

BOTH PAGES (sing)

It was a lover and his lass,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonny-no,

That o’er the green cornfield did pass

In spring-time, the only pretty ring-time,

When birds do sing, hey ding-a-ding ding,

Sweet lovers love the spring.

Between the acres of the rye,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonny-no,

These pretty country folks would lie,

In spring-time, the only pretty ring-time,

When birds do sing, hey ding-a-ding ding,

Sweet lovers love the spring.

This carol they began that hour,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonny-no,

How that a life was but a flower,

In spring-time, the only pretty ring-time,

When birds do sing, hey ding-a-ding ding,

Sweet lovers love the spring.

And therefore take the present time,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonny-no,

For love is crowned with the prime,

In spring time, the only pretty ring-time,

When birds do sing, hey ding-a-ding ding,

Sweet lovers love the spring.

TOUCHSTONE Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untunable.

FIRST PAGE You are deceived, sir, we kept time, we lost not our time.

TOUCHSTONE By my troth, yes, I count it but time lost to hear such a foolish song. God b’wi’you, and God mend your voices. Come, Audrey.

Exeunt severally

5.4 Enter Duke Senior, Amiens, Jaques, Orlando, Oliver, and Celia as Aliena

DUKE SENIOR

Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy

Can do all this that he hath promised?

ORLANDO

I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not,

As those that fear they hope, and know they fear.

Enter Rosalind as Ganymede, with Silvius and

Phoebe

ROSALIND

Patience once more, whiles our compact is urged.

(To the Duke) You say if I bring in your Rosalind

You will bestow her on Orlando here?

DUKE SENIOR

That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her.

ROSALIND (to Orlando)

And you say you will have her when I bring her?

ORLANDO That would I, were I of all kingdoms king.

ROSALIND (to Phoebe)

You say you’ll marry me if I be willing?

PHOEBE

That will I, should I die the hour after.

ROSALIND

But if you do refuse to marry me

You’ll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?

PHOEBE So is the bargain.

ROSALIND (to Silvius)

You say that you’ll have Phoebe if she will.

SILVIUS

Though to have her and death were both one thing.

ROSALIND

I have promised to make all this matter even.

Keep you your word, O Duke, to give your daughter.

You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter.

Keep your word, Phoebe, that you’ll marry me,

Or else refusing me to wed this shepherd.

Keep your word, Silvius, that you’ll marry her

If she refuse me; and from hence I go

To make these doubts all even.

Exeunt Rosalind and Celia

DUKE SENIOR

I do remember in this shepherd boy

Some lively touches of my daughter’s favour.

ORLANDO

My lord, the first time that I ever saw him,

Methought he was a brother to your daughter.

But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born,

And hath been tutored in the rudiments

Of many desperate studies by his uncle,

Whom he reports to be a great magician

Obscured in the circle of this forest.

⌈Enter Touchstone the clown and Audrey⌉

JAQUES There is sure another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools.

TOUCHSTONE Salutation and greeting to you all.

JAQUES (to the Duke) Good my lord, bid him welcome. This is the motley-minded gentleman that I have so often met in the forest. He hath been a courtier, he swears.

TOUCHSTONE If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation. I have trod a measure, I have flattered a lady, I have been politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy, I have undone three tailors, I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought one.

JAQUES And how was that ta’en up?

TOUCHSTONE Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the seventh cause.

JAQUES How, seventh cause?—Good my lord, like this fellow.

DUKE SENIOR I like him very well.

TOUCHSTONE God’ield you, sir, I desire you of the like. I press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, to swear, and to forswear, according as marriage binds and blood breaks. A poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own. A poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will. Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house, as your pearl in your foul oyster.

DUKE SENIOR By my faith, he is very swift and sententious.

TOUCHSTONE According to the fool’s bolt, sir, and such dulcet diseases.

JAQUES But for the seventh cause. How did you find the quarrel on the seventh cause?

TOUCHSTONE Upon a lie seven times removed.—Bear your body more seeming, Audrey.—As thus, sir: I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier’s beard. He sent me word if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind it was. This is called the Retort Courteous. If I sent him word again it was not well cut, he would send me word he cut it to please himself. This is called the Quip Modest. If again it was not well cut, he disabled my judgement. This is called the Reply Churlish. If again it was not well cut, he would answer I spake not true. This is called the Reproof Valiant. If again it was not well cut, he would say I lie. This is called the Countercheck Quarrelsome. And so to the Lie Circumstantial, and the Lie Direct.