1    Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your
2    goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet?
3    doth my simple feature content you?

4    Your features! Lord warrant us! what features!

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

Aside
7     O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove
8    in a thatched house!

9    When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a
10   man's good wit seconded with the forward child
11   Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a
12   great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would
13   the gods had made thee poetical.

14   I do not know what 'poetical' is: is it honest in
15   deed and word? is it a true thing?

16   No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most
17   feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what
18   they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign.

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

20   I do, truly; for thou swearest to me thou art
21   honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some
22   hope thou didst feign.

23   Would you not have me honest?

24   No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for
25   honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.

Aside
26    A material fool!

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

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

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

32   Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness!
33   sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may
34   be, I will marry thee, and to that end I have been
35   with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next
36   village, who hath promised to meet me in this place
37   of the forest and to couple us.

Aside
38    I would fain see this meeting.

39   Well, the gods give us joy!

40   Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart,
41   stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple
42   but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what
43   though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are
44   necessary. It is said, 'many a man knows no end of
45   his goods:' right; many a man has good horns, and
46   knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of
47   his wife; 'tis none of his own getting. Horns?
48   Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer
49   hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man
50   therefore blessed? No: as a walled town is more
51   worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a
52   married man more honourable than the bare brow of a
53   bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no
54   skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to
55   want. Here comes Sir Oliver.
Enter SIR OLIVER MARTEXT
56   Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met: will you
57   dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go
58   with you to your chapel?

59   Is there none here to give the woman?

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

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

Advancing
62   Proceed, proceed I'll give her.

63   Good even, good Master What-ye-call't: how do you,
64   sir? You are very well met: God 'ild you for your
65   last company: I am very glad to see you: even a
66   toy in hand here, sir: nay, pray be covered.

67   Will you be married, motley?

68   As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb and
69   the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and
70   as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.

71   And will you, being a man of your breeding, be
72   married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to
73   church, and have a good priest that can tell you
74   what marriage is: this fellow will but join you
75   together as they join wainscot; then one of you will
76   prove a shrunk panel and, like green timber, warp, warp.

Aside
77    I am not in the mind but I were better to be
78   married of him than of another: for he is not like
79   to marry me well; and not being well married, it
80   will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife.

81   Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.

82   'Come, sweet Audrey:
83   We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.
84   Farewell, good Master Oliver: not,--
85   O sweet Oliver,
86   O brave Oliver,
87   Leave me not behind thee: but,--
88   Wind away,
89   Begone, I say,
90   I will not to wedding with thee.

91   'Tis no matter: ne'er a fantastical knave of them
92   all shall flout me out of my calling.