[Stage] Enter Touchstone and Audrey, and Jaques behind
Touchstone(试金石)
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(奥黛丽)
Your features, Lord warrant us! What features?
Touchstone(试金石)
I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most
capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.
Jaques(雅克)
[aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a
thatched house.
Touchstone(试金石)
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.
Audrey(奥黛丽)
I do not know what “poetical” is. Is it honest in deed
and word? Is it a true thing?
Touchstone(试金石)
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.
Audrey(奥黛丽)
Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?
Touchstone(试金石)
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.
Audrey(奥黛丽)
Would you not have me honest?
Touchstone(试金石)
No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favored, for honesty
coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.
Jaques(雅克)
[aside] A material fool.
Audrey(奥黛丽)
Well, I am not fair, and therefore I pray the gods make
me honest.
Touchstone(试金石)
Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were
to put good meat into an unclean dish.
Audrey(奥黛丽)
I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
Touchstone(试金石)
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.
Jaques(雅克)
[aside] I would fain see this meeting.
Audrey(奥黛丽)
Well, the gods give us joy.
Touchstone(试金石)
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 honorable than the bare brow of a
bachelor. And by how much defense is better than no
skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to want.
[Stage] 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?
Sir Oliver Martext(奥利弗·马尔泰克先生)
Is there none here to give the woman?
Touchstone(试金石)
I will not take her on gift of any man.
Sir Oliver Martext(奥利弗·马尔泰克先生)
Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not
lawful.
Jaques(雅克)
[advancing] Proceed, proceed. I’ll give her.
Touchstone(试金石)
Good even, good Monsieur 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.
Jaques(雅克)
Will you be married, motley?
Touchstone(试金石)
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.
Jaques(雅克)
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.
Touchstone(试金石)
[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.
Jaques(雅克)
Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.
Touchstone(试金石)
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.
[Stage] Exeunt Jaques, Touchstone, and Audrey
Sir Oliver Martext(奥利弗·马尔泰克先生)
‘Tis no matter. Ne’er a fantastical knave of them all
shall flout me out of my calling.
[Stage] Exit