to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's
heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't.
I would not be cured, youth.
I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind
and come every day to my cote and woo me.
Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me
where it is.
Go with me to it and I'll show it you and by the way
you shall tell me where in the forest you live.
Will you go?
With all my heart, good youth.
Nay you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go?
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.
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 swearest 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.
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.
I would fain see this meeting.
Well, the gods give us joy