how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!
This was not counterfeit: there is too great
testimony in your complexion that it was a passion
of earnest.
Counterfeit, I assure you.
Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man.
So I do: but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by right.
Come, you look paler and paler: pray you, draw
homewards. Good sir, go with us.
That will I, for I must bear answer back
How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.
I shall devise something: but, I pray you, commend
my counterfeiting to him. Will you go?
We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey.
Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old
gentleman's saying.
A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile
Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the
forest lays claim to you.
Ay, I know who 'tis; he hath no interest in me in
the world: here comes the man you mean.
It is meat and drink to me to see a clown: by my
troth, we that have good wits have much to answer
for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold.
Good even, Audrey.
God ye good even, William.
And good even to you, sir.
Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy
head; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend?
Five and twenty, sir.
A ripe age. Is thy name William?
William, sir.
A fair name. Wast born i' the forest here?
Ay, sir, I thank God.
'Thank God;' a good answer. Art rich?
Faith, sir, so so.
'So so' is good, very good, very excellent good; and
yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise?
Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.
Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying,
'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man
knows himself to be a fool.' The heathen
philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape,
would open his lips when he put it into his mouth;
meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and
lips to open. You do love this maid?
I do, sir.
Give me your hand. Art thou learned?
No, sir.
Then learn this of me: to have, is to have; for it
is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out
of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty
the other; for all your