William Shakespeare: As You Like It

ACT III. 3. SCENE III. Another part of the Forest.

[Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES at a distance observing
them.]

TOUCHSTONE.
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.
Your features! Lord warrant us! what features?

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

JAQUES.
[Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited! worse than Jove in a thatch'd
house!

TOUCHSTONE.
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.
I do not know what poetical is: is it honest in deed and
word? is it a true thing?

TOUCHSTONE.
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.
Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical?

TOUCHSTONE.
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.
Would you not have me honest?

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

JAQUES.
[Aside] A material fool!

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

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