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No Fear Shakespheare

As You Like It

William Shakespeare

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Act 3, Scene 3

Original Text

Modern Text
Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY, and JAQUES behind
TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY enter, with JAQUES following unseen.



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?
 TOUCHSTONE
Come on, sweet Audrey. I’ll get your goats, Audrey. Well now, what do you think, Audrey? Am I the man for you, Audrey? Do my simple features please you?

AUDREY
Your features, Lord warrant us! What features?
 AUDREY
Your features, God help us! What features?

5
 TOUCHSTONE
I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious
poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.
 TOUCHSTONE
Well, I’m out here with you and your goats, in the same way that the witty poet Ovid was abandoned to the barbaric Goths.


JAQUES
(aside) O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a
thatched house.
 JAQUES
(to himself) Oh, knowledge put to such bad use is worse than a god cooped up in a hut.


10

 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.
 TOUCHSTONE
When a man’s jokes fall that flat, it’s as depressing as getting a large bill for a short stay in a little room. Really, Audrey, I wish you were more poetical.


AUDREY
I do not know what “poetical” is. Is it honest in deed and
word? Is it a true thing?
 AUDREY
I don’t know what “poetical” means. Is it “chaste in word and action”? Does it mean being truthful?

15

 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.
 TOUCHSTONE
Not really, for the truest poetry is often the most artificial. Lovers are fond of poetry and often concoct great lies in their poems.

AUDREY
Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?
 AUDREY
But you still wish the gods had made me poetical?


20		 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.
 TOUCHSTONE
I do, in fact. Right now you swear to me that you are a virgin; if you were a poet, I might have some hope you were lying.
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