William Shakespeare: As You Like It

ACT V. 4. SCENE IV. Another part of the Forest. (continued)

ORLANDO.
My lord, the first time that I ever saw him
Methought he was a brother to your daughter:
But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born,
And hath been tutor'd in the rudiments
Of many desperate studies by his uncle,
Whom he reports to be a great magician,
Obscured in the circle of this forest.

JAQUES.
There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are
coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of very strange beasts
which in all tongues are called fools.

[Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY.]

TOUCHSTONE.
Salutation and greeting to you all!

JAQUES.
Good my lord, bid him welcome. This is the motley-minded
gentleman that I have so often met in the forest: he hath
been a courtier, he swears.

TOUCHSTONE.
If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation.
I have trod a measure; I have flattered a lady; I have been
politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy; I have undone
three tailors; I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought
one.

JAQUES.
And how was that ta'en up?

TOUCHSTONE.
Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the seventh cause.

JAQUES.
How seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow.

DUKE SENIOR.
I like him very well.

TOUCHSTONE.
God 'ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I press in
here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, to swear
and to forswear; according as marriage binds and blood breaks:--A
poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a
poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that man else will; rich
honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor-house; as your
pearl in your foul oyster.

DUKE SENIOR.
By my faith, he is very swift and sententious.

TOUCHSTONE.
According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet diseases.