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 thatched 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!