As You Like It

Another Part of the Forest.

Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY.

Touch.To-morrow is the joyful day, Audrey; to-morrow will we be married.

Aud.I do desire it with all my heart, and I hope it is no dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the world. Here come two of the banished duke’s pages.

Enter two Pages.

First Page.Well met, honest gentleman.

Touch.By my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, and a song.

Sec. Page.We are for you: sit i’ the middle.

First Page.Shall we clap into ’t roundly, without hawking or spitting, or saying we are hoarse, which are the only prologues to a bad voice?

Sec. Page.I’ faith, i’ faith; and both in a tune, like two gipsies on a horse.

SONG
It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o’er the green corn-field did pass,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.
Between the acres of the rye,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
These pretty country folks would lie,
In the spring time, &c.
This carol they began that hour,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
How that a life was but a flower
In the spring time, &c.
And therefore take the present time,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino;
For love is crowned with the prime
In the spring time, &c.

Touch.Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable.

First Page.You are deceived, sir: we kept time; we lost not our time.

Touch.By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear such a foolish song. God be wi’ you; and God mend your voices! Come, Audrey.[Exeunt.

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