This page contains the original text of As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 3. Shakespeare’s original As You Like It text is extremely long, so we’ve split the text into one Scene per page. All Acts are listed on the As You Like It text page, or linked to from the bottom of this page.

As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 3: The forest

Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY

TOUCHSTONE

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

AUDREY

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 comes two of the banished duke’s pages.

Enter two Pages

First Page

Well met, honest gentleman.

TOUCHSTONE

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

Second 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?

Second 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 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 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 spring time, & c.