Tomorrow is the joyful day, Audrey, tomorrow will we be married.
Tomorrow brings the joy, Audrey—tomorrow we become husband and wife.
Tomorrow's the big day, Audrey. Tomorrow we get married.
tomorrow we get married
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.
I do desire it with all my heart, and I hope it is not a shameful desire—to wish to become a respectable woman.
I want it so much. And it's not wrong to want to be a proper woman, right?
i want this want to be respectable
Here come two of the banished Duke’s pages.
Here come two servants of the exiled Duke.
Two guys from the Duke's court are showing up.
the duke's guys are here
The tradition of carpe diem — Latin for 'seize the day,' from Horace's Odes — runs through Renaissance love poetry with particular urgency. The argument is always the same: time passes, youth fades, love is seasonal, the present moment is the only one you own. Use it. The tradition gave English poetry some of its most compressed, beautiful expressions: Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress,' Herrick's 'To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,' Spenser's Epithalamion. Shakespeare is working in that company.
What makes 'It was a lover and his lass' extraordinary is how lightly it holds the argument. Most carpe diem poems are urgent, even anxious — the grave is coming, time is running, hurry. This song barely seems to notice the urgency. The refrain ('with a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonny-no') keeps pulling the verse back from philosophy into sound, into the nonsense joy of birdsong. The one truly weighty line — 'How that a life was but a flower' — arrives and departs in a breath, swallowed by 'hey ding a ding, ding.'
The effect is carpe diem as it feels rather than as it argues. The song doesn't tell you life is short; it gives you the feeling of being in a green cornfield in spring with someone you love and a refrain that sounds like birds. The philosophical conclusion — 'therefore take the present time' — is not the song's peak; it's its quiet resolution. The feeling came first.
This is also why Touchstone's dismissal misses the point. He calls it a 'foolish song' — and by the standards of argument, wit, and substance, he's not wrong. The song proves nothing. It contains no insight that would survive a Touchstone-style interrogation. But some things aren't meant to survive interrogation. Some things are meant to be felt for three minutes on a spring evening, and 'It was a lover and his lass' knows exactly what it is.
Well met, honest gentleman.
We meet well, honest sir.
Hey there.
hey
By my troth, well met. Come sit, sit, and a song.
By my troth, well met. Come, sit down, both of you, and sing us a song.
Great timing. Come on, sit with us. Sing something.
sit sing for us
We are for you, sit i’ th’ middle.
We're ready for that. Sit in the middle, between us.
We're in. You're in the middle.
sit between us
Shall we clap into’t roundly, without hawking or spitting or saying we
are hoarse, which are the only prologues to a bad voice?
Should we just launch into it without any warming up—no throat-clearing or saying we're hoarse, which are just excuses people make before singing badly?
Should we just start without all that stuff people do before singing? Like clearing your throat and saying you're tired?
should we just start singing without the excuses?
I’faith, i’faith, and both in a tune like two gipsies on a horse.
SONG
Absolutely, absolutely—and both in tune like two gypsies on a horse.
Yeah, for sure. And we'll stay in tune.
absolutely we'll stay together
Scene 5-3 is the smallest scene in the play's final act — barely 30 lines, almost no plot, two unnamed characters who appear once and never again. It is also, in structural terms, one of the most important scenes Shakespeare wrote for this play. It is the forest's goodbye.
By the time we reach Act 5, the world of Arden is closing. The plot is resolving: Orlando knows Rosalind, Oliver and Celia have fallen in love, Silvius and Phoebe will be settled, the weddings are tomorrow. The exiled court that spent the middle of the play learning to love the forest is about to go back to the court. Frederick has been converted off-stage. Duke Senior's authority will be restored. The magical alternative world — where rank mattered less, where poetry was possible, where the seasons were the only government — is ending.
Shakespeare inserts this scene, with its song about spring and ring-time, at exactly the moment before the finale. It's the forest speaking one last time in its own language: not argument, not plot, but lyric. The 'hey-nonny-no' refrain that sounds like birds is Arden itself, rendered as sound.
Touchstone's dismissal — 'time lost,' 'foolish song' — is the voice of the world the characters are about to return to: the court world, where songs are evaluated for wit and 'no great matter in the ditty' is a legitimate critique. The Pages don't argue back much. They've said what needed saying. The song is its own argument.
There's a reason this scene comes just before 5-4, the play's most densely plotted scene. Shakespeare is placing them in deliberate contrast: last lyric moment, then finale. The forest sings itself off the stage.
It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o’er the green cornfield 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, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.
Sweet lovers love the spring.
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, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.
Sweet lovers love the spring.
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, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.
Sweet lovers love the spring.
TOUCHSTONE
Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great matter in the ditty,
yet the note was very untuneable.
It was a lover and his sweetheart, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, Who crossed the green fields of grain, In the springtime, that pretty season for love, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding. Sweet lovers love the spring. Between rows of rye, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, These pretty country lovers would lie, In the springtime, that pretty season for love, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding. Sweet lovers love the spring. This song they started at that moment, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, How life itself was just a flower, In the springtime, that pretty season for love, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding. Sweet lovers love the spring. And so embrace the present moment, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, For love is honored in springtime, In the springtime, that pretty season for love, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding. Sweet lovers love the spring. Truly, young gentlemen, though the song wasn't much, the singing was terribly out of tune.
There's a couple, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, Walking through the cornfields, In the springtime, when love blooms, When birds are singing, hey ding a ding, ding. Sweet lovers love the spring. Between rows of rye, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, These country kids would lie around, In the springtime, when love blooms, When birds are singing, hey ding a ding, ding. Sweet lovers love the spring. They started singing this song, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, Saying life's just a temporary thing, In the springtime, when love blooms, When birds are singing, hey ding a ding, ding. Sweet lovers love the spring. So just enjoy what you've got right now, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, Because love's at its peak, In the springtime, when love blooms, When birds are singing, hey ding a ding, ding. Sweet lovers love the spring. Look, the song wasn't great, and the singing was honestly pretty terrible.
its a love song couple in the fields she loves the spring he loves the spring they love spring life is short enjoy it now the singing sucked tho
You are deceived, sir, we kept time, we lost not our time.
You're mistaken, sir. We stayed in rhythm, we didn't waste our time.
You're wrong, sir. We kept the beat the whole time, didn't waste a single moment.
we kept beat no wasted time
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.
Yes, indeed. I count it nothing but wasted time to listen to such a foolish song. May God be with you, and may God improve your voices. Come, Audrey.
I mean, yeah. That whole song was a waste of time. God be with you. Come on, Audrey.
waste of time god be with you let's go
The Reckoning
Scene 5-3 has almost no plot. Touchstone and Audrey run into two Pages from the Duke's household, request a song, and receive it. The song — 'It was a lover and his lass' — is a genuine pastoral lyric about springtime and love, with a nonsense refrain that sounds like birds. Touchstone calls it a 'foolish song' and says he counts it 'but time lost' to listen. He is lying to himself, and the play knows it. This scene exists because the play is almost over, the forest is about to dissolve, and Shakespeare wants to give us one last moment of purely lyrical feeling before the finale pulls everything back into plot.
If this happened today…
Two strangers at a wedding pull out a guitar at the end of the rehearsal dinner and just start playing — no introduction, no performance notes, a song about spring and love and don't waste a moment of either. Everyone gets a little quiet. The person in the room who spent the evening making ironic observations about weddings checks their phone with slightly more urgency than necessary. The song ends, they clap, the cynic says 'well that was nice I suppose,' and nobody is entirely fooled.