Note to As You Like It, 3.3.7-9: "I am here with thee and thy goats, / as the most capricious poet, honest / Ovid, was among the Goths."


Return
to
As You Like It,
Act 3, Scene 3, lines 7-9.
I am here with thee and thy goats, / as the most capricious poet, honest / Ovid, was among the Goths: —Touchstone here makes a multi-witticism. Capricious meant "ingenious, witty," which describes both Touchstone and the great Roman poet Ovid. Capricious also meant what it does now, "whimsical, unreasonable," which Touchstone is being in marrying someone who is as unlike him as possible. In addition, the root word in capricious is "caper," Latin for "he‑goat" [compare to the name of the constellation of the Goat—Capricorn]. And goatishness is associated with lasciviousness [lascivious means inclined to lust, lewd, wanton—similar to the connotation in the phrase "old goat"]; the scene strongly suggests that Touchstone's motivation in marrying Audrey is simply sexual, which is reminiscent of Ovid who is most famous for his sensual love poetry, so sensuousness played a part in the exiles of both Touchstone and Ovid.

"Touchstone and Audrey"
by
Felix Octavius Carr Darley, 1882-1888

Furthermore, in Shakespeare's time, "goat" and "Goth" sounded very much alike, and Ovid was exiled [for his sensuousness] from the center of the civilized world, Rome, to an outback region [currently, the Black Sea shore of Romania] filled with barbarian Goths, just as Touchstone, the sophisticated courtly fool, is now [away from the closest center of civilized culture] wandering about with Audrey, who is such a country girl [unsophisticated like the barbarians] that she doesn't understand a bit of his wit.