Jacques had met Orlando by chance, and he questions him about the poetry that he is hanging on the trees (beginning at line 231). The lovesick Orlando would rather be alone, and he responds to the questions with short and meaningless responses. Jacques, not entirely pleased with the answers, then makes the following remark:
You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings? (248-50)
Jacques is referring to the fact that lovers often gave their ladies golden rings with simplistic love poetry etched inside them. Jacques is suggesting that Orlando’s answers (and, thus, his expressions of love) are stale and meaningless. Jacques’ comment is also a double entendre (a pun with a risqué second meaning), for the word ring was also Elizabethan slang for vagina. Jacques is thus implying that Orlando is a philanderer who tricks goldsmith’s wives (and women in general) for sex and profit.
Orlando rightly feels insulted, and he insults Jacques in return:
Not so, but I answer you with right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions. (251-52)
Orlando is referring to inexpensive painted wall