As You Like It was written right after Shakespeare had just completed the bulk of his great history plays and immediately before he was to plunge into his immortal tragedies. Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra would all follow within six years. But first it was time for a great pastoral romance set in his very own Forest of Arden, in which love alone exists. This was the forest of his youth and the forest bearing his own mother’s name (Mary Arden). All of the sins of the city and court are left behind here, in this most ideal setting of all the plays, where philosophical wit, love and leisure create the sweetest and happiest of all of Shakespeare’s works. There is no real suffering in As You Like It. It is a resting place, again, between the achievement of the history cycle of plays and the tragedies about to be released. It is a festive place for folly and for love. It is the best place to live in all of Shakespeare’s canon. Arden works magic on its characters, representing the escape of nurture for the innocence of nature. It presents a Garden of Eden, a place uncorrupted. It even has a character named Adam, who Shakespeare, the actor, played in early productions. Indeed, the Forest of Arden is as much a paradise as the settings in King Lear, Macbeth and Hamlet are a hell. And the title captures it perfectly. It is all As You Like It here.
Into this idyllic setting appears one of Shakespeare’s finest characters. Rosalind is the catalyst and the centre piece of As You Like It. She appears as a Goddess of Love in the guise of an ordinary English girl. She is witty, driven, confused… and in love. This play depicts the contrast between the court and the country. Part one is set in an obviously corrupt court. Part two brings us to the pastoral delights of the country. Part three witnesses the triumph of love for eight individuals paired off ingeniously. But this is Rosalind’s play, to be sure, and Arden works its magic on her, transforming what is at first a game into a deep affection, a friendship and, at last, a great love. She emerges as the finest heroine in all of Shakespeare and his second great personage after Falstaff and before Hamlet. Her best advantage is being at the centre of a delightful play in which no real harm can befall anyone. So much cannot be said of Falstaff and Hamlet. Rosalind is confident and poised and perhaps the most admired of all Shakespeare characters. She is free of all malice and resentments. She is curious, exuberant and deeply intelligent. Just before the harrowing tragedies, Shakespeare gives us his most complete portrait of happiness in As You Like It and in Rosalind. She is neither trapped in the history of Falstaff or the tragedy of Hamlet. She makes the malcontent restlessness of Touchstone and Jaque seem irrelevant and inadequate. She may well be the least nihilistic character in the canon, perhaps along with Bottom, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the great victims: Juliet, Ophelia, Desdemona, Cordelia and Edgar. This is Rosalind’s play, indeed. She stands as one of literatures most remarkable women and is more than half of the best and wittiest courtship in Shakespeare. In fact, the title could easily be ‘As Rosalind Likes It, as everything turns out for her in the end. But she has to work it. She must remain in disguise, as the male Ganymede until Orlando learns to love more than simply love itself, but Rosalind in particular. He must graduate from her school as worthy of her love. Love is irresistible and unfailing. She remains Ganymede until Orlando learns this.
This entire play is a renaissance guide to wit and love. Acts III and IV are a series of dialogues on many subjects, but mostly on love. Four very distinct couples grow in love, one after the other. Touchstone and Audrey represent the attraction of opposites, as Touchstone’s court artificiality is softened by the country warmth of simple Audrey. Phebe and Silvius are self-taught country folk. Celia and Oliver are daughter and son of upper class warring families at court. Stripped of all of those trappings, the forest quickly works its magic on them both. And finally, there is Rosalind and Orlando. They are the new renaissance relationship, with an emphasis on true feelings and personal truth. They all are mesmerized by the Forest of Arden. Only Jaque, the discontent and misanthropic Elizabethan intellectual, is irrelevant to the love of Arden. Jaque delivers two superb speeches, including the immortal ‘All the World’s a Stage’ speech. Shakespeare allows his forest characters to make gentle fun of Jaque’s melancholy. When everyone is happy and in love at the play’s end, Jaque quietly goes away into a self imposed exile.
Shakespeare, as often is the case, has great success with gender bending in this play. Obviously, in Shakespeare’s time, Rosalind would have been played by a boy. Then the boy actor, in Arden, suddenly is a boy playing a woman (Rosalind), playing a man (disguised as Ganymede), playing a woman (pretending to be Rosalind). There is homoeroticism a plenty as well, as Phebe woos Ganymede, who is actually a woman (Rosalind), Celia and Rosalind share a deep love for one another, and Orlando falls for Rosalind while she is portraying Ganymede pretending to be Rosalind… who she really is. Wheh!
As You Like It is light on plot but packed with ideas on life and love and is a feast of wit and banter. It is the most wholesome and innocent of the comedies, without the complex and dangerously intriguing plot devices of A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Twelfth Night. It is escapism at its finest, led by an incomparable heroine who finds a love so delightful and contagious that it is shared by seven others by act V. There is nothing to fear here. Arden is safe and rich in exuberance. There was never such a place in the 18 plays that came before As You Like It and there will certainly not be another in the 19 that remain. So we pause before the great tragic genius about to be released like a force of nature and we drink in the Forest of Arden and the lovely and profound heroine Rosalind, all the while Shakespeare is already at work designing and composing his greatest masterpiece, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, a setting as far as one could possibly get from Arden
Act I
Scene i
Oliver’s House, near the court
Orlando: “Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed by my will, charged my brother, to breed me well; and there begins my sadness. He keeps me rustically at home. His animals on his dunghills are as bound to him as I and he bars me the place of a brother. This is it that grieves me, and, the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude. I will no longer endure it.”
Adam: “Yonder comes my master, your brother.”
Orlando: “I know you are my eldest brother, but I have as much of my father in me as you do.”
Oliver: “What, boy!” (strikes him)
Orlando: (with his hands on Oliver’s throat) “I am no villain. Were thou not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy throat until this other hand had pulled out thy tongue for saying so. My father charged you in his will to give me good education. You have trained me like a peasant.”
Oliver: “I will not long be troubled by you.”
Orlando: “I will no further offend you than becomes me for my good.”
Dennis (servant): “Calls your worship?”
Oliver: “Was not Charles, the wrestler, here to speak with me?”
Dennis: “So please you.”
Oliver: “Call him in.”
Charles: “I am given, sir, secretly to understand that your younger brother, Orlando, has a disposition to come against me to try a fall.”
Oliver: “The stubbornest young fellow of France; full of ambition and a secret villainous contriver against me, his natural brother. He will entrap thee by some treacherous device. There is not one so young and so villainous this day living.”
Charles: “If he come tomorrow I will give him his payment.”
Oliver: “I hope I shall see an end of him, for my soul hates nothing more than he.”
Analysis
A pair of dueling brothers open the play. Duke Frederick has banished his brother, Duke Senior, whose throne he has usurped, to the Forest of Arden. As well Oliver has been entrusted by his father to provide for his younger brother, Orlando, but has left him in virtual squalor. Both victimized brothers will make their way to the forest, to escape the corruption at court and find peace. The play is set in France and the forest is called Ardenne, but it is clearly reminiscent of the forest of Shakespeare’s youth and the one sharing a name with his grandmother and mother (Arden).
Act I
Scene ii
Duke Frederick’s Palace
Celia: “Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.”
Rosalind: “Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.”
Le Beau: “Here is the place appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it.”
Rosalind: “Is yonder the man?”
Le Beau: “Even he, madam.”
Duke Frederick: “How now, daughter and cousin. Are you crept hither to see the wrestling?”
Rosalind: “Ay, my liege.”
Rosalind: “Young man, have you challenged Charles, the wrestler?”
Celia: “You have seen cruel proof of his strength.”
Rosalind: “Fare you well. Pray heaven I be deceived in you.”
Charles: “Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth?”
They wrestle.
Rosalind: “O excellent young man!”
Charles is thrown and defeated.
Duke Frederick: “How dost thou, Charles?”
Le Beau: “He cannot speak, my lord.”
Duke Frederick: “Bear him away. What is thy name, young mn?”
Orlando: “Orlando, my liege. The youngest son of Sir Rowland.”
Duke Frederick: “I would thou hadst been son to some man else. Thy father is still my enemy.”
Rosalind: “Gentleman, wear this for me.” (a chain from around her neck)
Orlando: “Can I not say thank you?”
Rosalind: “Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown more than your enemies. Fare you well.”
The women exit.
Orlando: “I cannot speak to her. O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown!”
Le Beau: “Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you to leave this place. The Duke misconstrues all that you have done and has taken displeasure against his gentle niece.”
Orlando: “Heavenly Rosalind.”
Analysis
Rosalind and Celia, cousins, are the very closest of friends. Rosalind admires the young man about to wrestle Charles and even more so after he defeats Charles, when she takes off a chain and places it round Orlando’s neck. Unfortunately, Orlando has offended Duke Frederick and is advised to leave the court immediately.
Act I
Scene iii
Duke Frederick’s Palace
Rosalind: “O, how full of briers is this working-day world.”
Celia: “Is it possible that you should fall into so strong a liking with Sir Roland’s youngest son?”
Enter Duke Frederick
Duke Frederick: “Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste, and get you from our court.”
Rosalind: “Me, uncle?”
Duke Frederick: “You cousin. Within these ten days if thou be found so near our court as twenty miles, thou diest for it.”
Rosalind: “Let me the knowledge of my fault. Never did I offend your Highness.”
Duke Frederick: “I trust thee not. Thou art thy father’s daughter: there’s enough.”
Celia: “If she be a traitor, why so am I.”
Duke Frederick: “She is too subtle for thee and thou will show more bright and seem more virtuous when she is gone. She is banished.”
Celia: “Pronounce that sentence, then, on me, my liege. I cannot live out of her company.”
Duke Frederick: “You are a fool.”
Exit Duke
Celia: “Devise with me how we might fly, whither to go, and what to bear with us. I will go along with thee.”
Rosalind: “Why whither shall we go?”
Celia: “To seek my uncle, thy father, in the Forest of Arden.”
Rosalind: “Alas, what dangers will it be for us, maids as we are? Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.”
Celia: “I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire.”
Rosalind: “I am more than common tall, like a man.”
Celia: “What shall I call thee when thou art a man?”
Rosalind: “You call me Ganymede, but what will you be called?”
Celia: “No longer Celia, but Aliena.”
Rosalind: “Cousin, what if we assay’d to steal the clownish fool (Touchstone) out of your father’s court? Would he not be a comfort to our travel?”
Celia: “He’ll go along over the wide world with me.”
Analysis
So we see by the end of Act one that both Orlando and Celia, Rosalind and Touchstone, the court fool, are all bound for the Forest of Arden, a very different place, as we shall see, from the court. Celia and Rosalind are apparently inseparable as perhaps homoerotic friends. This does not mean they were homosexual but rather experienced a deep longing for one another. This was a fairly typical profile of intimate friends in Renaissance England, as it was in ancient Greece and Rome, where sexual identity was far more loosely defined. More threatening to the norms of the day is Rosalind’s decision to dress like a man, as this will grant her more power than was generally permitted a woman. The setup is complete. Now it is on to the Forest of Arden.
Act II
Scene i
The Forest of Arden
Duke Senior: “Are not these woods more free from peril than the envious court? And this our life finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it.”
Amiens: “Happy is your grace, that can translate the stubbornness of fortune into so quiet and so sweet a style.”
Analysis
No sooner do we arrive in the Forest of Arden than we hear it praised by the banished Duke. Indeed, it is likely the happiest place in the entire Shakespeare canon. Pastoral literature ensures us that the difficulty of life in the city can be healed by the simple serenity of the country. And yet, by play’s end, many of the exiles from court are prepared to return to civilization once again. So it is like a holiday. It gives us comfort but is temporary. Melancholic Jaques believes that the forest is a temporary refuge because once the city folk arrive they will no doubt ruin it and start killing and destroying everything beautiful in it. For instance, Jaques is very upset that Duke Senior and company are hunting and slaughtering deer. Then again, nobody in this play takes Jaques’ morose character very seriously.
Act II
Scene ii
Duke Frederick’s Palace
Duke Frederick: “Can it be possible that no man saw them?”
I Lord: “Your daughter and her cousin, wherever they are gone, that youth (Orlando) is surely in their company.”
Duke Frederick: “Bring his brother (Oliver) to see me. I will make him find them.”
Analysis
Just as Orlando, Adam, Rosalind, Celia and Touchstone (the court fool) plan to leave the court for the forest, Duke Frederick determines to capture the runaways by sending Oliver to find them. But the forest may work its charms on Oliver and Frederick as well. It is just that kind of play.
Act II
Scene iii
Near Oliver’s House
Orlando: “What’s the matter?”
Adam: “O, unhappy youth! Come not within these doors. The enemy of all your graces lives. Your brother hath heard your praises, and this night he means to burn the lodging where you used to lie, and you within it. This house is but a butchery; abhor it, fear it, do not enter it. Let me be your servant. Let me come with you.”
Orlando: “We’ll go along together.”
Adam: “Master, I will follow thee to the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.”
Analysis
Orlando must leave the court. He has made a powerful enemy in Duke Frederick and his brother is determined to kill him. This scene serves to advance the plot by having Orlando and Adam relocate to the forest, where the remainder of the play will take place and where Orlando may even find love.
Act ii
Scene iv
The Forest of Arden
Rosalind: “O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits.”
Celia: “I pray you bear with me. I can go no further.”
Rosalind: “This is the Forest of Arden. Look who comes here, a young and an old man in solemn talk.”
Enter Corin and Silvius (shepherds)
Silvius: “O Corin, that thou knewest how I do love her.”
Corin: “I can partly guess.”
Silvius: “No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess. O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe!”
Touchstone: “We that are true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.”
Rosalind: “Jove! This shepherd’s passion is much upon my fashion.”
Celia: “I like this place, and willingly could waste my time in it.”
Analysis
No sooner do Rosalind and Celia arrive in Arden but they encounter poor Silvius, who is hopelessly in love with Phebe. This must be the place!
Act II
Scene v
The forest
Amiens sings a sweet song
Jaques: “More, more, I prithee, more.”
Amiens: “It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.”
Jaques: “I thank it. More. I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song.”
Amiens: “I know I cannot please you.”
Jaques: “I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing.”
Analysis
Jaque, the misanthrope, enjoys a melancholic song about how there is no enemy in the forest except for winter and rough weather.
Act II
Scene vi
The forest
Adam: “Dear master, I can go no further. O, I die for food! Here lie I down and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master.”
Orlando: “Why, how now, Adam! No greater heart in thee? Cheer thyself a little. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy powers.”
Analysis
Adam and Orlando arrive in the forest famished. Old Adam is so weak that Orlando carries him to a shelter. They will arrive in perfect timing to serve as an illustration for Jaque’s ‘Seven Stages of Man’ speech in the next scene.
Act II
Scene vii
The forest
Duke Senior: “I think he (Jaques) be transformed into a Beast; for I can nowhere find him like a man.
1 Lord: “Here was he merry, hearing of a song.”
Enter Jaques
Duke Senior: “Why, how now, monsieur! What a life is this, that your poor friends must woo your company. What, you look merrily!”
Jaques: “A fool, a fool! I met a fool in the forest. A motley fool. A miserable world! ‘Good morrow, fool’, quoth I. He says very wisely, ‘It is ten o’clock. Thus may we see how the world wags ; tis but an hour ago since it was nine; and after one hour more it will be eleven; and so from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, and then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; and thereby hangs a tale. When I did hear the motley fool thus moral on the time, my lungs began to crow that fools should be so deeply contemplative; and I did laugh sans intermission an hour by his dial. O noble fool! A worthy fool!”
Duke Senior: “What fool is this?”
Jaques: “O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier. He hath strange places crammed with observation, the which he vents in mangled forms. O that I were a fool! It is my only suit, provided that you weed your better judgements of all opinion that grows rank in them that I am wise. I must have liberty to blow on whom I please, for so fools have; and they that are most galled with my folly, they most must laugh. Give me leave to speak my mind, and I will through and through cleanse the foul body of the infected world, if they will but patiently receive my medicine.”
Duke Senior: “Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.”
Jaque: “What would I do but good?”
Duke Senior: “Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin. For thou thyself hast been a libertine, as sensual as the brutish sting itself; and all the embossed sores and headed evils that thou with license of free foot hast caught wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.”
Enter Orlando
Orlando: “Forbear, and eat no more.”
Jaques: “Why, I have eat none yet.”
Orlando: “Nor shalt not, till necessity be served.”
Duke Senior: “Art thou thus emboldened, man, by thy distress? Or else a rude despiser of good manners, that in civility thou seem’st so empty?”
Orlando: “Bare necessity hath taken from me the show of smooth civility. But forebear, I say; he dies that touches any of this fruit till I and my affairs are answered. I almost die for food, so let me have it.”
Duke Senior: “Sit own and feed, and welcome to our table.”
Orlando: “Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I thought that all things had been savage here.”
Duke Senior: “True is it that we have seen better days. Therefore sit you down in gentleness and take upon command what help we have.”
Orlando: “Forebear your food a little while, whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn, and give it food. There is an old poor man who after me hath many a weary step limped in pure love; till he be first sufficed I will not touch a bit.”
Duke Senior: “Go find him out. We will nothing waste until your return.”
Orlando: “I thank thee; and be blest for your good comfort.”
Exit Orlando
Duke Senior: “This wide and universal theatre presents more woeful pageants than the scene wherein we play in.”
Jaques: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms; then the whining school boy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwilling to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, full of strange oaths, jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice in fair round belly with good capon lined, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances; and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered pantallon, with spectacle on nose and pouch on side, his youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice turning again toward childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion; sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
Enter Orlando carrying old Adam
Duke Senior: “Welcome. Set down your venerable burden and let him feed.”
Orlando: “I thank you most for him.”
Adam: “I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.”
Duke Senior: “If that you were the good Sir Rowland’s son, as you have whispered faithfully you were, be truly welcome hither. I am the duke that loved your father. Give me your hand.
Analysis
This is perhaps the most telling and significant scene in the play. We learn ever so much about Jaque, the play’s misanthrope from the perspectives of the good Duke and Jaques’ own encounter with Touchstone, the court fool. As well, Jaque delivers one of Shakespeare’s great passages in this scene, the Seven Ages of Man speech and recites yet another one of note, borrowed from Touchstone the fool (‘and so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, and then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; and thereby hangs a tale.’), both in this one scene. And Orlando bursts onto the forest stage and his encounter with Duke Senior is a telling one indeed.
Jaques is usually so miserable that when the Duke learns that he is in a merry state he is concerned that it might portend discord in the very universe itself. It turns out he is merry because he has encountered a fool in the forest (Touchstone). He is enchanted with the fool and claims that he would like to become one himself, due to the license fools have to speak their minds without consequence. He believes that as a fool he could ‘cleanse the foul body of the infected world with the medicine of his criticism’, but the Duke chides him for having those same miserable characteristics in himself that he would criticize in others. Jaques stands out in As You Like It as the only character who does not really fit in to the overall positivity experienced by all others in the forest. He is the quintessential renaissance philosopher and Shakespeare is exposing him as such in this play. The fools in Will’s plays are not simply dour philosophers but rather possess extraordinary wit and dazzling verbal dexterity. Consider Lear’s fool or Feste in Twelfth Night. Shakespeare’s fools have licence to speak their minds and say what others dare not. Jaque is all excited that he too might be a fool, but alas, he would simply spread gloom. He is hardly evil, but his constant pessimism is very much unlike the dear fools, who entertain as well as they espouse.
Orlando arrives starving and furious for food, demanding of Jaques and the Duke that they stop eating immediately, while he and Adam are starving. This is the way one might approach folks at court or in the city in order to desperately secure food. But he quickly learns that the ways of the forest are quite different as the Duke agrees wholeheartedly that they will suspend their meal while Orlando retrieves poor Adam and brings him to their table. Orlando is pleasantly shocked by such rare generosity and yet common forest hospitality. No scene draws a greater contrast between nature and nurture so much as this one. Once Orlando leaves to fetch Adam the Duke reflects to Jaques on the amount of suffering there is in the world, which inspires Jaques to break into his Seven Stages of Man speech, after which Orlando arrives carrying poor old and yet still vital Adam, hardly an example of sans teeth, sans, eyes, sans taste and sans everything. Adam remains loyal, passionate and has a fine appetite for both food and life. In Shakespeare’s day he himself played the role of old Adam in As You Like It, offering his immediate but silent rebuff of Jaque’s portrayal of the seventh stage of man. And yet it is a marvelous speech, as indeed, we all do pass through each stage (stage having two meanings) on our way to eventual oblivion of sans everything. The metaphor of ‘the stage’ was commonly employed in the theatre during Elizabethan England and with Shakespeare in particular. The stage is life and life is the stage. We act our roles and play our parts in this complex drama called life. We have our entrances and our exits and all play many roles. Jaque’s principle role is to be unhappy and therefore to point out the unhappiness in others. The Duke, on the other hand, always does his best to thrive in the world he has been given, as do most characters, inspired by the peace and beauty of this forest life.
Act III
Scene i
The court palace
Duke Frederick: “Find out thy brother, wheresoever he be. Bring him dead or living within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more to seek a living in our territory. Do this expediently.”
Anaylysis
The court life will attempt to disrupt the forest life. Easier said than done…
Act III
Scene ii
The forest
Orlando: “Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love. O Rosalind! These trees shall be my books, and in their barks my thoughts I’ll character, that every eye which in this forest looks shall see thy virtue witnessed everywhere. Run, run, Orlando, carve on every tree.”
Enter Corin and Touchstone
Corin: “And how like you this shepherd’s life, Master Touchstone?”
Touchstone: “Truly, Shepherd, in respect of itself; it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd’s life, it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?”
Corin: “No more but that I know the more one sickens the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, means and content, is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature or art may complain of good breeding, or comes of a very dull kindred.
Touchstone: “Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, Shepherd?”
Corin: “No, truly.”
Touchstone: “Then thou art damned.”
Corin: “For not being at court? Your reason.”
Touchstone: “Why, if thou never wast at court thou never saw’st good manners; if thou never saw’st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a perilous state, shepherd.”
Corin: “Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good mannered at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court.”
Touchstone: “God help thee, shallow man.”
Corin: “Sir, I am a true labourer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness; glad of other man’s good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.”
Touchstone: “That is another simple sin in you, to get your living by the copulation of cattle; if thou beest not damn’d for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds.”
Enter Rosalind, reading a paper
Rosalind: “No jewel is like Rosalind. All the pictures fairest lined are but black to Rosalind.”
Touchstone: “This is the very false gallop of verses.”
Rosalind: “Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.”
Touchstone: “Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.”
Enter Celia, with a verse
Celia: “Didst thou hear these verses?”
Rosalind: “O, yes, I heard them all, and more too.”
Celia: “Know you who has done this?”
Rosalind: “Is it a man? Who is it? Tell me who it is.”
Celia: O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful, and yet again wonderful.”
Rosalind: “I would thou couldst stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow mouthed bottle – either too much at once or not at all. I prithee, take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings. Is he of God’s making?”
Celia: “It is young Orlando.”
Rosalind: “Orlando?”
Celia: “Orlando.”
Rosalind: “What did he when thou saw’st him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? And when shalt thou see him again? Answer me in one word.
Celia: “Tis a word too great for any mouth of this ages’ size.”
Rosalind: “But doth he know that I am in this forest, and in man’s apparel?”
Celia: “I found him under a tree.”
Rosalind: “It may well be called Jove’s tree, when it drops forth such fruit.”
Celia: “There lay he, stretched along like a wounded knight. He was furnished like a hunter.”
Rosalind: “O, ominous! He comes to kill my heart.”
Celia: “Soft! Comes he not here?”
Enter Orlando and Jaques
Rosalind: “Tis he.”
Jaques: “I pray you mar no more trees with writing love songs in their barks.”
Orlando: “I pray you mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.”
Jaques: “Rosalind is your lover’s name?”
Orlando: “Yes, just.”
Jaques: “I do not like her name.”
Orlando: “There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.”
Jaques: “Will you sit down with me and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all our misery.”
Orlando: “I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.”
Jaques: “The worst fault you have is to be in love.”
Orlando: “Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.”
Jaques: “I was seeking for a fool when I found you.”
Orlando: “He is drowned in the brook; look but in, and you shall see him.”
Jaques: “There I shall see mine own figure. Farewell, good Signior Love.”
Orlando: “I am glad of your departure; adieu, good Monsieur Melancholy.”
Exit Jaques
Rosalind (to Celia): “I will speak to him like a saucy lackey.”
(to Orlando): “I pray you, what o’clock is it?”
Orlando: “You should ask me what time of day; there’s no clock in the forest.”
Rosalind: “Then there’s no true lover in the forest, else sighing every minute and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of time as well as a clock. There is a man haunts the forest that abuses our young plants with carving ‘Rosalind’ on their barks, defying the name of Rosalind. If I could meet that fancy-monger, I would give them some good counsel.”
Orlando: “I am he that is so love-shaked; I pray you tell me your remedy. I would I could make thee believe I love.”
Rosalind: “Me believe it! You may as soon make her that you love believe it. Are you he that hangs the verses on the trees.”
Orlando: “I am he, that unfortunate he.”
Rosalind: “Love is merely a madness; and I tell you, deserves as well a dark horse and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day and woo me.”
Orlando: “Now, by the faith of my love, I will.”
Rosalind: “You must call me Rosalind.”
Analysis
Touchstone and Corin discuss court vs country and it is a very telling exchange. Touchstone, from court, is the more aggressive of the two debaters, while Corin is content to merely state the nature of his forest life. Then we get to Orlando and his very bad poetry. Jaques rips him for disfiguring the trees with his missives and for being in love with Rosalind. In fact, Orlando has fallen in love hard, as individuals tend to do here in the forest, and he will have nothing to do with Jaques’ melancholy. Rosalind also recognizes how bad Orlando’s poetry is but she too is in love and determines that she can teach him to love her, but as Ganymede. Shakespeare creates a world of possibilities by having Rosalind, disguised as Ganymede, instructing Orlando on how best to love Rosalind. Classic Bard!
Act III
Scene iii
The forest
Touchstone: “Audrey, I will fetch your goats. Does my simple feature content you?”
Jaques: “O knowledge ill-inhabited.”
Touchstone: “Truly, I wish the Gods had made thee poetical.”
Audrey: “I do not know what poetical is. Is it honest in deed and word? Would you not have me honest? I am not a slut, though I thank the Gods I am foul.”
Touchstone: “Honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar. I will marry thee.”
Analysis
The absurdities of love are on display here. Touchstone is a wordy wit of a fool and Audrey is borderline illiterate. This is a curious coupling. However, Touchstone reflects that she will satisfy his (sexual) desires and that will suffice, unlike the verbose exchanges between forest dwellers Silvius and Phebe or Orlando and Rosalind from court.
Act III
Scene iv
The forest
Rosalind: “Have I not cause to weep?
Celia: “As good a cause as one would desire, therefore weep.”
Rosalind: “Why did he swear he would come this morning and then come not?”
Celia: “Certainly, there is no truth in him.”
Rosalind: “Do you think so? Not true in love?
Celia: “The oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmer of false reckonings.”
Analysis
Orlando has agreed to meet Ganymede but he does not show up. Without knowing why, Rosalind falls apart. We will soon learn where he was.
Act III
Scene v
The forest
Silvius: “Sweet Phebe, say that you love me not but say not so in bitterness.”
Phebe: “I do frown on thee with all my heart, and if my eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.”
Ganymede (Rosalind) has been listening
Ganymede: “You foolish shepherd. You are a thousand times a more proper man than she a woman. Tis such fools as you that makes the world full of ill-favoured children. Mistress, know yourself. Down on your knees, and thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love. For I must tell you, sell when you can, you are not for all markets. Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer.”
Phebe: “Sweet youth, I would rather hear you chide than this man woo.”
Ganymede: “He has fallen in love with your foulness. I pray you do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine. Besides, I like you not. Come, shepherdess, look on him better, and be not proud.”
Exit Ganymede
Phebe: “Whoever loved that loved not at first sight.”
Silvius: “Sweet Phebe, pity me.”
Phebe: “Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.”
Silvius: “If you do sorrow at my grief in love, by giving love, your sorrow and my grief were both extermin’d.”
Phebe: “Thou hast my love.”
Silvius: “I would have you.”
Phebe: “The time was that I hated thee, but since that thou canst talk of love so well, thy company, I will endure. What care I for words? Yet words do well when he that speaks them pleases those that hear.”
Sylvius: “Phebe, with all my heart.”
Phebe: “Go with me, Silvius.”
Analysis
The forest creates strangeness in love. Sylvius, the shepherd, is hopelessly in love with Phebe, who scorns him, until Rosalind, as Ganymede, intervenes on his behalf. But the more she chides Phebe to love Sylvius, the more does Phebe fall in love with Ganymede. Sylvius and Phebe make their peace, but Ganymede may need to intervene further…
Act IV
Scene i
The forest
Jaques: “I pray thee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.”
Rosalind: “They say you are a melancholy fellow.”
Jaques: “I am so; I do love it better than laughing. Tis good to be sad and say nothing.”
Rosalind: “Why then, tis good to be a post.”
Jaques: “I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician’s, which is fantastical; nor the courtier’s, which is proud; nor the soldier’s, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer’s which is politic; nor the lady’s, which is nice; nor the lover’s, which is all these; but it is a melancholy of my own, in which my own rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness. Yes, I have gained my experience.”
Rosalind: “And your experience makes you sad. I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad.”
Enter Orlando
Rosalind: “Why, how now, Orlando! Where have you been all this while? You, a lover? Never come in my sight more.”
Orlando: “My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.”
Rosalind: “Break an hour’s promise in love! He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts and break but a part of the thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapped him on the shoulder. You be so tardy, come no more in my sight.”
Orlando: “My Rosalind is virtuous.”
Rosalind: “And I am your Rosalind. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour, and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, if I were your very Rosalind?”
Orlando: “I would kiss before I spoke.”
Rosalind: “Nay, you had better speak first.”
Orlando: “How if the kiss be denied?”
Rosalind: “Am not I your Rosalind?”
Orlando: “I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her.”
Rosalind: “Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.”
Orlando: “Then, in mine own person, I die.”
Rosalind: “No, faith. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in a love cause. Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love. Now I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition, and ask me what you will. I will grant it.”
Orlando: “Then love me, Rosalind.”
Rosalind: “Yes, faith, will I.”
Orlando: “And wilt thou have me?”
Rosalind: “Ay, and twenty such. Come sister, (to Celia) you shall be the priest and marry us. Give me your hand, Orlando.”
Orlando: “Pray thee, marry us.”
Celia: “Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?”
Orlando: “I will.”
Rosalind: “You must say ‘I take thee, Rosalind, for my wife.’”
Orlando: “I take thee, Rosalind, for my wife.”
Rosalind: “I take thee, Orlando, for my husband. Now tell me how long you will have her, after you have possessed her.”
Orlando: “Forever and a day.”
Rosalind: “Say ‘a day’ without the ‘ever’. No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against the rain, more new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for nothing when you are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyena when thou art inclined to sleep.”
Orlando: “But will my Rosalind do so?”
Rosalind: “By my life, she will do as I do.”
Orlando: “For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee. I must attend the Duke at dinner.”
Rosalind: “Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours. If you break one jot of your promise, or come one minute behind your hour, I will think you the most pathetic break-promise, and the most hollow lover, and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind. Therefore, beware my censure, and keep your promise.”
Orlando: “No less than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind.”
Exit Orlando
Celia: “You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate.”
Rosalind: “O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom. I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando.”
Analysis
First of all Rosalind demonstrates her positivity in direct contrast to Jaque’s melancholy in the opening lines of this most important scene, just prior to her instructions to Orlando, while disguised as Ganymede. This is likely the most pivotal scene in the play, as Ganymede, who we know to be Rosalind, the instructor, reels in Orlando, the student. He is innocent and perhaps naïve and has such lofty ideals and Rosalind wants him to be realistic about entering into a love that would survive beyond Arden. Immediately she scolds him for being an hour late. This is a practical matter of respect and courtesy he must understand. Then she declares herself to be in a mood to be woo’d and encourages him to do so. She turns the tables on him again when he desires a kiss. When he says he would die if she denied her love to him she abruptly reminds him that no man has ever died for love. Again, she then softens and tells him to ask what he will of her. He asks her to love him and Rosalind takes the plunge, asking Celia to perform a mock wedding, complete with vows. Rosalind clearly feels that Orlando, the student, is now ready to love. However, when Orlando promises to love her forever and a day she only wants to hear the ‘for a day’ part without reference to ‘forever’, since ‘men are April when they woo and December when they wed’ and ‘women are May when they woo’ but change dramatically when they wed. Again, she wants Orlando to be clear and realistic about love and marriage. It all won’t remain like it is in the wooing stage of love. After the wedding any relationship will settle into something less exciting than the initial wooing as both partners will grow and change and have to hunker down for the long haul of an often times flawed companionship. Anyone can fall in love in Arden but to remain in love in the world at large requires realism and grit. When Orlando announces he must leave her in order to attend dinner with the Duke for two hours, she insists he return no later or be unworthy of Rosalind. When Celia criticizes Rosalind for her stated appraisal of married women, Rosalind admits her unfathomable love for Orlando, claiming that she can no longer remain out of his sight. Mission accomplished.
Act IV
Scene ii
The forest
Jaques and some Lords have just killed a deer in the forest and plan to put the animal’s horns on the hunter’s head as they sing a song about being while they sing about cuckoldry, which they insist is common, normal and nothing to be ashamed about.
Analysis
Jaques is a melancholic cynic and reducing the ideals of love to the base level of cuckoldry makes perfect sense to him.
Act IV
Scene iii
The forest
Sylvia delivers a letter from Phebe to Ganymede. The letter compares Ganymede to a God. Ganymede sends Sylvius back to Phebe with a clear message that Ganymede will never love Phebe unless Phebe loves Sylvius.
Oliver: “Orlando, he sends this bloody napkin.”
Rosalind: “What must we understand by this?”
Oliver: “A lioness lay crouching, with catlike watch, when that the sleeping man should stir. This seen, Orlando did approach the man, and found it was his brother, his elder brother.”
Rosalind: “Did he leave him there, food to the hungry lioness?”
Oliver: “Kindness, nobler ever than revenge, made him give battle to the lioness, who quickly fell before him.”
Celia: “Are you his brother?”
Rosalind: “Was it you he rescued?”
Celia: “Was it you that did so often contrive to kill him?”
Oliver: “Twas I, but tis not I. I do not shame to tell you what I was, since my conversion so sweetly tastes, being the thing I am. He led me to the gentle Duke, committing me unto my brother’s love; here upon his arm the lioness had torn some flesh away. I recovered him, bound up his wound and he sent me hither, to tell this story, that you might excuse his broken promise, and to give this napkin, dy’d in his blood, unto the shepherd youth that he in sport doth call his Rosalind.”
Rosalind swoons
Oliver: “You lack a man’s heart.”
Rosalind: “I do so. I confess it.”
Analysis
Rosalind learns from Sylvius that Phebe is madly in love with her, as Ganymede. Ganymede sends Sylvius back to Phebe assuring her that Ganymede could never love Phebe if Phebe does not love Sylvius. Ganymede, really Rosalind, will soon reveal herself as a woman and tries to unite Phebe and Sylvius as a part of what will be a four couple resolution in Act V.
Oliver arrives with the bloody napkin, obtained when he was saved by a lioness, thanks to the heroics of his brother. Oliver is immediately transformed into the arms of Orlando’s love. Act V is ready to proceed!
Act V
Touchstone and Audrey plan to marry but first Touchstone must dissuade William, who also loves Audrey. This is easily accomplished. Oliver declares his love for Aliena, who is really Celia, and tells Orlando that he will turn over all of his wealth to Orlando and live and die a shepherd in the forest. Orlando is happy for his brother but confesses to Ganymede that he really misses his Rosalind and grows tired of pretending that Ganymede is Rosalind. It is clearly time for Rosalind to end her schooling of Orlando and come clean. Ganymede assures Orlando that when Oliver marries Aliena, so will Orlando magically marry his Rosalind. Phebe and Sylvius show up and Ganymede (Rosalind) must unravel the knot of misplaced love and disguised identity. Rosalind, with the help of the Goddess Hymen, pulls off the improbable by sorting everything out for herself and Orlando and Sylvius and Phebe, along with Touchstone and Audrey and Oliver and Celia. A happy ending indeed, including a warm epilogue delivered by Rosalind.
Act V
Scene i
The forest
Touchstone: “Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest who lays claim to you.”
Audrey: “Here comes the man you mean.”
Touchstone: (to William) “I am he that must marry this woman. Therefore, you clown, abandon this female, or, clown, thou perishes; or to thy better understanding, diest; or, to wit, I kill thee. I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways; therefore tremble and depart.”
William: “God rest you merry, sir.”
Analysis
Touchstone, the court fool, uses his urban wit to humiliate the simple forest lad, William. While he succeeds, it is Touchstone who appears crude and uncivilized by comparison.
Act V
Scene ii
The forest
Orlando: “Is it possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her, and loving her, and wooing her, that she should grant?”
Oliver: “Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden consenting, but say with me that I love Aliena. It shall be to your good; for my father’s house and all the revenue that was Sir Rowland’s will I estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.”
Orlando: “You have my consent. Let your wedding be tomorrow.”
Exit Oliver. Enter Rosalind
Rosalind: “For your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy – and in these degrees they have made a pair of stairs to marriage. They are in the very wrath of love. Clubs cannot part them.”
Orlando: “They shall be married tomorrow. O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.”
Rosalind: Why, then, tomorrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?”
Orlando: “I can live no longer by thinking.”
Rosalind: “I will weary you, then, no longer with idle talking. I can do strange things. I have, since I was three years old, conversed with a magician, most profound in his art. If you do love Rosalind, so near the heart as your gestures cry it out, when your brother marries Aliena, shall you marry her. It is not impossible for me to set her before your eyes tomorrow.”
Orlando: “Speakest thou in sober meanings?”
Rosalind: “By my life, I do. If you will be married tomorrow, you shall; and to Rosalind, if you will.”
Enter Silvius and Phebe
Phebe: “Youth, you have done me much ungentleness.”
Rosalind: “You are there followed by a faithful shepherd; look upon him, love him, he worships you.”
Phebe: “Good shepherd, tell this youth what tis to love.”
Silvius: “It is to be all made of sighs and tears; and so I am for Phebe.”
Phebe: “And I for Ganymede.”
Orlando: “And I for Rosalind.”
Rosalind: “And I for no woman.”
Silvius: “It is to be all made of faith and service; and so I am for Phebe.”
Phebe: “And I for Ganymede.”
Orlando: “And I for Rosalind.”
Rosalind: “And I for no woman.”
Silvius: “It is to be all made of fantasy, all made of passion, and all made of wishes; all adoration, duty and observance, all humbleness, all patience and impatience, all purity, all trial, all obedience; and so I am for Phebe.”
Phebe: “And so I am for Ganymede.”
Orlando: “And so I am for Rosalind.”
Rosalind: “And so I am for no woman. Pray you no more of this; tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon. (to Silvius) I will help you if I can. (to Phebe) I would love you if I could – tomorrow meet me all together. (to Phebe) I will marry you if I ever marry woman, and I’ll be married tomorrow. (to Orlando) I will satisfy you if I ever satisfied man, and you should be married tomorrow. (to Sylvius) I will content you if what pleases you contents you, and you should be married tomorrow. (to Orlando) As you love Rosalind, meet. (to Sylvius) As ou love Phebe, meet -and as I love no woman, I’ll meet.”
Analysis
The forest works its magic once again as Oliver immediately falls in love with Aliena (Celia), who as a shepherd girl he would surely have hardly noticed at court. This romance ends Rosalind’s schooling of Orlando as he is instantly jealous that even his brother has found love and declares that he can live no longer by mere thinking. Therefore, Rosalind immediately plans her magical reconciliation of all involved, ensuring Orlando that he will marry his Rosalind tomorrow. She also promises Phebe that he (as Ganymede) will marry Phebe tomorrow as well, if ever he marries a woman. They all agree to meet the next day.
Act V
Scene iii
The forest
Touchstone: “Tomorrow is the joyful day, Audrey; tomorrow we shall be married.”
Audrey: “I do desire it with all my heart.”
Pages arrive and sing a romantic song to for Touchstone and Audrey but Touchstone criticizes their song as an out of tune ditty and dismisses them roughly. He is clearly no romantic and is focused on the carnal pleasures ahead.
Act V
Scene iv
The forest
Duke Senior: “Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy can do all this that he hath promised?”
Orlando: “I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not; as those that fear they hope, and know they fear.”
Rosalind: “You say, if I bring in your Rosalind, you will bestow her on Orlando here?”
Duke Senior: “That I would.”
Rosalind: “And you say you will have her when I bring her?”
Orlando: “That I would.”
Rosalind: “You say you’ll marry me, if I be willing?”
Phebe: “That will I.”
Rosalind: “But if you do refuse to marry me, you’ll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?”
Phebe: “So is the bargain.”
Rosalind: “I have promised to make all this matter even. Keep your word, O Duke, to give your daughter, you yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter; keep your word, Phebe, that you’ll marry me, or else, refusing me, to wed this shepherd; keep your word, Silvius, that you will marry her if she refuse me. Hence I go.”
Exit Rosalind
Duke Senior: “I do remember in this shepherd boy some lively touches of my daughter’s favour.”
Orlando: “My lord, the first time that ever I saw him methought he was a brother to your daughter.”
Jaques: “There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark.”
Enter Hymen, Rosalind and Celia
Hymen: “Then there is mirth in heaven, when earthly things made even atone together.”
Rosalind: (as herself) (to Senior Duke) “To you I give myself, for I am yours.” (to Orlando) “To you I give myself, for I am yours.”
Senior Duke: “If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter.”
Orlando: “If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind.”
Phebe: “If sight and shape be true, why then, my love adieu.”
Rosalind: “I’ll have no father, if you be not he; I’ll have no husband if you be not he; nor never wed woman, if you be not she.”
Hymen: “Pece, ho! I bar confusion. Here’s eight that musttake hands to join in Hymen’s bands. You and you no cross shall part; you and you are heart in heart; You to his love must accord, or have a woman to your lord; You and you are sure together, as the winter to foul weather.”
Jaques de Boys: “I am the second son of old Sir Rowland. Duke Frederick, purposed to take his brother here and put him to the sword; Meeting with an old religious man, he was converted, both from his enterprise and from the world; his crow bequeathed to his banished brother, and all his lands restored again that were with him exiled.”
Jaques: “If I heard you rightly, the Duke hath put on a religious life, and thrown into neglect the pompous court.”
Jaques de Boys: “He hath.”
Jaques: “To him will I. There is much matter to be heard and learned.” (to Senior Duke) “You to your former honour I bequeath; Your patience and your virtue well deserve it.” (to Orlando) “You to a love that your true faith doth merit.” (to Sylvius) “You to a long and well deserved bed.” (to Touchstone) “And you to wrangling – so to your pleasures.”
Duke Senior: “Stay, Jaques, stay.”
Jaques: “To see no pastime I. I would stay to know your abandoned cave.”
Jaques exits
Epilogue
Rosalind: “It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. Tis true that a good play needs no epilogue. Yet, good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you; and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women – that between you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me, and breaths that I defied not; and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.”
Final Thoughts
As You Like It is not so simple a play as it first might seem. As the title suggests, Shakespeare has given us what he thinks we want, a wonderful place of escape from the treacherous court and world at large. All of the problems from court in Act I are resolved in the forest of Arden. Duke Frederick and Oliver menacingly drive Orlando, Rosalind, Celia and Touchstone to the forest where their lives are lovingly restored and then even Frederick and Oliver themselves are transformed upon their arrival. In the end, Orlando and Rosalind have been granted his inheritance back at court, where Duke Senior will preside. We must assume that Touchstone, too, will return with them to civilization, outside the protective shell of the forest. Even Jaques is leaving, to join Frederick in a life of religious contemplation. So while we have the happiest of endings in As You Like It, one must wonder, moving forward, what these various characters will encounter outside of the forest that has provided their magical love and happiness. Of all of Shakespeare’s plays, this is the sequel I would most want to witness. But what a universe the forest represents, with its four very different couples confronted by Hymen. Touchstone and Audrey are sharply contrasted by court artificiality and the natural life of the forest. Opposites attract and their lustiness unites them from their emptiness to fulfillment. Phebe and Silvius are working class prototypes of pastoral romance, clearly intended for one another. Celia and Oliver are each children of upper class families from court. This is a romance of political diplomacy as much as spontaneity. Rosalind and Orlando are the main show. They are the new Renaissance relationship of two individuals in love, where personal truth is essential. Taken together, Shakespeare has created a new universe, a new Noah’s Ark, as Jaques states, and collectively a new vision of a modern society. Into this new world is injected a series of dialogues touching on everything, but mostly love. What we have here is a Renaissance guide to wit and love, especially in Acts III-IV, once Shakespeare has firmly established this new moral compass, allowing the four couples to discover and explore their own true natures and those of their proposed partners. Thrown into the very center of this new world is the witty, moral, astute earthly goddess of love, Rosalind, reinvented into a Renaissance country girl. What she knows is that when all of love’s false pretensions and idealized romantic conventions are swept away, what remains is love itself, irresistible and unfailing. It is this she must teach Orlando to surrender to, as we must all learn to do.
William Shakespeare: Journey Through Genius 