Shakespeare\u2019s As You Like It Commentary by Alfred J. Drake<\/title><meta name= \"description\" content= \"As You Like It commentary addresses major themes, major characters such as Rosalind, Orlando, Touchstone, sources, literary analysis, drama theory.\"><\/head><\/p>\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Commentaries on Shakespeare’s Comedies<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-btn__default-btn uagb-btn-tablet__default-btn uagb-btn-mobile__default-btn uagb-block-4f6cdd05 uag-hide-mob\"><div class=\"uagb-buttons__wrap uagb-buttons-layout-wrap \">\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-dcba7b2a wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">HOME<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-9ae5aeea wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/my-olli-courses-at-unlv\/\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">OLLI<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-2368e1c6 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/shakespeare-questions\/\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">QUESTIONS<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-040dd0bb wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/shakespeare-commentaries\/\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">COMMENTARIES<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-57f86fdb wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/shakespeare-audio\/\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">AUDIO<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-1b812369 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/shakespeare-guides\/\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">GUIDES<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-d5da63d7 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/shakespeare-links\/\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">LINKS<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-btn__default-btn uagb-btn-tablet__default-btn uagb-btn-mobile__default-btn uagb-block-19d28286\"><div class=\"uagb-buttons__wrap uagb-buttons-layout-wrap \">\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-69502be5 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act1\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 1<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-0ec42142 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act2\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 2<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-6ac70dcb wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act3\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 3<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-bfd6ecc9 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act4\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 4<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-55716ff6 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act5\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 5<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-0246bad9 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#endnotes\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ENDNOTES<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\nShakespeare, William. As You Like It.<\/em> (The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 673-731.)<\/p>\n\n\n\nOf Interest: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rsc.org.uk\/as-you-like-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">RSC Resources<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/internetshakespeare.uvic.ca\/Library\/Texts\/AYL\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ISE Resources<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shakespeare-online.com\/sources\/aylisources.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">S-O Sources<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.folger.edu\/explore\/shakespeare-in-print\/first-folio\/bookreader-68\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">1623 Folio 205-27 (Folger)<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/17181\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Lodge\u2019s Rosalynde; or, Euphues\u2019 Golden Legacy, <\/em>1590<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitale-sammlungen.de\/en\/view\/bsb10746660?q=%28%22Sir+Clyomon+and+Sir+Clamydes%22%29&page=502,503\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Peele\u2019s Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes<\/em><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act1\">ACT 1<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 1 (673-77, Orlando rebels against his abusive older brother Oliver, and demands his inheritance; Oliver schemes with Charles the Wrestler to deal with the young man at the next public match.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe light pastoral quality of As You Like It <\/em>is particularly enjoyable. Many of Shakespeare\u2019s comedies mix dark and light moods, but in this one the forecast is \u201cmostly clear and sunny.\u201d It\u2019s a mature play from 1599 or early 1600, which makes it roughly kin to Hamlet. <\/em>It\u2019s based on a pastoral romance by Thomas Lodge named Rosalynde; or, Euphues\u2019 Golden Legacy <\/em>(1590), <a href=\"#_edn1\" id=\"_ednref1\">[1]<\/a> and pastoral itself is an ancient subgenre going at least as far back as the Greek poet Theocritus (3rd century BCE), who wrote the Idylls, <\/em><a href=\"#_edn2\" id=\"_ednref2\">[2]<\/a> and Longus, author of Daphnis and Chloe. <\/em><a href=\"#_edn3\" id=\"_ednref3\">[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nShakespeare gives us Orlando and Rosalind, a central pair of lovers driven from their urban setting by powerful, ungenerous characters. In Orlando\u2019s case, that would be his selfish brother Oliver, and in Rosalind\u2019s, it\u2019s Duke Frederick the usurper, who has taken the dukedom from her father, Duke Senior. Their remedy is to explore the nearest green place they can find\u2014a place that isn\u2019t subject to the limitations and ill will of the city and court.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat they find is the Forest of Arden, which turns out to be a magical space where the lovers can set themselves playfully against the constraints of gender and explore the rituals of romantic love and courtship. In Arden we will hear some fine perspectives on court, country, love, and life not only from Rosalind and Orlando but also from Celia (Rosalind\u2019s friend) and from Touchstone the Clown and Jaques the melancholy traveler, along with Corin the shepherd and his helper, Silvius.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEven the \u201cbaddies\u201d get something from Arden: Duke Frederick the usurper and Oliver, Orlando\u2019s stingy brother, undergo sudden transformations for the better in the Forest, and the play\u2019s several marriages (including that of the rustics Silvius and Phoebe) pave the way for a renewal of social and political harmony at court. As is common, however, the play ends before we see this conjectural harmony fully in effect. <\/p>\n\n\n\nComedy is about the accommodation of individual desire to social demands, and, to some extent, vice versa. It\u2019s also about the generous, perhaps even providential disposition of time itself. In Shakespeare\u2019s comedies, you do what Viola does in Twelfth Night: <\/em>commit your cause to time, stay open to experience (a classical virtue\u2014just ask Odysseus), and hope for the best. <a href=\"#_edn4\" id=\"_ednref4\">[4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nWith regard to Shakespeare, we can look for the playwright both to inhabit his artistic forms with genuine passion and to treat them from a certain distance, whether friendly or satirical\u2014he wasn\u2019t one to be reduced to the moods or demands of any narrow setting or batch of conventions, so in As You Like It, <\/em>we\u2019ll see the pastoral ideal of unspoiled, natural innocence laughing at itself from time to time.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe bad characters in comedy tend to be stick figures whose villainous behavior is rooted in insecurity and selfishness, and that\u2019s what we have in Orlando\u2019s older brother Oliver and the usurping Duke Frederick. We aren\u2019t dealing with the ancient problem of evil here, at least not in a serious way. From the outset, Oliver is jealous of his brother\u2019s virtues, and holds to an “economy of scarcity” model of status and virtue: more love and honor for another person means less for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOrlando deals with Oliver boldly after what has obviously been a great deal of indifference and snubbing. He says, \u201cThe courtesy of nations \/ allows you my better \u2026 but the same \/ tradition takes not away my blood \u2026\u201d (674, 1.1.39-41). Oliver promptly calls upon Charles the Wrestler to deal with this young whippersnapper, calling his brother \u201can envious emulator of every man\u2019s good \/ parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me, his natu- \/ ral brother\u201d (676, 1.1.123-25).<\/p>\n\n\n\nOn the whole, in comedies such characters as Oliver are bogeymen, not complex evildoers. Oliver is simply an uncharitable brother. <a href=\"#_edn5\" id=\"_ednref5\">[5]<\/a> Comedies don\u2019t represent the social order or human nature as intractable\u2014there would be no point in bothering with comedy if that were the case. We don\u2019t need to worry about providing compensation for insupportable loss, as in King Lear <\/em>or Oedipus the King.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe goal is instead to restore happiness to individuals and smooth functioning to the social order, and to allow people to hope for better things to come. A key concept is balance: how can we bring people together in such a way as to achieve happiness and harmony, even if perfection may be beyond our reach?<\/p>\n\n\n\nColeridge says that literary symbols can \u201cbalance or reconcile opposite or discordant qualities.\u201d That\u2019s more or less what comedy does: often by strategies involving parallels, contrasts or antithesis, it reconciles and balances out individuals who might otherwise stay in conflict, and makes possible a dynamic but sustainable social order. In the first scene, Celia and Rosalind give us a fine example of true friendship that further condemns Oliver\u2019s vicious dislike of his brother. Celia and Rosalind are cousins, not sisters, but their reciprocal generosity is no less complete for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 2 (677-83, Orlando wrestles Charles and wins; Rosalind, the exiled Duke Senior\u2019s daughter, is love-struck by Orlando\u2019s unlikely victory; Orlando is tongue-tied and doesn\u2019t know how to respond to Rosalind\u2019s attraction.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nAs for the attraction between Rosalind and Orlando during his participation in a wrestling match, well, as Marlowe\u2019s poem \u201cHero and Leander\u201d (1598) runs, \u201cWho ever loved, that loved not at first sight?\u201d <a href=\"#_edn6\" id=\"_ednref6\">[6]<\/a> (Phoebe will later quote these lines at 712, 3.5.81). This notion is typical in comedy. The ancient idea is that love strikes people first through the eyes, as if the lovers had been struck with Cupid\u2019s arrow. That this idea is advanced is no guarantee, however, that it is the only or controlling notion about love in the play.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAccordingly, the love between Rosalind and Orlando begins with sudden attraction, although for the audience the experience is more drawn-out since it is distributed across Rosalind\u2019s viewing of the wrestling match between Orlando and Charles later in the second scene. Orlando doesn\u2019t yet know himself and can hardly speak to his new admirer, but Rosalind sees his integrity and potential along with his youth. When he wins, she says, \u201cSir, you have wrestled well and overthrown \/ More than your enemies\u201d (682, 1.2.223-24).<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt is improbable for Orlando to win his match against the powerful Charles, but the big fellow is an important device in that Orlando\u2019s desperation drives him to the match, and his victory secures him Rosalind\u2019s heart. The text doesn\u2019t say exactly how Orlando defeats Charles, though the BBC version starring Helen Mirren as Rosalind makes Orlando\u2019s victory a matter of clever strategy, not brute strength. <a href=\"#_edn7\" id=\"_ednref7\">[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 3 (683-86, Duke Frederick banishes Rosalind; Rosalind and Celia decide to go to the Forest of Arden and look for Duke Senior, with Rosalind dressed for security\u2019s sake as a man; Touchstone the Fool agrees to accompany them.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nDuke Frederick is a competitive, ill-spirited ruler. Like Oliver, he obviously believes in an economy of scarcity when it comes to virtue: he tells Celia regarding her friend, \u201cShe robs thee of thy name, \/ And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous \/ When she is gone\u201d (684, 76-78). Frederick is little more than a straw man, and while his threat to Rosalind sounds awful, it rings hollow: \u201cif that thou beest found \/ So near our public court as twenty miles, \/ Thou diest for it\u201d (684, 39-41). We might as well queue the campy \u201cominous organ music\u201d that should accompany such a threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt doesn\u2019t take Rosalind and Celia long to work out a strategy to beat Frederick: Celia says they ought to go \u201cseek my uncle in the forest of Ardenne\u201d (685, 1.3.103), that uncle being the banished Duke Senior (Rosalind\u2019s father). Rosalind chimes in with an addition she thinks will make the journey safer: \u201cWere it not better \/ Because that I am more than common tall, \/ That I did suit me all points like a man \u2026\u201d (685, 1.3.110-12). And they\u2019ll take Touchstone with them for company. Indeed, it\u2019s hard to imagine this silly-sardonic character providing much security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act2\">ACT 2<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 1 (686-87, the exiled Duke Senior and his courtiers ponder life in the forest, the theme being, \u201cthe uses of adversity\u201d; they are treated to a story about the melancholy Jaques.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThere are different perspectives to be heard about the Forest of Arden, and in this scene we hear the view of the banished Duke Senior regarding \u201cthe uses of adversity\u201d (643, 2.1.12). He considers the Forest a place to gain spiritual insight, and seems to like living there for a time. It suits his contemplative nature, and in this he is almost a Renaissance Henry David Thoreau: he has no difficulty finding \u201ctongues in trees, books in the running brooks, \/ Sermons in stones, and good in everything\u201d (686, 2.1.16-17).<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut his is not the only perspective, as we will find in later scenes of Act 2 and throughout the play. Perhaps there\u2019s just a touch in Duke Senior\u2019s statement of the sort of idealism or spaciness that sometimes gets Shakespeare\u2019s rulers booted from office\u2014in a less light-hearted vein, one thinks of the poet-king Richard II, or of Prospero, who lost his dukedom in The Tempest <\/em>partly because he spent more time reading his books than dealing with the responsibilities of power. <a href=\"#_edn8\" id=\"_ednref8\">[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAll the same, not much is made of that problem in As You Like It. <\/em>The comic dispensation of the play keeps Duke Senior from ending up like some of Shakespeare\u2019s signally incompetent sovereigns, and in truth, most of us probably like Duke Senior the better because he doesn\u2019t resort to cut-rate stage-Machiavellian tricks to get his dukedom back.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 2 (687-88, Duke Frederick suspects that Orlando has made away with Celia; he sends agents to question Oliver sharply and demand that he produce Orlando.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nDuke Frederick\u2019s always bad temper is boiling over now that Celia has run off somewhere. The Duke\u2019s intelligence-gathering operation suggests to him that Orlando may have had something to do with it, so he sends agents to trouble Oliver and see if that forces him to cough up his supposedly wayward younger brother.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 3 (688-89, Adam the servant informs Orlando that Oliver is plotting to kill him and offers him his money to help him escape; Orlando and Adam head for the forest.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIn this brief scene, the servant Adam warns Orlando of his brother\u2019s plot against him, and offers his life savings to help the young man escape: \u201cfortune cannot recompense me better \/ Than to die well and not my master\u2019s debtor\u201d (689, 2.3.75-76). Adam has an endearing way of measuring the value of his own life by the loyalty he has shown to others, especially those who have been good to him. Now that he is old, nothing seems more important to him than holding true to that loyalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 4 (689-91, Rosalind, Celia, and Touchstone arrive in the Forest of Arden; Rosalind adopts the disguise of \u201cGanymede\u201d and Celia dubs herself \u201cAliena\u201d; they hear the shepherd Silvius make his pastoral lament to old Corin about Phoebe; Rosalind, in disguise, offers to buy the pasture\u2019s cottage, which is for sale.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nSilvius complains to Corin about his unrequited passion for Phoebe (690, 2.4.20-38), and his plight moves Rosalind, who overhears him. Meeting the shepherds, she offers to buy the sheepfold and cottage, which, as Corin informs her, is for sale (691, 2.4.88-92).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe fact that part of the Forest is for sale reminds us that while the place is a Green World, it isn\u2019t a paradise: there\u2019s \u201cwinter and rough weather\u201d (692, 2.5.8), poverty, ignorance, and commerce. On the whole, the Forest of Arden is closer to Virgil\u2019s reality-tinged pastoral locations in the Eclogues <\/em>than to an earthly paradise. <a href=\"#_edn9\" id=\"_ednref9\">[9]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nFor the shepherd Corin, indeed, Arden is a rather harsh terrain where a man may eke out a living. Country people often seem to regard the woods this way: they don\u2019t wax eloquent about it the way urbanites tend to do. So while Amiens\u2019s songs sometimes promote an idyllic image of Arden and the Duke is pleased with the \u201clessons\u201d he learns from the woods, that isn\u2019t how all of the characters regard Arden. It\u2019s a good place to visit, but most of the characters will need to be getting back home soon. <a href=\"#_edn10\" id=\"_ednref10\">[10]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nIncidentally, there is <\/em>a real Forest of Arden, and Shakespeare must have been familiar with it as a child growing up in Warwickshire, even though the forest referred to more directly is the Ardennes in France since that\u2019s where the play is set. But the exact setting doesn\u2019t much matter\u2014this commenter saw an excellent, fun production of the play live at UC Irvine years ago, and the director chose to have Corin and his helpers herd gigantic orange beach balls across the stage for the pastoral scenes. The audience loved it!<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut the point is, to adapt a line from Samuel Beckett, \u201cWhat matter where<\/em> one is speaking?\u201d <a href=\"#_edn11\" id=\"_ednref11\">[11]<\/a> It need not be a slight to Shakespeare to suggest that sometimes, while he must have greatly loved the real <\/em>countryside, \u201cnature\u201d is more a state of mind than anything else. Perhaps that is part of what we call its magic in Shakespeare\u2019s Green World scenarios.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 5 (692-93, Amiens sings pleasantly of \u201cwinter and rough weather\u201d; Jaques sings to mock the pastoral mood of Duke Senior\u2019s company.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nJaques shows himself a melancholy-making machine, drawing his rather perverse sustenance even from Amiens\u2019 more conventionally comforting songs: \u201cHere shall he see \/ No enemy \/ But winter and rough weather\u201d (692, 2.5.6-8).<\/p>\n\n\n\nJaques turns this pleasant song into something quite different: \u201cIf it do come to pass \/ That any man turn ass \u2026\u201d (693, 2.5.42-43). According to the ancient theory of the humors, in which the balance of four substances in the human body (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm) is at least partly responsible for a given person\u2019s disposition, Jaques may be suffering from an excess of black bile.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut Shakespeare never reduces any character in such a deterministic way, and Jaques\u2019s perspective is a sophisticated, highly intelligent one, even if it hardly endears him to the other characters. He will serve as the \u201codd man out\u201d in this play, the one who self-consciously avoids stepping into the comic circle of \u201cshiny happy people holding hands\u201d <a href=\"#_edn12\" id=\"_ednref12\">[12]<\/a> because he would prefer to keep his own company and counsel. Jacques is one of those people who would rather observe the pageant of life than play an active role in it, aside from that of \u201cobserver.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 6 (693, Adam is near death, so Orlando vows to go and find food.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIn this brief scene, Adam is on the point of perishing, and Orlando promises to help him. In terms of Christian symbolism, Old Adam, or unregenerate man, or even just \u201cthe frailty of the flesh,\u201d perhaps, is aided by his younger counterpart, the one who is poised to enjoy the benefits of regeneration in the Forest of Arden.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut there\u2019s no need to lean heavily on such symbolic interpretations. Adam is a model of uprightness and faithful service, not a fool or a more than commonly blamable sinner. Orlando treats him tenderly, as a son should treat his elderly father: \u201cI will bear thee to some shelter, and thou shalt not \/ die for lack of a dinner \u2026\u201d (693, 2.6.14-15).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 7 (693-98, Jaques covets Touchstone\u2019s status as fool; Orlando rudely demands sustenance from Duke Senior and is offered it freely; Jaques details the Seven Ages of Man; Duke Senior welcomes Orlando and Adam for the sake of the young man\u2019s father, Sir Rowland de Bois.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nJaques tells everyone how impressed he is with Touchstone, whose particular brand of foolery he seems to find attractively broad in comparison to his own narrower spectrum of observation: \u201cA fool, a fool! I met a fool i\u2019th\u2019 forest \u2026 (694, 2.7.12; see lines 12-43 inclusive). Touchstone is free to draw out what\u2019s valuable in people, but Jaques\u2019s view is more limited; his insight is drawn through a sour filter. So the latter seeks some of this power, and hopes that with his peculiar brand of melancholy foolery, he will \u201cCleanse the foul body of th\u2019infected world \/ If they will patiently receive my medicine\u201d (695, 2.7.60-61). <\/p>\n\n\n\nOrlando bursts in on the bantering, and tries to commandeer some food for Adam, in the name of \u201cnecessity\u201d (695, 2.7.90). It soon turns out that there\u2019s more civility in the Forest of Arden than he had thought possible, as Duke Senior promises him all he needs: \u201cYour gentleness shall force \/ More than your force move us to gentleness\u201d (695, 2.7.102-03). We may well imagine that Orlando feels a little foolish when he receives such a kind reception in this supposedly savage woodland.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAs for Jaques, he delivers his excellent variation on an old theme: the Seven Ages of Man: \u201cAll the world\u2019s a stage\u201d (696, 2.7.139), he says, and all of us play our parts, which consist in the seven ages: infant, schoolboy, young lover, soldier, mature professional (a judge), declining pantaloon, and, finally, second child, \u201cSans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything\u201d (697, 2.7.166). <a href=\"#_edn13\" id=\"_ednref13\">[13]<\/a> This is a hollowed-out conception of humanity, wherein even the most heartfelt passion is entirely scripted by one\u2019s time of life. But then, what is Orlando but a stock lover when he scribbles his bad poems all over Arden\u2019s trees?<\/p>\n\n\n\nIf we look at Jaques\u2019 musings in a more brooding way, we can see how much against the generous spirit of comedy they are: in his view, we experience time as an opportunity to run through the paces of life and then vanish. His notions are really neither tragic nor comic since in tragedy, at least death gives meaning to life, whereas for Jacques it makes everything seem pointless.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn general, Shakespeare\u2019s comedies deal in a more uplifting way with the fact that our very selves may be mostly the product of typification, of categorizations into which our society wants us to fit. The point is not that we must be absolutely original in all things; rather, the manner in which we inhabit or dwell resourcefully within our respective \u201ctypes\u201d renders us happy or unhappy.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMoreover, individuation plays a more important role in comedy than in Jaques\u2019s view, which insistently stresses dis<\/em>-individuation. Comedy makes fun of us and our pretensions to uniqueness and high-serious significance, but it ultimately accepts us with our follies, or at least most of them. Jaques\u2019s melancholy outlook sees life as always being lived self-consciously in the shadow of \u201cmere oblivion\u201d (697, 2.7.165). One counter to those who make a profession of glumness is Victor Hugo\u2019s statement, \u201cLes hommes sont tous condamn\u00e9s \u00e0 mort avec des sursis ind\u00e9finis.\u201d Translated, that\u2019s \u201cAll men are under sentence of death with indefinite reprieves.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn14\" id=\"_ednref14\">[14]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nJaques himself is a stock melancholy traveler. Melancholia was a popular subject in Elizabethan-Jacobean times and attained something like cult status later in the 1600\u2019s. Robert Burton\u2019s late-Jacobean Anatomy of Melancholy <\/em>(1621) testifies to its significance in Shakespeare\u2019s era. <a href=\"#_edn15\" id=\"_ednref15\">[15]<\/a> Depression was thought to be caused by an excess of black bile, and indeed the word \u201cmelancholy\u201d comes from the Greek words melas <\/em>(black) and khol\u0113<\/em> (bile). <a href=\"#_edn16\" id=\"_ednref16\">[16]<\/a> Jaques, as a melancholy traveler, goes around looking for things that accord with his sadness and isolation from others.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSo while Jaques\u2019s \u201cSeven Ages of Man\u201d speech in Act 2, Scene 7 is excellent, it consists of stock ideas with which we probably are not meant to agree. He reduces life too willingly to its bleakest and most hopeless level, and his view is promptly, silently undercut by the entrance of the aged servant Adam, who remains cheerful and kindly disposed towards the younger generations. Sometimes many words are best countered by few, or none. Jaques is a sophisticated character, but his outlook is rather simplistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe scene ends with Duke Senior welcoming Orlando for the sake of his father, Sir Rowland de Bois, and we find that civility, not the savagery Orlando had expected, reigns in the Forest of Arden (697-98, 2.7.191-200).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act3\">ACT 3<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 1 (698, Duke Frederick angrily sends Oliver into the forest to locate Orlando, giving him a year to do so, during which time the Duke will hold his estate.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe usurping, frowning Duke Frederick is at it again, booting Oliver out of the realm to search for Orlando, who has earned his ire by defeating Charles the Wrestler. He commands Oliver to \u201cSeek him with candle; bring him dead or living \/ Within this twelvemonth \u2026\u201d (698, 3.1.6-7). Only at the beginning or in the middle of a comic play can a thorough rascal like Frederick hold such sway over characters who are kinder and gentler than he is even on his best day.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 2 (698-707, Orlando affixes bad love poetry addressed to Rosalind on Arden\u2019s trees; Touchstone battles Corin over the relative value of court and country; Rosalind and Touchstone jest over love and sex with a backdrop of Orlando\u2019s verses; Rosalind and Celia comment on the verses; Orlando dismisses Jaques\u2019s gloomy conversation;<\/strong> Rosalind-Ganymede meets Orlando and offers him courtship lessons as \u201cRosalind\u201d to cure him of the \u201cmadness\u201d that is love; Orlando accepts.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nTouchstone, who here engages in an epic battle of wits with Corin the Shepherd, is the play\u2019s \u201call-licensed fool.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn17\" id=\"_ednref17\">[17]<\/a> He has great scope to offer his perspective (698-700, 3.2.11-74 inclusive). As such, he is a fine foil for Jaques as well as for the lovers. Touchstone employs a kind of schoolboy chop-logic against Corin. The whole argument should probably go to Corin by a decision, as they say in boxing. The old shepherd has the innate civility of a country fellow who knows his limitations but is also solidly grounded in his virtues, so he doesn\u2019t take Touchstone seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTouchstone conflates good manners with theological grace: since he\u2019s never been at court, the Shepherd\u2019s \u201cmanners must be wicked, and wickedness is sin, and sin is \/ damnation\u201d (699, 3.2.38-39). This false syllogism <a href=\"#_edn18\" id=\"_ednref18\">[18]<\/a> seems ridiculous to Corin, who doesn\u2019t share in Touchstone\u2019s courtly, Neoplatonist understanding of the supposed affinity between moral goodness and fine appearance. <a href=\"#_edn19\" id=\"_ednref19\">[19]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nTouchstone is also more interested in words than in action, even though he is (unlike Jaques) willing to take part in the play\u2019s marriage festivities. Jaques wants nobody, but Touchstone will soon have Audrey to think of, silly as the match may be.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn any case, Corin\u2019s response to Touchstone\u2019s quibbling is excellent: as the shepherd says, \u201cthose that are good manners \/ at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behavior \/ of the country is most mockable at the court\u201d (699, 3.2.40-42). Corin is no courtier, but he understands exactly what decorum is: adroitly suiting one\u2019s style to the relevant place and social station.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAlso in this scene, Rosalind parries wits with Touchstone (700, 3.2.77-111), who tries to reduce her love for Orlando to mere physical desire: \u201cHe that sweetest rose will find, \/ Must find love\u2019s prick and Rosalind\u201d (700, 3.2.100-01). She fends off his sardonic sallies without difficulty. There is a kind of earnestness about love\u2014even when it\u2019s busy with playacting\u2014that rebuffs the treatment given it by a Touchstone or a Jaques.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMeanwhile, Orlando, author of those poems that Touchstone calls \u201cthe very false gallop of verses\u201d (700, 3.2.102), meets up with the unadmiring Jaques, who begs him, \u201cmar no more trees with writing love songs \/ in their barks\u201d (704, 3.2.240-41). But Orlando sends him on his way, dismissing his attempt to typecast him as a stock lover and a bad poet (704, 3.2.242-73).<\/p>\n\n\n\nLovers can easily reduce themselves to a laughingstock in others\u2019 eyes, and yet for their own part conduct themselves with perfect earnestness. The fact that what one is experiencing has been experienced by millions of others does not make it any less real, or any less worthwhile.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFinally, Rosalind-Ganymede meets Orlando and offers to school him in courting his beloved Rosalind (704-07, 3.2.274-393 inclusive). Claiming to have learned the art of courtship from an elderly uncle, Rosalind-Ganymede tells Orlando that he lacks all the telltale signs of a genuine suitor: \u201cA lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye and \/ sunken, which you have not \u2026\u201d (706, 3.2.342-43).<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut the main piece of advice Rosalind-Ganymede offers is that \u201cLove is merely a madness and \u2026 deserves \/ as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do \u2026\u201d (706, 3.3.363-64). The plan is for Orlando to visit \u201cGanymede\u201d each day and practice his suit until a cure is achieved (706, 3.3.381-83). Orlando\u2019s willingness to go through with this plan speaks well of him\u2014it exhibits an unusual degree of open-mindedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 3 (707-09, Touchstone determines on Audrey the goat-keeper and contracts with Oliver Martext to marry him to her; Jaques convinces Touchstone to delay until he can set up a legitimate \u201cchurch\u201d wedding.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nAs is evident from his silly courtship of Audrey, Touchstone\u2019s coming marriage to this country lass is more a thing of words, a cover for his lust, than a legitimate institutional act, or at least that\u2019s how the clown at first wanted it: an attitude that shows in his desire to let the incompetent Oliver Martext perform the ceremony. It\u2019s a good pretext for a divorce otherwise unavailable in Early Modern Europe. <a href=\"#_edn20\" id=\"_ednref20\">[20]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAudrey, as we can tell from their conversation in Scene 3, understands very little of what Touchstone says, so there\u2019s no question of their being well-matched company. Touchstone, for his part, isn\u2019t concerned about Audrey\u2019s not being beautiful, saying \u201cWell, praised be the gods for thy foulness\u2014sluttishness \/ may come hereafter\u201d (707, 3.3.33-34).<\/p>\n\n\n\nNeither does Touchstone care about the ordinarily anxiety-provoking, emasculating topic of cuckoldry. Of that, Touchstone says, \u201cas a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the \/ forehead of a married man more honorable than the bare \/ brow of a bachelor\u201d (708, 3.3.49-51). It is better, as far as he is concerned, to participate in the institution of marriage and take one\u2019s chances than to languish as a bachelor.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream, <\/em>the desperate Helena insists that \u201cThings base and vile, holding no quantity, \/ Love can transpose to form and dignity.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn21\" id=\"_ednref21\">[21]<\/a> Touchstone and Audrey don\u2019t need this kind of love-magic since their aim isn\u2019t what anyone would call romantic love, it\u2019s simply an accommodation acceptable both to them and to society. Saint Paul might as well have had this couple in mind when he wrote, \u201cBut if they cannot abstain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn22\" id=\"_ednref22\">[22]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nOn the whole, Touchstone is what his name implies: a sharp stone of a wit who draws sparks and tests the quality of others. His verbal wit is his way of staying at the surface of things. He will later join in the marriage rites, but does not much appreciate matrimony\u2019s holier dimension. That attitude so vital to romantic comedy is left to other characters, most particularly to Rosalind and Orlando, and perhaps to Celia and the transformed Oliver, though in truth we won\u2019t hear much from them about their whirlwind match.<\/p>\n\n\n\nJaques has been listening in on the comical discussion between Touchstone and Oliver Martext, and steps forward to advise the Clown, \u201cGet you to church and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is \u2026\u201d (708, 3.3.71-72). Touchstone\u2019s first impulse is to answer that he would prefer a priest like Martext since \u201cnot being married well it will be a good excuse for me \/ hereafter to leave my wife\u201d (708, 3.3.78-79). Still, Jacques\u2019s persistence wins out, and Sir Oliver Martext departs frustrated but determined to carry on with his trade elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFor Touchstone, we can see, marriage is just something a person does to keep up appearances and serve his or her own convenience. Shakespeare by no means condemns court life, but here in the attitude of Touchstone, he points out the courtly tendency to slide towards hollowness and ceremonialism, a kind of empty formal adherence to convention. Well, at least Touchstone is frank about his earthy motives, which may redeem his choice after all. He doesn\u2019t pretend to be better than he is, and social utility is served by his acceptance of marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 4 (709-10, Rosalind and Celia gossip about Orlando; Corin steers them towards observing the nettlesome courtship of lovesick Silvius and scornful Phoebe.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nRosalind and Celia exchange gossip about Orlando and his qualities. Celia is full of teasingly contrary views, as when she says, \u201call\u2019s brave that youth mounts and \/ folly guides\u201d (710, 3.4.39-40). Then Corin enters and announces that Silvius and Phoebe are on the scene: \u201cIf you will see a pageant truly played \/ Between the pale complexion of true love \/ And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain \u2026\u201d (710, 3.4.46-48), he tells the pair, all they need do is listen to these country folk.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRosalind readily agrees since, she says, \u201cThe sight of lovers feedeth those in love\u201d (710, 3.4.51). She plans to intercede in the \u201cplay\u201d they are about to watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 5 (710-13, Rosalind-Ganymede schools Phoebe after overhearing her proudly reject Silvius; Phoebe promptly falls in love with Rosalind-Ganymede.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nRosalind, invited by Corin, eavesdrops on Phoebe as she overplays her hand, while Silvius is loyal to her far beyond her desserts (710-11, 3.5.1-27, 31-34). Perhaps the meanest thing Phoebe does is to reject Silvius\u2019s romantic metaphors. He has apparently used a Petrarchan conventional figure that describes the eyes as able to wound a lover, and to this, Phoebe replies, \u201cBut now mine eyes, \/ Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not; \/ Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes \/ That can do hurt\u201d (711, 3.5.24-27).<\/p>\n\n\n\nRosalind-Ganymede bluntly rejects Phoebe\u2019s advances, and tells Silvius, \u201c\u2019Tis not her glass but you that flatters her \u2026\u201d (711, 3.5.54). And Rosalind-Ganymede brusquely reminds Phoebe that she is by no means beautiful\u2014she is \u201cnot for all markets\u201d and she ought, therefore, to sell while someone is still willing to buy (711, 3.5.60). This match is hardly going to be perfect; Phoebe, we may assume, will never love Silvius as much as he loves her, but that\u2019s not unusual: seldom, we may venture, do two people love each other to precisely<\/em> the same degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSilvius and Phoebe it will have to be\u2014they are a match sufficient for civilization\u2019s purposes. Silvius is a good example of the sort of stereotype (the infatuated lover) that Orlando inhabits partly and for a limited time. All the same, Silvius is decent and faithful. Moreover, Phoebe\u2019s high ideals, while misplaced, are by no means contemptible.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOf course, \u201cGanymede\u2019s\u201d sage counsel only makes Phoebe fall hopelessly in love with him, and we see that firmer guidance will be needed in her case (711, 3.5.66-69). Phoebe is so far gone that she even quotes from Christopher Marlowe\u2019s poem \u201cHero and Leander\u201d: \u201cWho ever loved that loved not at first sight?\u201d (712, 3.5.81) <a href=\"#_edn23\" id=\"_ednref23\">[23]<\/a> She also determines to write Ganymede a \u201ctaunting letter\u201d (713, 3.5.133) and get Silvius to bring it to him. Silvius, of course, agrees to this humiliating service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act4\">ACT 4<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 4, Scene 1 (713-17, Rosalind-Ganymede demolishes Jaques\u2019 antisocial posing; Rosalind-Ganymede plays \u201cRosalind\u201d and instructs Orlando in the rigors of courtship: the lesson pertains to men and women\u2019s inconstancy, and the truth of masks; Celia, playing the role of a priest, initiates a practice marriage between them.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nRosalind\u2019s deflation of Jaques at the scene\u2019s beginning is punishing, if not quite a knockout blow. Jaques professes the goodness of his own disposition, saying, \u201cWhy, \u2019tis good to be sad and say nothing\u201d (713, 4.1.8), and Rosalind answers him, \u201cWhy, then \u2019tis good to be a post\u201d (713, 4.1.9). When he highlights his status as a melancholy traveler, <a href=\"#_edn24\" id=\"_ednref24\">[24]<\/a> she ventures that it seems foolish to her to go about seeking experiences that make you sad: \u201cand to travel for it too!\u201d (714, 4.1.26). With that remark, Rosalind is on to her pretend-real courtship with Orlando, with assistance from Celia.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAs for the value of the dialogue in Act 4, Scene 1, Shakespeare recognizes that for the most part people inhabit types and that a great deal depends on how <\/em>they inhabit a given type, or how they inflect it. We are not dealing with Romantic-Era originality and uniqueness here, and neither are we being treated to the utilitarian-style bourgeois self of somewhat later times, even if there are perhaps touches of that sensibility in Shakespeare\u2019s Early Modern plays.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn truth, there is always some Jaques-proximate way of describing our present stage of life, and that observation remains true notwithstanding the critique that the play offers with regard to Jaques\u2019s somewhat rigid categories. <a href=\"#_edn25\" id=\"_ednref25\">[25]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe question is, does the type swallow us up, or do we improve upon it or at least inhabit it competently? Orlando (pinning bad verses on trees) has played the lover\u2019s type, which Jaques humorously describes as \u201cthe lover, \/ Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad \/ Made to his mistress\u2019 eyebrow.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn26\" id=\"_ednref26\">[26]<\/a> We need not worry about him becoming Ariosto\u2019s Orlando Furioso and going mad for love, <a href=\"#_edn27\" id=\"_ednref27\">[27]<\/a> but still, that thought may remind us of love\u2019s potential to obliterate the boundaries of personal identity\u2014a risky venture usually kept from turning bad by reflection, distance, and playfulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe present scene shows how the Forest of Arden allows both Rosalind-Ganymede as Rosalind, who leads the way, and Orlando, who follows gamely, the time and distance they need to play around with love\u2019s lore and with gender typification. Both will emerge the better for their experimentation. The disguises or \u201cmasks\u201d they wear for a time allow them to speak and act with frankness and a degree of detachment. Often, Shakespeare treats love as something like a game with its own rules and conventions that must be learned. The rules turn out to be flexible, but they\u2019re not altogether to be dismissed.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat do men and women say about, and to, one another? It is difficult for them to be honest in real-life situations, so the disguising and conversations that occur in the Forest of Arden are valuable to Rosalind and Orlando as they move towards a more complete accommodation of each other\u2019s desires. Rosalind\u2019s forest performances, especially in 4.1, allow her to gain some freedom and insight by playing both a male suitor (Ganymede) and a choosy, unpredictable female object of pursuit (Rosalind-as-Ganymede-as-Rosalind).<\/p>\n\n\n\nSounding rather Phoebe-like for the moment, Rosalind-Ganymede, playing Rosalind, deflates Orlando\u2019s overblown claim that he will die if she does not accept him by saying simply, \u201cmen \/ have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, \/ but not for love\u201d (715, 4.1.92-94).<\/p>\n\n\n\nOne thing Rosalind explores, of course, is her own anxiety about the constancy or inconstancy of men, women, and romantic love generally. <a href=\"#_edn28\" id=\"_ednref28\">[28]<\/a> Rosalind-Ganymede\u2019s characterizations of men and women are appropriately mocking: \u201cmen \/ are April when they woo, December when they wed; maids are \/ May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are \/ wives\u201d (716, 4.1.127-30). Rosalind-Ganymede-Rosalind goes out of her way to make Orlando understand that a wife will do all sorts of things to set his teeth on edge, including exhibitions of jealousy, screaming, weeping, and laughing (716, 4.1.130-36).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cMan is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth,\u201d writes Oscar Wilde in his 1891 essay, \u201cThe Critic as Artist.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn29\" id=\"_ednref29\">[29]<\/a> The everyday self that we present, in other words, is itself a kind of disguise that we wear\u2014one that is all too effective in preventing others from truly knowing us. Rosalind\u2019s mask is Ganymede, so we have Rosalind pretending to be Ganymede pretending to be Rosalind: just the right degree of anonymity necessary for her to help sort out and develop Orlando\u2019s qualities as a suitor.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAs for Orlando, those who believe most fully in the ideal vision of love most need distance from such idealism: idealizing eroticism is noble, but it has its risks, disillusionment and eventual cynicism being the most severe among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOrlando needs to be tested: he must show some capacity to moderate and reflect upon his high passions since that is partly what makes a marriage successful. When Celia-as-priest mock-marries him to \u201cRosalind\u201d (715, 4.1.113), he plays his role as suitor to Ganymede-as-Rosalind with good cheer, putting up with his opposite\u2019s whims and generally saying and doing the right things. As the play in its entirety shows, Orlando\u2019s inner worth is greater than the silly stereotype he has temporarily inhabited: a successful comic hero, he plays a role, or we might say gives himself to a role, without being permanently trapped by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAs was mentioned earlier, Shakespeare writes perceptively about love as a potentially destructive experience because it threatens to obliterate a person\u2019s boundaries. (\u201cSonnet 129\u201d and Othello <\/em><a href=\"#_edn30\" id=\"_ednref30\">[30]<\/a> give us the darkest presentations of what love can do, while the comedies deal with the lighter and more uplifting dimension of love, its civilizing and uniting power.) Distance and reflection seem appropriate as preventive medicine,\u201d given this tendency of love to strip us of our capacity to define, judge, and maintain our sense of who we are. Rosalind\u2019s playful approach allows her to keep some sense of an independent identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSome sense, but only some. In spite of all her play-acting and teasing, she appeals to Cupid, saying, \u201clet him be judge how deep I \/ am in love. I\u2019ll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight \/ of Orlando. I\u2019ll go find a shadow and sigh till he come\u201d (717, 4.2.188-90).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 4, Scene 2 (717-18, Jaques again makes fun of Duke Senior\u2019s party: a successful deer-hunt is followed by a cheerful song about cuckoldry.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nApparently, Duke Senior\u2019s men have been deer hunting. Jaques encourages the Second Lord to counter the sort of song generally sung by Duke Senior\u2019s upbeat group: \u201cWhat shall he have that killed the deer? \/ His leather skin and horns to wear\u201d (717, 4.2.10-11). Jaques no doubt takes this song as voicing his own contrarian perspective, in this case involving his endorsement of an obvious pun on infidelity that probably owes something to the classical Ovidian hunting or chase scene to describe love relations. <a href=\"#_edn31\" id=\"_ednref31\">[31]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nTo some extent, this song by the Second Lord confirms the notion in Act 4, Scene 1 that human character is ever-inconstant. But at the same time, the song\u2019s approach or attitude also cultivates a feeling of constancy even with that variable nature. That is, we can consistently register our inconsistency, and in that way arrive at some level of accommodation, and perhaps even contentment.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 4, Scene 3 (717-21, Rosalind orders Phoebe to love Silvius, but she stubbornly sends \u201cGanymede\u201d a feisty marriage proposal; Rosalind and Celia wait for Orlando, but Oliver shows up first and tells them how Orlando rescued him from a snake and a lioness, and was wounded in the process: Oliver is a changed man!)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nRosalind sees her opportunity to transform Phoebe\u2019s cruelty towards Silvius into acceptance, and, as Ganymede, orders the intransigent shepherdess to love Silvius instead: she tells Silvius to \u201csay this to her: that if she love me, I charge her to \/ love thee\u201d (719, 4.3.70-71).<\/p>\n\n\n\nJust then, Oliver enters the scene, and narrates how his brother Orlando rescued him when, sleeping, he was beset by two predators\u2014a female \u201cgreen and gilded\u201d snake and a crouching lioness. Orlando initially turned his back on the hated brother he recognized sleeping beneath a large tree, but then, explains Oliver, \u201ckindness, nobler ever than revenge, \/ And nature, stronger than his just occasion, \/ Made him give battle to the lioness \u2026\u201d (720, 4.3.127-29). <a href=\"#_edn32\" id=\"_ednref32\">[32]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat is the symbolic significance of the lioness and the female snake? Opinions vary. Many critics have noted that Shakespeare pointedly makes both predatory creatures female. But according to some, a compelling way to interpret what happens between Oliver and Orlando is to borrow from the very popular emblem tradition, in which the snake and the lion figure prominently. <a href=\"#_edn33\" id=\"_ednref33\">[33]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nThus, the snake may emblematize Oliver\u2019s invidia, <\/em>his envy, against his younger brother, <a href=\"#_edn34\" id=\"_ednref34\">[34]<\/a> and the lioness may emblematize the wrath or anger he has conceived against Orlando as well as the wrath that Orlando has conceived for him. We may note that Orlando almost <\/em>turns his back on his opportunity for heroism, such is his anger at Oliver for treating him ill. But in the end, compassion and Orlando\u2019s better nature win the day: the younger man scares off the green-and-gold snake and defeats the lioness, suffering a wound in the fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\nUpon being rescued, Oliver is suddenly transformed. He confesses to the ladies, \u201cI do not shame \/ To tell you what I was, since my conversion \/ So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am\u201d (720, 4.3.134-36). We don\u2019t need to see a long, painful, penance-driven process of transformation. It happens instantly, as if, in Christian terms, Oliver has been granted absolution for his sins, purged of the sinful negativity that has for so long plagued him. As we will soon see, Oliver\u2019s heart has been opened for better things, above all, love.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOliver doesn\u2019t for a moment believe that Rosalind-Ganymede is male since \u201che\u201d swoons at the sight of the bloody napkin that Oliver shows as evidence of Orlando\u2019s courage, but goes along with Rosalind\u2019s claim of \u201ccounterfeiting\u201d the fainting spell nonetheless. Oliver wants to carry out his embassy from Orlando: he has communicated what happened in the Forest, but now he must go back to Orlando and report how Rosalind-Ganymede has taken the excuse for delay (721, 4.3.151-55).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act5\">ACT 5<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 5, Scene 1 (721-23, Touchstone uses his ample vocabulary to chase away Audrey\u2019s bumpkin suitor William.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nTouchstone impresses Audrey by chasing away a rustic suitor with mere talk, but at least the end of it is memorable: \u201cI will kill thee a hundred and fifty \/ ways. Therefore tremble and depart\u201d (722, 5.1.51-52).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 5, Scene 2 (723-25, Oliver and Celia decide to marry, and Orlando is rather envious of their quick success; Rosalind-Ganymede promises Orlando he\u2019ll make Rosalind appear by magic at Celia and Oliver\u2019s wedding ceremony; Rosalind-Ganymede also makes Phoebe promise that if she refuses to marry Ganymede at the wedding, she must then marry Silvius.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the second scene, Oliver\u2019s recent alteration is supplemented by his equally sudden love-struck decision to marry Celia as \u201cAliena.\u201d As Rosalind-Ganymede tells Orlando, \u201cyour brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked, \/ no sooner looked but they loved \u2026\u201d (723, 5.2.30-31). Orlando is less than thrilled, and says, \u201cI can live no longer by thinking\u201d (724, 5.2.45-46).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis newest change may in part be a perspectival device whereby the brief courtship of one couple appears more credible in comparison to the even briefer one of another\u2014one so brief that it really isn\u2019t a courtship at all. Oliver even tells Orlando that he\u2019s decided to give their father\u2019s estate to him and \u201chere live and die a shepherd\u201d (723, 5.2.11).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe suddenness of the transformation makes sense: characters like Oliver (and Frederick) found their hopes on rational calculation over an abyss of ignorance into the real why and wherefore of their stingy, mean temperaments. To adapt a line from Sam Cooke\u2019s 1960 song \u201cWonderful World,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t know much about you and me\u201d has ever been their theme, so some measure of humaneness and empathy come over them like a sudden wave or a lightning strike, not as the fruit of a gradual realization.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRosalind-Ganymede finally decides to move forward with Orlando, promising him, \u201cIf you do love Rosalind so \/ near the heart as your gesture cries it out, when your brother \/ marries Aliena shall you marry her\u201d (724, 5.2.56-58). She has a certain magician in mind, supposedly, who can do the trick, and that magician is her.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe now come to the comic knot that Rosalind-Ganymede must shortly untie. When Phoebe orders Silvius to explain to Rosalind-Ganymede what it means to love, Silvius says, \u201cIt is to be all made of sighs and tears, \/ And so am I for Phoebe\u201d (724, 5.2.75-76). This is the cue for a number of \u201cAnd I for\u2026\u201d repetitions: Phoebe is in love with Ganymede, Orlando is in love with Rosalind whom he nowhere sees, and Ganymede-who\u2019s-really-Rosalind pines \u201cfor no woman\u201d (724-25, 5.2.77-93 inclusive). <\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 5, Scene 3 (725-26, Touchstone makes pleasantries with Audrey while two pages sing a song for spring time, \u201cthe only pretty ring-time.\u201d)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nTouchstone enjoys some brief conversation with Audrey, and two young pages crown the third scene with a carpe diem<\/em> song about the associations between spring, love, and marriage rites as symbolized by the \u201cring\u201d that the song mentions: \u201cIt was a lover and his lass \u2026 \/ In spring-time, the only pretty ring-time \u2026\u201d (682, 5.3.14, 17). For their efforts, Touchstone issues only a criticism of their singing (682, 5.3.39). <a href=\"#_edn35\" id=\"_ednref35\">[35]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 5, Scene 4 (726-30, As Duke Senior and his retinue look on, Rosalind-Ganymede reminds Orlando, Silvius, and Phoebe about their promises; Touchstone amuses everyone by recounting his courtly, cowardly quarrel; Hymen, god of marriage, ushers in Rosalind and Celia, and Duke Senior greets them warmly\u2014they are of course family; Orlando greets Rosalind; Phoebe will marry Silvius; Hymen addresses the couples. \n\t\t\tThe brother of Orlando and Oliver announces that Duke Frederick has resigned and given power back to Duke Senior, who now returns Oliver\u2019s estate and makes Orlando heir to the dukedom; Jaques decides to remain in the forest, as will the former Duke Frederick.)<\/span>\n\t\t<\/span><span title='' data-less-title='' data-more-title='' class='yrm-toggle-expand yrm-toggle-expand-1' data-rel='yrm-aYD3r' data-more='(SYNOPSIS CONTINUES \u2026)' data-less='READ LESS' style='border: none; width: 100%;'>(SYNOPSIS CONTINUES \u2026)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe fourth scene offers Touchstone\u2019s famous recounting of a courtly quarrel, which, he claims, began when he professed to \u201cdislike the cut of \/ a certain courtier\u2019s beard\u201d (727, 5.4.65-66, see 65-94 inclusive). He sets forth a preposterously detailed series of insults and counter-insults between himself and the other courtier. But the whole thing begins and ends in words, and they part company without exchanging a single blow: \u201cI durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial; \/ nor he durst not give me the Lie Direct\u201d (728, 5.4.78-79). The reason? Cowardice\u2014neither of them ever had any intention of getting into a real fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSo much, then, Touchstone suggests, for a great deal of chivalric discourse and masculine \u201chonor.\u201d This insight allies him with Sir John Falstaff from I<\/em> and II Henry IV, <\/em><a href=\"#_edn36\" id=\"_ednref36\">[36]<\/a> Paroles in All\u2019s Well That Ends Well,<\/em> <a href=\"#_edn37\" id=\"_ednref37\">[37]<\/a> and certain other of Shakespeare\u2019s deflators of male puffery. Touchstone sings the praises of the conditional phrase: \u201cYour \/ \u2018if\u2019 is the only peacemaker: much virtue in \u2018if\u2019\u201d (728, 5.4.93-94). This comic play is more tolerant of love-driven exaggerations and rituals than it is of honor-based ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWith that tolerance in mind, we could easily contrast the silly \u201cdueling\u201d talk that Touchstone mocks with the marriage ceremony arranged in Act 5, which is meant to sanctify and facilitate natural desire, recuperating it for social purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTo cap things off, Hymen the god of marriage does the honors after Rosalind enters in her own person and clears up the reigning confusion, presenting herself to her father Duke Senior and to Orlando as herself (728, 5.4.107-08). Hymen is an urban god, so his presence is a reminder that most of the characters will soon return to the court. <a href=\"#_edn38\" id=\"_ednref38\">[38]<\/a> James Shapiro, in his excellent 2005 study A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599<\/em>,<\/em> is probably right to cast this appearance of Hymen along with the pronouncements, music, and singing that follow as a brief masque, or something very near it. <a href=\"#_edn39\" id=\"_ednref39\">[39]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe right matches have been made, and besides, society demands not perfection but adequacy. It needs rustics like Silvius and Phoebe, strange pairings like Touchstone and Audrey, and \u201cinstant\u201d couples like Celia and Oliver, as much as it needs the near-perfect Rosalind and Orlando, who spent a great deal of time stress-testing their affection for each other in Arden. Touchstone\u2019s phrase \u201ccountry copulatives\u201d (727, 5.4.53) applies to all equally: they\u2019re all kin by the act of generation. The phrase \u201cas you like it\u201d seems to mean \u201cfollow your desire,\u201d so long as you don\u2019t thereby impede the charitable disposition of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\nJaques de Bois (the brother of Orlando and Oliver) informs everyone that Duke Frederick has been turned away from his wicked intentions in the Forest by an \u201cold religious man,\u201d and now intends to stay on in the wilderness that has seen his salvation, where he will live a retired life of religious devotion (729, 5.4.142-62).<\/p>\n\n\n\nJaques the melancholy traveler will follow this newly retired Duke Frederick. He did not join with the lovers in dancing to Hymen\u2019s tune, and now prefers to remain in the Forest of Arden because he believes there\u2019s more to learn there than at court: \u201cTo him will I: out of these convertites \/ There is much matter to be heard and learned\u201d (730, 5.4.175-76).<\/p>\n\n\n\nJaques is the odd man out since he doesn\u2019t marry, but he only matters a little in this play. He is, of course, not <\/em>the only character who chooses not to return to the courtly life: Duke Frederick will remain in the Forest. It’s even possible, though not likely, that Oliver and Celia will prefer a pastoral life. But when Oliver promised to give the de Boys estate to Orlando, no one knew that power would be returned to Duke Senior, thereby making Orlando his heir as Rosalind’s husband. With Orlando getting such a status bump, there’s surely no need for his brother to give up his estate. In any case, whoever chooses to stay in Arden does so of their own free will and in good spirits, not as a rejection of the blessings of civil society.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThat may be why, in spite of the number of stay-behinds, As You Like It <\/em>doesn\u2019t have the bittersweet quality of Shakespeare\u2019s romance plays (as we call them today) such as The Winter\u2019s Tale <\/em>or The Tempest. <\/em>There is something of the romance ambience about this play\u2014Orlando, after all, is the name of the hero in Ariosto\u2019s 1532 romance epic Orlando Furioso<\/em>\u2014but all the same, it remains satisfied with its sunny, comic approach to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\nComedy is, after all, not only a genre but a fundamental perspective on life, just as tragedy and romance are life-perspectives. <a href=\"#_edn40\" id=\"_ednref40\">[40]<\/a> Shakespeare\u2019s comedies aren\u2019t monolithic in tone or in degree of optimism\u2014they range from dark (Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice) <\/em>to more cheerful fare such as the present play, which is perhaps the most perfect of its type in Shakespeare\u2019s canon.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNow that all is done, what might we say is the magic of the Forest of Arden? It\u2019s appropriate to borrow the key terms \u201cfreedom\u201d and \u201ca variety of situations\u201d from the German philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt. <a href=\"#_edn41\" id=\"_ednref41\">[41]<\/a> Arden may not be a magical island like Prospero\u2019s place of exile, but it apparently has a power to transform people, to alter their perspectives, and set things between them right. Or at least, it is an ideal space, a liberating natural place, for allowing <\/em>people to achieve such goals: a place of exploration and learning for those who desire those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\nGiven a little time, we can either find out who we are (as Rosalind and Orlando do by way of romantic experimentation), or we can go there and \u201cjust change,\u201d as Oliver does. Arden\u2019s natural environment is markedly different from the court, where competition and greed reign.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThere\u2019s something of the seasonal cycle\u2019s magic in the Forest, too: spring is the time of regeneration and hope. But we should remember that \u201cnature\u201d is a complex concept in Shakespeare, and his exploration of it varies from play to play. Seldom is nature in Shakespeare exactly what we might have expected, but it\u2019s always what it needs to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn King Lear, <\/em>for example, the King sees the exiled Edgar in the guise of Poor Tom, a Bedlam Beggar, and mistakenly declares him \u201cthe thing itself: a poor, bare, fork\u2019d animal\u2026.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn42\" id=\"_ednref42\">[42]<\/a> But that play as a whole surely doesn\u2019t tell us we should reduce ourselves to such an extreme; we are not <\/em>most authentically ourselves when stripped and \u201cunaccommodated\u201d by the arts and considerations of civic and family life. Artifice is part of our nature as human beings, it seems. The Forest of Arden encourages artifice and play, and its magic consists in the freedom <\/em>to experiment with the styles and types that are undeniably part of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEpilogue (730-31, Rosalind calls for harmony and applause from the men and women in the audience.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Epilogue makes light-hearted reference to the license and experimentation necessary for success in love matters: \u201cIt is not the fashion to see the lady \/ the epilogue \u2026\u201d (730, Epilogue 1-2), admits Rosalind, but it is she\/he who gets the last word. <a href=\"#_edn43\" id=\"_ednref43\">[43]<\/a> With that last word, she entreats the audience to applaud the play (or at least what they like of it) in remembrance of the love that men and women bear to one another, play or no play.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEdition.<\/strong>\u00a0Greenblatt, Stephen et al., editors.\u00a0The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies + Digital Edition. <\/em>3rd ed. W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13:\u00a0978-0-393-93861-6.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2012, revised 2025 Alfred J. Drake<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nDocument Timestamp: 12\/9\/2025 1:08 PM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"endnotes\">ENDNOTES<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n*To return to exact part of the text referenced by the endnotes below, left-click on the endnote’s numbered link. By contrast, the blue scroll-up button at the bottom right of the page returns to the top of the document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref1\" id=\"_edn1\">[1]<\/a> Lodge, Thomas. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/17181\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rosalynde; or, Euphues\u2019 Golden Legacy, <\/em>1590<\/a>. Gutenberg e-text. Accessed 7\/31\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref2\" id=\"_edn2\">[2]<\/a> Theocritus, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0228%3Atext%3DId.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Idylls<\/a>. Perseus Project. Accessed 7\/31\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref3\" id=\"_edn3\">[3]<\/a> Longus. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0642%3Abook%3D1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Daphnis and Chloe<\/a>. <\/em>Perseus Project. Accessed 7\/31\/2024. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref4\" id=\"_edn4\">[4]<\/a> Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night, or What You Will.<\/em> In The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 743-97. The play\u2019s heroine, Viola, sketches a brief plan to disguise herself as a young man and serve the Duke of Illyria, but beyond this, her only \u201cplan\u201d is the statement, \u201cWhat else may hap, to time I will commit\u201d (746, 1.2.59).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref5\" id=\"_edn5\">[5]<\/a> Other uncharitable brothers in Shakespeare are Richard of Gloucester in Richard III; <\/em>Edmund the Bastard in King Lear; <\/em>Claudius in Hamlet; <\/em>Don John in Much Ado About Nothing; <\/em>Antonio in The Tempest; <\/em>Saturninus in Titus Andronicus; <\/em>and Robert Falconbridge in King John.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref6\" id=\"_edn6\">[6]<\/a> Marlowe, Christopher. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/44674\/hero-and-leander\">Hero and <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/44674\/hero-and-leander\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Leander<\/a>.\u201d Poetry Foundation. Accessed 7\/31\/2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref7\" id=\"_edn7\">[7]<\/a> As You Like It.<\/em> DVD. BBC Production, 1978.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref8\" id=\"_edn8\">[8]<\/a> Shakespeare, William. The Tempest.<\/em> In The Norton Shakespeare: Romances and Poems,<\/em> 3rd ed. 397-448. Prospero describes himself to his daughter Miranda as having been \u201ctransported \/ And rapt in secret studies\u201d pertaining to the liberal arts. (401, 1.2.76-77)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref9\" id=\"_edn9\">[9]<\/a> With regard to the pastoral genre, see \u201cPastoral.\u201d Britannica.com. Accessed 7\/31\/2024. In addition, although pastoral is often described as \u201csunny\u201d in its disposition, there is actually quite a lot of complaining about harsh living conditions and frustrations in love, even in the most ancient examples of pastoral poetry, such as Theocritus\u2019s Idylls.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref10\" id=\"_edn10\">[10]<\/a> This view of nature holds true in Shakespearean tragedy as well, though in an edgier way: consider King Lear, <\/em>in which raw nature is conceptualized as a dangerous, temporary perspective-gathering and re-grounding place for suffering humanity. For Shakespeare, the value in the country\/city debate seems to lie in the achievement of a sense of balance: nature (and by proxy, natural desire) isn\u2019t to be denied, but artifice is a vital attribute of humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref11\" id=\"_edn11\">[11]<\/a> Samuel Beckett\u2019s character\u2019s statement, as cited in Michel Foucault\u2019s essay \u201cWhat Is an Author?\u201d is \u201cWhat matter who\u2019s speaking, someone said, what matter who\u2019s speaking.\u201d In Beckett\u2019s own English translation of the third text in his collection Texts for Nothing,<\/em> the quotation runs, \u201cWhat matter who\u2019s speaking, someone said what matter who\u2019s speaking.\u201d Beckett did not include a comma after \u201csomeone said.\u201d See Beckett, Samuel. Texts for Nothing. <\/em>Calder & Boyars, 1974. Text 3, pg. 85.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref12\" id=\"_edn12\">[12]<\/a> The refrain from a very uncharacteristic R.E.M. song, \u201cShiny Happy People.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref13\" id=\"_edn13\">[13]<\/a> The business of dividing the stages of human life in the collective sense is ancient: Hesiod\u2019s five stages, for example, were the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, the Heroic Age, and the Iron Age. Later, Ovid dispenses with the Heroic Age. As for references to the divisions of the individual person\u2019s life, these are ancient, too. See, for example, Hippocrates and Philo, the latter of whom categorizes the seven ages of human beings as \u201cinfancy, childhood, boyhood, youth, manhood, middle age, and old age.\u201d Referenced in The Jewish Encyclopedia\u2019s article \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jewishencyclopedia.com\/articles\/895-ages-of-man-in-jewish-literature-the-seven\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Seven Ages of Man in Jewish Literature<\/a>.\u201d Accessed 7\/31\/2024. [continued \u2026.]<\/p>\n\n\n\nOne can also find a gloss on the ages of an individual person in the Roman poet Horace\u2014see lines 153-78 of his treatise Ars Poetica.<\/em> See \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/4386866\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Ages of Man: A Study Suggested by Horace, Ars Poetica, Lines 153-178<\/a>.\u201d JSTOR open access. Harcum, Cornelia G. \u201cThe Ages of Man: A Study Suggested by Horace, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/9175\/pg9175-images.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ars Poetica<\/a>,<\/em> Lines 153-178.\u201d The Classical Weekly<\/em>, vol. 7, no. 15, 1914, pp. 114\u201318. JSTOR<\/em>, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2307\/4386866. Accessed 31 July 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref14\" id=\"_edn14\">[14]<\/a> Hugo, Victor. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/6838\/pg6838-images.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Le dernier Jour d’un condamn\u00e9<\/a>. <\/em>Ch. III. Gutenberg e-text. Accessed 7\/31\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref15\" id=\"_edn15\">[15]<\/a> Burton, Robert. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/10800\/pg10800-images.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Anatomy of Melancholy<\/a>. <\/em>1621. Gutenberg e-text. Accessed 7\/31\/2024. But see also Bright\u2019s 1586 <a href=\"https:\/\/hdl.handle.net\/2027\/mdp.49015000413873\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Treatise of Melancholie<\/em>.<\/a> HathiTrust. Accessed 7\/31\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref16\" id=\"_edn16\">[16]<\/a> See the ajdrake.com\/shakespeare site\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/guide_ren_theory_of_humors_revised.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Theory of the Humors<\/a>.\u201d guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref17\" id=\"_edn17\">[17]<\/a> Shakespeare, William. King Lear.<\/em> Folio with additions from the Quarto. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. Combined text 764-840. See 780, 1.4.169.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref18\" id=\"_edn18\">[18]<\/a> For a brief definition of the syllogism, see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/syllogism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Britannica.com\u2019s entry<\/a>. Accessed 7\/31\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref19\" id=\"_edn19\">[19]<\/a> That there\u2019s a close connection between physical beauty and moral goodness is a Neo-Platonist view that we can find in Baldassare Castiglione\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/quod.lib.umich.edu\/e\/eebo\/A18135.0001.001\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Book of the Courtier<\/a> <\/em>and other European Renaissance texts. EEBO\/U-Mich. Accessed 7\/31\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref20\" id=\"_edn20\">[20]<\/a> On the topic of annulments in Tudor England, listen to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.englandcast.com\/2024\/03\/tudor-annulments\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Stories of Tudor Annulments<\/a>. Renaissance English History Podcast, March 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref21\" id=\"_edn21\">[21]<\/a> Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream.<\/em> Quarto. In The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 406-53. See 411, 1.1.232-33.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref22\" id=\"_edn22\">[22]<\/a> See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=1%20Corinthians%207&version=GNV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">1 Corinthians <\/em>7:9<\/a>, Geneva Bible, 1599. Biblegateway.com. Accessed 7\/31\/2024. By \u201cto burn\u201d is apparently meant, \u201cto burn with lust.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref23\" id=\"_edn23\">[23]<\/a> Marlowe, Christopher. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/44674\/hero-and-leander\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hero and Leander<\/a>.\u201d Poetry Foundation. Accessed 7\/31\/2024. See also the UCLA Clark Library\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/clarklibrary.ucla.edu\/collections\/tudor\/chrzanowski\/title-list\/1629m\/#:~:text=Christopher%20Marlowe%20wrote%20764%20lines,tragic%20ending%20of%20the%20story.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">gloss on Marlowe\u2019s unfinished poem<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref24\" id=\"_edn24\">[24]<\/a> The greatest study of melancholia near Shakespeare\u2019s time is Robert Burton\u2019s 1621 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/10800\/pg10800-images.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Anatomy of Melancholy<\/a>. <\/em>Gutenberg e-text. Accessed 7\/31\/2024. But see also Bright\u2019s 1586 <a href=\"https:\/\/hdl.handle.net\/2027\/mdp.49015000413873\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Treatise of Melancholie<\/em>.<\/a> HathiTrust. Accessed 7\/31\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref25\" id=\"_edn25\">[25]<\/a> See Garber, Marjorie. Shakespeare after All. <\/em>Anchor Books, 2004, 452. As Garber and other critics suggest, Adam\u2019s arrival just as Jaques finishes his \u201cSeven Ages\u201d speech rebukes the bleak picture that the melancholy traveler gives of old age. Adam is indeed old, but he is not without courage and even vigor, in spite of his desperate condition. See As You Like It <\/em>696, 2.7.139-66.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref26\" id=\"_edn26\">[26]<\/a> As You Like It, <\/em>696, 2.7.147-49.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref27\" id=\"_edn27\">[27]<\/a> Ariosto. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/3747\/pg3747-images.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Orlando Furioso<\/a>. <\/em>Italian original. Gutenberg e-text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref28\" id=\"_edn28\">[28]<\/a> See Montaigne, Michel de. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/3589\/pg3589-images.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Inconstancie of Our Actions<\/a>.\u201d Book II, Chap. 1. of The Essays.<\/em> (Gutenberg e-texts.) Accessed 8\/26\/2025. Shakespeare was familiar with Montaigne\u2019s skepticism-tinged essays, and the viewpoint on the frailty and inconsistency of human character on display in this essay would almost certainly suit Shakespeare\u2019s own musings on the subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref29\" id=\"_edn29\">[29]<\/a> Wilde, Oscar. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wilde-online.info\/the-truth-of-masks.html#nav\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Truth of Masks<\/a>.\u201d Wilde-online.info. Accessed 7\/31\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref30\" id=\"_edn30\">[30]<\/a> Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice.<\/em> Folio. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 512-86. Othello\u2019s dangerous passion for Desdemona is hinted at when he says, \u201cExcellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul \/ But I do love thee; and when I love thee not, \/ Chaos is come again\u201d (546, 3.3.89-91). Moreover, \u201cSonnet 129\u201d begins, \u201cTh\u2019expense of spirit in a waste of shame \/ Is lust in action \u2026.\u201d See Shakespeare, William. The Sonnets.<\/em> In The Norton Shakespeare: Romances and Poems,<\/em> 3rd ed. 656-709. 700.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref31\" id=\"_edn31\">[31]<\/a> The \u201chart\u201d tradition is very old. Consider this verse from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Psalm%2042&version=GNV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Psalm<\/em> 42:1<\/a>: \u201c<\/sup><\/strong>As the Hart brayeth for the rivers of water, so panted my soul after thee, O God.\u201d Biblegateway.com. Accessed 7\/31\/2024. The emblem tradition also refers to wounded harts. See also Ovid\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/ovid.lib.virginia.edu\/trans\/Metamorph3.htm#476975707\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Metamorphoses<\/a>, <\/em>Book 3.165ff, where Actaeon beholds the goddess Diana bathing naked and is turned into a stag, and then torn to shreds by hunting dogs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref32\" id=\"_edn32\">[32]<\/a> As Prospero, contemplating the power he now has over his enemies, says towards the end of The Tempest, <\/em>\u201cThough with their high wrongs I am struck to th\u2019 quick, \/ Yet with my nobler reason \u2018gainst my fury \/ Do I take part. The rarer action is \/ In virtue than in vengeance\u201d (440, 5.1.25-28). See Shakespeare, William. The Tempest.<\/em> In The Norton Shakespeare: Romances and Poems,<\/em> 3rd ed. 397-448.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref33\" id=\"_edn33\">[33]<\/a> See, for example, Waddington, Raymond B. \u201cMoralizing the Spectacle: Dramatic Emblems in As You Like It.<\/em>\u201d Shakespeare Quarterly<\/em>, vol. 33, no. 2, 1982, pp. 155\u201363. JSTOR<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2307\/2869788\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2307\/2869788<\/a>. Accessed 30 July 2024. Waddington interprets the snake as emblematic of invidia, and the lioness of wrath. Pp. 159-60.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref34\" id=\"_edn34\">[34]<\/a> The green color of the snake would seem to support such a reading\u2014readers of Othello <\/em>will recall how jealousy, a feeling as destructive as envy, is associated with the color green. See Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice.<\/em> Folio. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 512-86. Iago says to Othello, \u201cOh, beware, my lord, of jealousy! \/ It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock \/ The meat it feeds on\u201d (548, 3.3.163-65).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref35\" id=\"_edn35\">[35]<\/a> The Norton editors point out that Shakespeare has adapted and rearranged the song from Thomas Morley\u2019s 1600 <a href=\"https:\/\/cpdl.org\/wiki\/index.php\/First_Book_of_Ayres_(Thomas_Morley)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">First Book of Airs<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>ChoralWiki. Accessed 10\/13\/2024. The song in question is \u201cIt was a lover and his lass.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref36\" id=\"_edn36\">[36]<\/a> See Shakespeare, William. The History of Henry the Fourth. <\/em>Aka The First Part of Henry the Fourth.<\/em> In The Norton Shakespeare: Histories,<\/em> 3rd ed. 629-95. One of Falstaff\u2019s most famous pronouncements is, \u201cHonor is a mere scutch- \/ eon. And so ends my catechism\u201d (687, 5.1.138-39).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref37\" id=\"_edn37\">[37]<\/a> See Shakespeare, William. All\u2019s Well That Ends Well.<\/em> In The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 971-1033. When Paroles is caught out for his cowardly behavior, he says, \u201cSimply the thing I am \/ shall make me live\u201d (1020, 4.4.316-17).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref38\" id=\"_edn38\">[38]<\/a> See the entry \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theoi.com\/Ouranios\/ErosHymenaios.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hymenaios<\/a>.\u201d Theoi.com. Accessed 8\/2\/2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref39\" id=\"_edn39\">[39]<\/a> See Shapiro, James. A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599.<\/em> New York: Harper Perennial, 2005. ISBN-13: 978-0060088743. 224-29. The author also suggests that this play might fairly be called a precursor to later \u201cmusicals\u201d such as John Gay\u2019s delightful 1728 The Beggar\u2019s Opera.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref40\" id=\"_edn40\">[40]<\/a> Northrop Frye\u2019s work on Shakespeare and genre makes this point more broadly. See, for example, Northrop Frye on Shakespeare. <\/em>Yale UP, 1988. ISBN-13: \u200e978-0300042085. See also The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance. <\/em>Harvard UP, 1973. ISBN-13: 978-0674796751.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref41\" id=\"_edn41\">[41]<\/a> Humboldt, Wilhelm von. The Sphere and Duties of Government<\/em>. See Ch. II, 11-13, where the author makes his main point that for full human development, \u201cfreedom\u201d and \u201ca variety of situations\u201d (11) must be available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref42\" id=\"_edn42\">[42]<\/a> See Shakespeare, William. King Lear.<\/em> Folio with additions from the Quarto. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. Combined text 764-840. The lines in question are, \u201cThou art the thing \/ itself. Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, \/ bare, forked animal as thou art\u201d (805, 3.4.96-98).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref43\" id=\"_edn43\">[43]<\/a> See Shapiro, James. A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599. <\/em>New York: Harper Perennial, 2005. ISBN-13: 978-0060088743. Shapiro writes astutely of the epilogue, \u201cIn the end, play is what\u2019s real, and in the epilogue, Rosalind\u2014or whoever it is that is speaking to us\u2014won\u2019t let us forget it: \u2018I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to me \u2026\u2019\u201d (229).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakespeare\u2019s As You Like It Commentary by Alfred J. Drake Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. (The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies, 3rd ed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"iawp_total_views":35,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[161,36,153,154,160,152,129,156,157,155,158,159],"wf_page_folders":[6],"class_list":["post-198","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-comic-plays","tag-agriculture-enclosure","tag-elizabethan-drama","tag-jaques","tag-melancholia","tag-pastoral-comedy","tag-rosalind","tag-shakespearean-comedy","tag-the-humours","tag-the-seven-ages-of-man","tag-theory-of-the-humors","tag-touchstone-quarrel-speech","tag-you-are-not-for-all-markets"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"ajd_shxpr","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/author\/ajd_shxpr\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Shakespeare\u2019s As You Like It Commentary by Alfred J. Drake Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. (The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies, 3rd ed. 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{"id":198,"date":"2024-04-13T21:18:32","date_gmt":"2024-04-14T04:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/?page_id=198"},"modified":"2025-12-09T13:15:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T21:15:04","slug":"as-you-like-it-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/as-you-like-it-2\/","title":{"rendered":"As You Like It"},"content":{"rendered":"