As You Like It as a Romantic Comedy

About the author

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born into the family of a prosperous tradesman in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. While in his mid-teens, he was forced to leave school because his family fell into a period of poverty, so that he had only a rudimentary education. In 1582, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior and already three months pregnant. The marriage produced three children in three years, but in 1585, Shakespeare left Stratford to go to London to seek his fortune in the big city.

In London, he embarked upon a career on the stage, becoming a popular actor by the early fifteen nineties. In 1591, he penned his first play, Love’s Labour’s Lost. His early plays were comedies, and show nothing of the depth that characterized his later works. His plots were borrowed from a variety of sources, both ancient and contemporary. During his career, he wrote 37 plays, three narrative poems, and 154 sonnets. His writing brought him fame and popularity, but he continued to act as well as write (critics love to speculate about which of the characters in his plays would have been played by the author).

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He eventually became a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later the King’s Men when James I ascended the throne). Most of his plays were performed at local theaters like the Rose, the Globe, and the indoor Blackfriars. When the Globe burned to the ground in 1613 (a cannon misfired during a performance of Henry VIII), Shakespeare retired, and died in Stratford three years later on his fifty-second birthday. As You Like It (1600) has for the last two centuries been one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies. It is a pastoral romance – a genre originating in ancient Greece and still popular in Elizabethan England.

As he did in so many of his plays, Shakespeare borrowed the basic story from an earlier work – in this case, Thomas Lodge’s prose romance Rosalynde, or Euphues’ Golden Legacy. Into Lodge’s basic framework Shakespeare introduces rollicking comedy absent from the original, along with new characters like Touchstone, Audrey, and Jaques. No one, either in Shakespeare’s day or ours, expected realism in such a story. Instead, characters and audience alike find joy in the freedom of the forest and countryside, where stock characters do improbable hings and meet with unlikely coincidences. And where, of course, (almost) everyone gets married in the end and lives happily ever after.

Major characters

• Duke Senior – The rightful duke, he is forced into exile in the Forest of Arden by his jealous brother.
• Duke Frederick – He forces his brother into exile and usurps his throne, but eventually is converted and returns the dukedom to its rightful ruler.
• Jaques – A lord under Duke Senior, he is incurably melancholy, even when all around him are rejoicing.
• Charles – Duke Frederick’s prize wrestler, he is defeated by Orlando.
• Oliver – Eldest son and heir of Sir Rowland de Boys, he has deprived his brothers of their rightful inheritance and is terribly jealous of his noble youngest brother. When seeking Orlando in the Forest of Arden, he meets, falls in love with, and marries Celia, yields his inheritance to his youngest brother, and decides to live the life of a shepherd.
• Orlando – Youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys, he is forced into exile in the Forest of Arden by his brother, where he is reunited with his love Rosalind. He eventually regains his inheritance from his father.
• Touchstone – The fool in Duke Frederick’s court, he too departs for the Forest of Arden, where he meets and marries Audrey.
• Adam – Orlando’s eighty-year-old servant who finances his flight with his life savings and accompanies Orlando into exile in the Forest of Arden.
• Corin – An elderly shepherd in the Forest of Arden.
• Silvius – A young shepherd madly in love with Phebe, a shepherdess who constantly scorns his affection. Eventually they marry with the help of Rosalind.
• Rosalind – Daughter of Duke Senior, she flees to the forest disguised as a man named Ganymede to find her father, and there encounters and eventually marries Orlando.
• Celia – Daughter of Duke Frederick and Rosalind’s best friend, she accompanies Rosalind to Arden, also in disguise as Ganymede’s sister Aliena, and falls in love with and marries a reformed Oliver.
• Phebe – A shepherdess beloved of Silvius, she falls in love with Rosalind in male disguise but eventually yields to the faithful attentions of her fellow shepherd.
• Audrey – A country wench who falls in love with and marries Touchstone.

Notable quotations

1. “Love no man in good earnest, nor no further in sport neither than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst in honor come off again. (Celia, Iii, 26-28)
2. “The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.  ” (Touchstone, Iii, 83-84)
3. “Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown More than your enemies. ” (Rosalind, Iii, 255-256)
4. “Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything: I would not change it. ” (Duke Senior, IIi, 12-18)
5. “O, what a world is this, when what is comely Envenoms him that bears it! (Adam, IIiii, 15-16)
6. “I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs. ” (Jaques, IIv, 11-12)
7. “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 stages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly 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 and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, 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 pantaloon, With spectacles 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. ” (Jaques, IIvii, 149-176)
8. “Those 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. ” (Corin, IIIii, 45-48)
9. “Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak. ” (Rosalind, IIIii, 248249)
10. “Sell when you can; you are not for all markets. (Rosalind, IIIv, 65)
11. “I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad. ” (Rosalind, IVi, 25-27)
12. “The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love cause. ” (Rosalind, IVi, 89-92)
13. “Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love. (Rosalind, IVi, 101-102)
14. “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 have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage. ” (Rosalind, Vii, 31-38)
15. “A poor virgin, sir, and ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own. A poor humor of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will. (Touchstone, Viv, 61-63)

Notes

Act I, scene 1 - The play begins with Orlando, the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys, complaining of his treatment by his eldest brother Oliver. Oliver, the heir of his father’s estate, has withheld from Orlando the small inheritance left him by his father and has refused to provide for his education. When Orlando confronts Oliver, he refuses to honor his father’s wishes. After Orlando leaves, Oliver meets Charles Duke Frederick’s wrestler. We discover from their onversation that Duke Frederick has usurped the dukedom from his brother Duke Senior, who has fled to the Forest of Arden with some of his faithful nobles.

Duke Senior’s daughter, the lovely Rosalind, remains at court under Duke Frederick’s protection, largely because she is the best friend of Duke Frederick’s daughter Celia. Charles intends to stage a wrestling exhibition the next day, and Orlando plans to challenge him. Oliver paints a picture of Orlando as a great villain and advises Charles to dispatch him in order to avoid the treachery that the young man will surely bring to the ring. In a brief soliloquy, however, we find that Orlando is a noble young man despite his lack of education, and is hated by his brother because of his sterling character.

Act I, scene 2 - Rosalind and Celia are talking outside the duke’s palace. Rosalind is unhappy because her father has been banished. Celia, trying to cheer her up, speaks of their friendship and the kindness of Frederick toward Rosalind, and promises that, when she inherits her father’s kingdom, she will return to Rosalind what Frederick had stolen from her father Duke Senior. As they exchange clever quips, Touchstone, the duke’s jester, enters.

Further witticisms follow, after which Le Beau, a courtier to Duke Frederick announces that the wrestlers are approaching. Charles has already broken the ribs of three challengers, and is about to wrestle the young Orlando. Celia and Rosalind, fearing for his safety, try to dissuade him from taking up Charles’ challenge, but he refuses to relent. To the astonishment of all, Orlando wins the match. Frederick asks who he is, but scowls on finding that he is the son of is old enemy Sir Rowland.

The girls congratulate Orlando, and Rosalind gives him her necklace. The two are obviously attracted to one another. After the girls leave, Le Beau returns and warns Orlando to flee to avoid the duke’s wrath; he also tells him that Frederick is becoming jealous of Rosalind’s popularity and is likely to turn against her as well.

Act I, scene 3 - Rosalind has fallen head over heels in love with Orlando, and Celia tries to break her out of her melancholy. Their banter is interrupted by Duke Frederick, who abruptly has decided to banish Rosalind for no better reason than that she is her father’s daughter; she is to leave the realm within ten days on penalty of death.

Celia pleads for her cousin, to no avail, and then insists that, because she cannot live without her best friend, she will accompany her into exile. After Frederick leaves, the two girls decide to seek Duke Senior in the Forest of Arden. For safety’s sake, Rosalind will disguise herself as a man and be called Ganymede, while Celia will dress like a peasant and present herself as Ganymede’s sister Aliena. They also determine to take the court jester Touchstone with them to provide amusement on their journey.

Act II, scene 1 - The scene now moves to the Forest of Arden, where Duke Senior and his attendants are waxing philosophical about their plight. Jaques alone among the Duke’s attendants remains depressed, mourning over the despoliation of the wilderness by the hunters of Senior’s party.

Act II, scene 2 - Duke Frederick discovers the flight of Rosalind, Celia, and Touchstone and suspects that Orlando, with whom Rosalind is clearly enamored, had something to do with it. He orders Oliver brought before him, intending to make him find his brother and the rest of the refugees.

Act II, scene 3 - Orlando’s elderly servant Adam warns him that Oliver intends to kill him. Orlando is at a loss, not wanting to take to the road where his only mean of survival would be begging or thievery. Adam offers him five hundred crowns, his life savings, and the two together flee the vengeance of Oliver.

Act II, scene 4 - Rosalind, Celia, and Touchstone arrive in the Forest of Arden in a state of exhaustion. There they encounter Corin and Silvius, two shepherds. The two are speaking of Silvius’ profound but unrequited love for the shepherdess Phebe. The conversation reminds Rosalind of her love for Orlando. After Silvius runs in search of his beloved, Touchstone approaches Corin to try to buy food for the party. Corin tells them he is in the employ of a churlish farmer who is trying to sell his farm. Rosalind offers to buy it and continue to employ Corin in running it.

Act II, scene 5 - Elsewhere in the forest, Jacques luxuriates in his melancholy mood while another courtier, Amiens, sings to him. Amiens tells Jaques that Duke Senior has been looking for him, but Jaques replies that he has been trying to avoid his master in his search for solitude.

Act II, scene 6 - Orlando and Adam arrive in the Forest of Arden. The elderly Adam is near exhaustion, so Orlando tells him to rest while he goes in search of something to eat.

Act II, scene 7 - Duke Senior and his men go in search of Jaques. When they find him, he tells them of meeting Touchstone and reports their conversation. Jaques then wishes that he could be a fool so he could speak his mind without anyone taking offense. At that point Orlando bursts in upon them with sword drawn and demands food. Much to his surprise, they respond like gentlemen and offer him part of their repast. He then goes to fetch Adam. Jaques then meditates on the futility of life in the play’s most famous speech. Orlando then returns with Adam, and as they eat Duke Senior discovers that he is the son of his old friend Sir Rowland de Boys.

Act III, scene 1 - Duke Frederick, furious at his inability to locate the runaways, seizes Oliver’s property and swears that he will return it only when Oliver produces his brother Orlando, dead or alive. Act III, scene 2 - As the scene opens, Orlando is hanging verses in praise of Rosalind on every tree of the forest and carving her name into their trunks.

After he leaves, Corin and Touchstone banter about the differences between the court and the country. Rosalind and Celia then enter, having found Orlando’s verses. Touchstone mocks them, but Celia pulls Rosalind aside and tells her that the author wears Rosalind’s chain about his neck and is none other than Orlando. Rosalind then barrages her with questions faster than Celia can answer. The girls hide as Orlando enters with Jaques. The melancholy courtier wants nothing but to be left alone and scorns Orlando for the folly of his love.

After Jaques leaves, Rosalind, still disguised as Ganymede, approaches Orlando. The two exchange sallies about Time, then Orlando, marveling at Ganymede’s educated speech, asks the youth if he is native to the forest. Ganymede responds that he is, but was educated by a scholarly uncle who warned him against the wiles of women. Orlando asks him to inform him of these dangers, admitting that he is the one who has been decorating the forest with love poems. Ganymede tells him that he nothing of the lover’s appearance about him, but says that he could cure him of love if he really had been victimized by it.

He asks him how, and he says that he must pretend that he is his beloved, and he will be as pettish and inconstant as any woman alive, and thus cure him of his malady. He really has no desire to be cured, but he agrees to come to Ganymede’s cottage every day and woo him in the name of “Rosalind. ”

Act III, scene 3 - Touchstone is wooing a country wench named Audrey. He becomes frustrated because she is unable to comprehend any of his sallies, but he offers to marry her and engages Sir Oliver Martext for the purpose, calculating that rites performed in such a setting are not likely to be very binding. Sir Oliver, however, insists that they be married in the church with witnesses, so Touchstone puts him off.

Act III, scene 4 - Rosalind is angry because Orlando has not appeared at the appointed time and tells Celia that his love must not be genuine. Celia tries to help by telling her that all men are thus, but Rosalind is not to be comforted. Corin then enters and tells the girls that Silvius is nearby, still pursuing the scornful Phebe, and they decide to watch the sport; Rosalind, in disguise as Ganymede, will even play a role in the romance.

Act III, scene 5 - Silvius is mooning after Phebe, who plainly tells him that she does not love him and begs him to leave her alone. At this point “Ganymede” intervenes, chastising Phebe for rejecting the true love of a good and loyal man despite the fact that she bears little in the way of beauty and wondering why a fine youth like Silvius would waste his time on such a scold. She advises Phebe to turn away from her pride and accept Silvius’ overtures of affection.

Much to Rosalind’s surprise, however, Phebe quickly falls in love with Ganymede despite the repeated insults rained upon her. After Rosalind, Celia, and Corin leave, Phebe reluctantly allows Silvius to accompany her, but can do nothing but talk about Ganymede, though she professes not to love him and wants to send him a bitter missive in response to his insults.

Act IV, scene 1 - The scene begins with brief banter between Rosalind and Jaques, after which Orlando enters, an hour late for his appointment. He addresses the youth he knows as Ganymede by the name Rosalind, and she torments him about the follies of love, going so far as to have Celia conduct a mock wedding. Orlando then leaves for dinner with the Duke while Rosalind counts the minutes until his return.

Act IV, scene 2 - Hunters return to the Duke’s camp having killed a deer and sing a song of celebration.

Act IV, scene 3 - Orlando is again late, and Rosalind’s fretting is interrupted by Silvius, who brings a letter from Phebe. The missive is a love letter, pouring out the shepherdess’ affection for Ganymede; while she dismisses Silvius, she swears she will die if Ganymede will not have her.

Rosalind, disgusted at Phebe’s lack of appreciation for Silvius and the lad’s persistent affection for one so false, nonetheless sends him back to his beloved with the message that, if Phebe truly loves Ganymede, she will love Silvius for “his” sake. After Silvius departs, Oliver arrives with terrible news: Orlando has been seriously wounded in combat with a lion. Apparently Oliver, on his way to seek Orlando on behalf of Duke Frederick, had a change of heart and determined to seek his brother in order to make amends. He fell asleep in the forest and was set upon, first by a snake, and then by a lion, both of which Orlando drove off.

The two brothers were then reconciled, and Orlando introduced Oliver to Duke Senior, who received him gladly. When Orlando fainted from the wound he had received from the lion, he sent Oliver with a message for Rosalind. Hearing of her love’s injuries, Rosalind too passes out, causing Oliver to wonder about the character of this youthful Ganymede, but she claims that she was merely continuing to play the part of Orlando’s love Rosalind.

Act V, scene 1 - Audrey is still upset that Touchstone refused to let Sir Oliver Martext marry them, but he promises that he will yet wed her. Soon William, a previous suitor of Audrey, arrives, and Touchstone runs verbal rings around him and tells him to leave Audrey alone at peril of his life.

Act V, scene 2 - The Forest of Arden clearly has strange powers - we now find that Oliver and “Aliena” (Celia) have fallen in love at first sight and intend to marry the next day. Oliver tells Orlando that he will yield to him all his father’s estate so he and Celia can live in pastoral bliss in the forest. Orlando then tells Rosalind of the sudden romance of Oliver and Celia, but bemoans the fact that he still has not obtained the object of his affections.

Rosalind, still in the guise of Ganymede, tells him that she has studied under a great magician, and promises that if he comes to the wedding the next day prepared to marry, she will bring his Rosalind there to wed him. Silvius and Phebe then enter, creating an interesting little love quadrangle - Phebe loves Ganymede, Silvius loves Phebe, Orlando loves Rosalind, and Ganymede loves “no woman. ” Rosalind attempts to sort out the confusion by telling Silvius that she will help him if she can, and that he ill be married on the morrow; telling Phebe that she would love her if she could, and would marry her if ever she marries a woman, but that she will wed on the morrow; and promises Orlando that she will satisfy him, and that he will be married on the morrow as well. All, then, are to meet the following day at Oliver and Celia’s wedding.

Act V, scene 3 - Audrey and Touchstone look forward to their wedding the next day, and they are joined by two of the Duke’s pages, who sing a love song.

Act V, scene 4 - The following day, all gather at a clearing in the forest. Rosalind, still disguised as Ganymede, makes Duke Senior promise to give his daughter to Orlando should she appear and makes Phebe promise to marry Silvius if she decides not to marry Ganymede. She then leaves with Celia to prepare for the nuptials. While they are gone, Touchstone and Audrey appear and the Fool banters with Jaques and the Duke. Hymen then enters with Celia, and Rosalind in her own character. Duke Senior recognizes his daughter and Orlando his love, while Phebe recognizes that her Ganymede is not what he appeared to be and settles for Silvius after all.

After a wedding song, Jacques de Boys, the middle brother of Oliver and Orlando, enters and announces that Duke Frederick, on h is way to the forest with vengeance in his heart, had met a holy man and been converted. He had then restored the dukedom to Duke Senior and restored the lands of all he had deprived. Frederick intends to retire to a religious life in the forest. Jaques decides to join him while the others begin a dance of celebration. Rosalind then delivers a brief Epilogue.

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